town dehesas were pastos comunes, 'common pastures,' they must be commons for all comers, vecinos or forasteros, citizens or strangers. The feeble Henry and his avaricious favorites were eager, for due considerations, to indorse this view with royal edicts, which later proved to be invaluable precedents for the arsenal of the Mesta's attorneys. Other measures were also forthcoming with such ease that they inspired the sheep owners with an entirely new militant spirit in their attitude toward the problem of securing cheap and abundant grazing land, regardless of the interests of agriculture or of sedentary pastoral life. When, for example, pasturage rentals were raised by landlords. on account of debasements of currency, the Mesta was authorized by the crown to pay, not merely a lower rate than the new figures, but even a quarter less than its older leases had stipu lated. Even these revised rentals were by no means assured to the landowners, for the shepherds took advantage of the prevalent lawlessness and evaded payment on every opportunity.' It was certainly evident that a radical change was taking place in the pasturage policy of the Mesta. The old readiness to conform to local enclosure restrictions and to respect the land interests of settled agriculture and non-migratory flocks was rapidly disappearing. A new, and for local agrarian life more ominous era was at hand. 1 Br. Mus., 1321 k 6, no. 5 (1462). * Cortes, Toledo, 1462, pet. 53. Ibid., pet. 17; Salamanca, 1465, pets. 5, 16. CHAPTER XVI THE SUPREMACY OF THE MESTA'S PASTURAGE PRIVILEGES Agrarian England of the early Tudors compared with agrarian Castile of Ferdinand and Isabella. Pastoral mercantilism. Enclosures in England and in Castile. The pastoral policy of the Catholic Kings. Deforestation. Posesión or perpetual leasing of pasturage. Collective bargaining for pasturage by Mesta members. Agriculture vs. grazing in the reign of Charles V. Growth of the non-migratory pastoral industry. Repressive measures against agriculture. THE history of pasturage, of enclosures, and of sheep raising in Tudor England has been so frequently and thoroughly investigated that any intimation of a new point of view on that subject might appear presumptuous. Nevertheless the pastoral history of the corresponding era in Castile, the period of Ferdinand and Isabella and of their sixteenth-century successors, reveals certain striking contrasts with and parallels to England's experience with enclosures and pastures, which suggest a new line of research in English agrarian affairs and point toward hitherto unsolved pastoral problems in the island kingdom. The English enclosure movement and the similar process in Castile, which we shall examine in this chapter, synchronized to a surprising degree. In each case the episode had its beginnings in a stimulation of the sheep industry in the fourteenth century. That industry was rapidly developed, at the close of the fifteenth century and throughout the sixteenth, because of the mercantilistic ambitions of powerful rulers who had their eyes upon lucrative returns from the trade in wool, a high priced, compact, and easily exportable commodity with a large foreign market. The exploitation of the confiscated monastic lands in England and the acquisition of the great properties of the military orders by the crown in Castile contributed materially to the growth of the pastoral industry in both countries during the middle decades of the sixteenth century. Thereafter, however, in each of the two kingdoms there is apparent a gradual increase of enclosures, not so much for large scale sheep raising enterprises, as for the small copyholder in the case of England and for sedentary flocks and peasant agriculture in the case of Castile. In each country the high courtschancery in England and chancillerías in Castile-protected the movement, and in each the motive to enclose the common lands was supplied by a desire to stimulate sedentary sheep raising. The ultimate effect in both was to promote small scale agriculture.1 One significant aspect of the whole problem stands out clearly in the case of Castile and suggests an inquiry regarding sheep raising in England. In the peninsula the element which fought against the enclosure movement, and, in fact, successfully obstructed its progress for two centuries, was the large scale migratory pastoral industry. In mediaeval and early Tudor England the anti-enclosure interests were very largely the agricultural classes. This contrast between the two countries suggests the need of further inquiry into the pastoral history of the northern kingdom in order that some further light may be thrown upon the reasons for the comparative scarcity of enclosures in various western, northern, and eastern counties. What was the precise character of sheep raising in, for example, the Cotswold region during the period under discussion? Was it by any chance of a modified migratory type, comparable, on a small scale, with the roving Castilian industry? Sheep migrations were by no means unknown in the British Isles, and the marked parallel between the enclosure movement in the island kingdom and in Castile raises the question as