charters and privileges on the subject. The following are its chief clauses: (1) All sheep and cattle which migrate to the frontier (á estremo) are to pay but one montazgo in the jurisdiction of any one town. In all the lands of the Orders of Calatrava, of Uclés, of the Temple, of Alcántara, of the Hospital, or of any other Order, there is to be collected but one montazgo. The Temple is to collect its montazgo for Castile at Capiella [probably the present Zarza Capilla], and for León in Burgos or Alcocher [Alcocer]. Alcántara shall collect for Castile at Benquerença [Benquerencia], and for León in Alcántara. [No points of collection are named for Uclés, Calatrava, and the Hospital.] (2) The rate of collection shall be thus: Two cows for every 1000 cows, and the value of every cow shall be reckoned at 4 maravedis; and if it is preferred to pay the maravedis, the cows shall not be taken. Two rams for every 1000 sheep, each ram being valued at half a maravedi; and those desiring to pay in money shall be allowed to do so. Two pigs for every 1000, each being valued at 10 soldos de pipiones;1 and if money is offered, the animals shall not be taken. For less than 1000 head, the rates shall be in proportion." The principle of limiting the montazgos to one for every jurisdiction crossed by the sheep is here expressed for the first time, and it was subsequently incorporated into all of the notable Mesta charters on the subject. Most worthy of note in connection with this restriction is the rule that each military order should collect but one montazgo within its jurisdiction. This point assumes special significance when it is remembered that the largest single owners of pasture lands in the southern wintering grounds of the sheep were these military orders, which had been rewarded with liberal grants from the crown for their services during the Reconquest. Except for Burgos, all of the toll points 1 The sueldo de pipiones was a silver coin, probably of Aragonese origin, in circulation during the first half of the thirteenth century. It was rated as one-fifteenth of a gold maravedi. Cf. Saez, Demonstración Histórica de Monedas de Enrique III (Madrid, 1796), pp. 54-64; Salat, Monedas de Cataluña (Barcelona, 1818, 2 vols.) i, pp. 70-81; Cantos Benitez, Escrutinio de Maravedises (Madrid, 1763), p. 30; Vicente Argüello, Memoria sobre el Valor de las Monedas de Alfonso el Sabio (Madrid, 1852), pp. 18-19. 2 Reducing these values to maravedis, the resulting montazgo per thousand head was one and one-third maravedis for pigs, one maravedi for sheep, and eight maravedis for cows. • See Map, p. 19. enumerated in this document are in the Serena and Badajoz region, the Estremadura district, which since the earliest times has been the chief grazing ground for the migratory flocks from the uplands of León and Castile. It is highly important that careful note be taken of this scheme for systematizing and concentrating the local tolls in a set of duly authorized centres of administration and collection, because this was the model which was used as the basis for the system of puertos reales, or royal toll gates, along the sheep highways. The royal servicio y montazgo took not only its name but its administrative machinery from the local montazgo. An even more significant feature of this document is to be found in the fact that, although it was only a code of laws for Santiago and its lands, it did not restrict its scope to the sheep of that city, as did all of the earlier exemptions granted to favored towns. On the contrary, the law of 1253 viewed the montazgo from the opposite point of view: not prescribing the privileges of payees from a given city, but defining the rates and methods of collection of that tax as one to which all migratory animals were subject. The local taxes in the lands of the military orders were selected for first attention primarily because these lands made up the largest group of consolidated holdings in the pasturage most frequented by the migrants. Then, too, the closer association of these orders with the crown doubtless influenced the latter in selecting them as the means for introducing the first reforms in the regulation and organization of the tangle of local taxes which hampered the flocks in their annual marches. That this law of 1253 did not dispose of the problem is certain. Alfonso's wisdom as a codifier far exceeded his ability as an administrator. In his great code, the Partidas, nearly contemporary with this law of Santiago, he undertook to lay down rules to govern the granting of privileges and exemptions to sheep owners. However, the constant reiteration of complaints and appeals from the herdsmen during the succeeding decades gives ample evidence of the inefficacy of these provisions. The Partidas were not put to actual use until nearly a century after 1 See Map, p. 19. their completion. In the same manner, the efforts of the learned sovereign to codify the countless local tolls did not achieve their intended results for many generations. He first prescribed the tolls to be collected in towns on the lands of the military orders, and then promulgated restrictions on those levied at other points along the sheep highways. In this respect, the rules were at first not so sweeping or detailed as those for the towns within the domains of the orders. They usually took the form of exemptions in the hitherto unlimited grants of freedom from all local taxes. One of the earliest of these was that granted in 1255 to Logroño, the central point of the sheep-raising districts in the upper Ebro valley. Its citizens were not to pay sheep tolls except in Toledo, Seville, and Murcia. This was a common form of exemption, which seems to