to whether there might not have been some similarity in this regard as well. In any case there is yet to appear a thorough study of the history of the sheep industry in those areas in England where enclosures were least 1 Harriett Bradley, The Enclosures in England (New York, 1918), summarizes the views of earlier and more extensive investigations, notably those by Gay, Leadam, and Miss Leonard. She emphasizes the influence of the desire for ferti lizing and resting the soil as perhaps the leading motive for pasturage, enclosures, especially during the Tudor and Stuart periods. * Duke of Argyll, Scotland as it was and as it is (Edinburgh, 1887, 2 vols.), i, pp. 255 ff. in evidence. When such a study is made it is quite probable that the experience of the Castilian Mesta may offer useful suggestions for the approach to the problem in Britain. Pastoral England under the mercantilistic early Tudors was to a striking degree similar to pastoral Castile under the Catholic Kings, to which we must now address our attention. In the presence of the high court or chancillería at Valladolid, late in 1501, a distinguished attorney representing the city of Cáceres1 made what was for that period a truly surprising observation. With reference to certain decrees issued by Ferdinand and Isabella granting excessive grazing rights to the Mesta, he declared that "such things cannot be called just or honest, since they are not for the public good but for the private interests of a favored few!" The remark came at the close of a scathing denunciation of the royal policy of systematic repression of agriculture and sedentary sheep raising. It was daring beyond anything that had been heard in a Castilian court of justice in many a long year, coming as it did in such times of unquestioned obedience to the determined policies of the newly united monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella. There must have been the gravest provocation to elicit a statement so dangerously near treason. A careful survey of those policies and of their administration will reveal that there was indeed provocation for the sentiment of the attorney from Cáceres. As in the case of the judicial and financial affairs of the Mesta, so in matters of pasturage, the accession of Ferdinand and Isabella marked the beginning of a new era in the development of the organization. Theirs was the task of laying new foundations for the agrarian life of Castile. Generations of economic confusion and political turmoil had so exhausted the country that there was dire need for almost any kind of reconstruction. A systematic programme of agricultural promotion, supplemented with plans for a diversifying sedentary pastoral industry and for forest conservation, would by no means have been beyond the capabilities of these enlightened sovereigns. It is true 1 See below, p. 324. that geographic obstacles and social prejudices might have deterred somewhat the rapid and uniform advance of agriculture throughout Castile. Nevertheless the agrarian reforms of Charles III in the eighteenth century, achieved in the face of these very obstacles as well as of others which did not exist at the time of the Catholic Kings, inspire justifiable regrets that the newly united monarchy committed the realm so unreservedly to the large scale migratory pastoral industry. It would be difficult indeed to exaggerate the possibilities of such a programme of agricultural development had it been carried out systematically and vigorously during the forty crucial and future-building years of this reign. Most unfortunately for the future of Castile, Ferdinand and Isabella lost no time in displaying that marked partiality toward the pastoral exploitation of their kingdoms which was to be so conspicuous throughout this period.1 The explanation for this attitude, which was given such emphatic expression in all of their Mesta legislation, was their mercantilistic interest in promoting the source of supply for what had long been Spain's principal and almost only export commodity. It was their persistent devotion to this policy of subordinating agriculture to pasturage which forced later monarchs to confess somewhat sadly that "the exploitation and conservation of the pastoral industry is the principal sustenance of these kingdoms." Every effort was made to extend pasturage, not only in Castile, but in the other parts of the peninsula. Any local attempts to improve agriculture, such as took place in Murcia, and in Granada after the reconquest of that kingdom, were openly forbidden, or else choked off by prohibitive export taxes. These measures soon encouraged the entregadores to leave their beaten paths in the cañadas and to levy profitable fines for violations of the new laws. Nor did such efforts on the part of the itinerant magistrates lack support from the monarchs. In 1489 a broadly worded royal decree was issued, authorizing the correction of cañada boundaries along the lines followed fifty years 1 Haebler, Wirtschaftliche Blüte Spaniens, p. 24; Ansiaux in the Revue d'écono mie politique, June, 1893, p. 528, citing references. * Nueva Recop., lib. 3, tit. 14, ley 1. Arch. Mesta, A-3, Albacete, 1487 ff. |