have singled out the three cities mentioned partly because of their ability to defend their titles to their ancient montazgos, and partly because they might serve as good points of concentration and administration for these local tolls, after the manner of the towns named in the Santiago code of 1253. This process of simplifying the collection of the montazgos, and eliminating the obvious injustice to the herdsmen of repeated assessments in any one locality or jurisdiction, was carried further by a well known privilege granted to Toledo in 1255 by Alfonso. By that instrument, the city authorities were ordered to collect but two montazgos, one in Miraglo and the other in Ciara, instead of the many tolls to which the sheep had hitherto been subject when crossing various parts of the montes or wooded pastures of Toledo. The rates were fixed on the same basis as those specified in the code of 1253, with the same values for the different kinds of stock, and the same privilege of payment in money instead of in kind, if preferred. The Cortes 1 González, v, pp. 170 ff. In some of the exemptions of this type Burgos was added to these three. 2 Ibid., v, pp. 176-177: Castillo de Gormaz (1258); vi, pp. 150-152, 154-156: Cuenca (1268); v, pp. 254–256: Gómara (1299); v, pp. 258-259: Villalon (1303); v, pp. 273-274: Aguilar (1305); vi, pp. 235-237: Peñas de S. Pedro (1309); vi, pp. 239-242: Alcaudete (1328). Bib. Nac. Madrid, Ms. Dd. 114, fol. 175. These two montazgos were later combined, in accordance with the principle of 'one jurisdiction, one montazgo.' which met at Valladolid in 1258 incorporated in their resolutions all of these details regarding the collection of not more than one montazgo in the jurisdiction of any one town or military order. This Cortes also established the same montazgo rates as those given above. Both of these propositions were cheerfully approved by the crown. It is evident, then, that by the time the Mesta was founded, and the industry thereby organized into some sort of national association, the local taxes which its members had to meet were given at least a theoretical uniformity. The way had been pointed out for subsequent legislation and administration. It is true that much remained to be done. The crown still granted privileges to some towns, giving them the right to collect a montazgo from all sheep which passed by their limits. Occasionally the sovereign naïvely cleared himself from the obvious dilemma of conflicting exemptions to herdsmen and privileges to city tax collectors by assuring the one or the other that any apparently contradictory documents signed by himself were of no effect. Certain cities did not even resort to the montazgo, but still followed the ancient practice of expelling all strange sheep entering their jurisdiction. In general, however, it may be said that by 1273 local tolls upon migrating sheep were being put upon a more or less systematic basis. We note, in fact, the beginnings of a recognized schedule of uniform rates and a reasonable restriction as to the number of toll points. 1 Cortes, Valladolid, 1258, pet. 31. In the manuscript in the Acad. Hist., Colec. Martinez Marina, vol. ii, no. 1, the petition is no. 30. 2 Arch. Osuna, Gibraleón, caj. 1, no. 3 (1267). • González, vi, pp. 117-118: a privilege from Alfonso X to Badajoz, 1270, which assures the sheep of Badajoz full exemption from montazgos in all parts of the realm, with a warning to the towns " que non se lo tomedes (i.e., los montazgos] por cartas que de mi hayades, en que mandase que ninguno fuese escusado de esto." • Arch. Cuenca, Becerro, fols. 174-176 and leg. 3, no. 20 (1268): "Todo ganado ageno que entrare en los pastos de Cuenca, que lo cuentan el concejo é que lo echen de todo su termino sin calumnia, salvo ende que lo non tomen por fuerza nin lo roben." Fiscal clauses of the charter of 1273. Policies of Alfonso X (1252–84) and Sancho IV (1284-95). Aggressive fiscal administration of Alfonso XI (1321-50). Sheep taxes during the civil wars of the later Middle Ages. Extravagant tax concessions to the towns and liberal exemptions of the Mesta. Concordias or tax agreements. THE earliest extant charter of the Mesta was issued by Alfonso X in 1273. In its opening paragraph reference is made to the existence of certain royal letters patent previously given to the herdsmen, which had been violated and which were therefore to be supplemented and strengthened by a new charter. This document is divided into four sections, the first three of which discuss various practices observed by the herdsmen on their migrations and at their semiannual meetings. The fourth section is as long as the other three combined, and is devoted to the abuses suffered by the sheep owners at the hands of the local tax collectors. With reference to these exactions, the herdsmen are first assured that "they are not to pay any portazgos on the cloth they carry from which to make clothes, nor on the provisions and other supplies which they bring with them for their flocks." Taxes were not to be collected in the woodlands, or along the cañadas or sheep walks, but only at certain specified town gates. In a supplementary privilege of 1276, this clause was extended by forbidding the towns to lay restrictions upon the purchase of grain (pan) by the herdsmen for the use of their flocks. Furthermore, declared the privilege of 1273, the practice of taxing a shepherd who might take one of his animals to the town market to trade it for supplies 1 Arch. Mesta, Privilegios Reales, no. 1: printed with notes by the writer, in the Boletin de la Real Academia de Historia, February, 1914. * See above, p. 164. "El pan que los pastores ouvieren mester para sus cabañas." |