to plead their cases at court, and to secure for them every possible advantage. But although the Mesta took no direct part in marketing wool, its persistent activity on behalf of its members was undoubtedly the chief reason, not only for the remarkably early nationalization of wool and sheep marketing throughout Castile and the breakdown of mediaeval local restrictions upon this traffic, but also for the far more important development of an organized, large scale export trade in wool.

The history of the Spanish wool trade is yet to be written. It is a phase of European commercial history which for its significance and diverse and widespread influence has long merited far more attention than it has received. Here we may note only certain aspects of this extensive subject, namely the part played by the Mesta in encouraging that trade and in the introduction of merino wool into the markets of the world.

At least as early as the twelfth century there had grown up a more or less irregular exportation of Spanish wool to England. In 1172 Henry II of the latter country had attempted to protect the interest of the English wool growers by forbidding this traffic. A century elapsed, however, before an overseas wool trade was undertaken by the Spaniards with any regularity; and then, within a generation after the founding of the Mesta, the fine Castilian wools were beginning to appear in the ports of England and Flanders. It was soon found necessary to establish a factory or trading post of Spanish wool merchants at Bruges. Furthermore, the customs reports of the incoming trade of Southampton, Sandwich, and Portsmouth, from 1303 onward, note the arrivals

1 There is a wealth of untouched material upon this subject in the town archives of such north coast ports as Bilbao, San Sebastián, and Santander, and of the important interior wool markets of Burgos and Segovia. The archives of the ancient consulados of some of these cities are also prolific in manuscripts on this topic. Simancas documents upon the fairs of Medina del Campo are an obvious source of further data, since that city was one of the points of concentration for outward bound wool shipments. A beginning has been made in the study of the east coast wool trade by Ventalló Vintró's Historia de la Industria lanera Catalana (Barcelona, 1907).

Adam Anderson, Origin of Commerce, i, p. 127; ii, p. 350; John Smith, Chronicon Rusticum, i, p. 69.

3 Cartulaire de l'ancien consulat de l'Espagne à Bruges.

of various consignments of the Spanish staple almost every year.1 These shipments evidently came from ports on the north coast of Spain San Sebastián, Santander, and Bilbao -- where the wools of Mesta flocks were concentrated for shipment each summer after the northward migration. As a result of this rapidly growing trade, various cofradías or gilds of merchants and shipping interests were soon organized in the north coast cities.❜

It is evident, then, that an active export traffic in wool was noticeable at least fifty years before those middle decades of the fourteenth century which were marked by the vigorous patronage of Alfonso XI and the devastations of the Black Death. It will be recalled that Alfonso and the Plague have commonly been held responsible for the introduction of sheep migrations on a large scale and for the rise of the Mesta. The Great Pestilence may have cleared the land for more pasturage and the support of Alfonso XI undoubtedly helped the Mesta, but it is certain that a rapidly growing Castilian sheep raising industry was making itself felt in the foreign wool markets many years before the days of the great Alfonso and the epidemic of 1348-50. While the development of the overseas wool trade was perhaps too early in the history of the Mesta to permit us to ascribe it entirely to the appearance of that body, nevertheless the two events are evidently associated. The Mesta, as will be explained later, grew in power, and the wool exportations expanded, because the industry which both represented was steadily increasing in importance. Castile had, in fact, by far the most active and productive pastoral indu try of any country in Europe in that period. Instead of receiving her first highbred sheep from England, as has been some

1 N. S. B. Gras, Early English Customs System (Cambridge, 1917), §§ 32, 35, 37, 39, 43.

• Cf. Eloy García de Quevedo y Concellón, Ordenanzas del Consulado de Burgos (Burgos, 1905), and Ordenanzas de la Ilustre Universidad Casa de Contratación y Consulado de San Sebastián (Oyárzun, 1814), drawn up in 1511 for the newly organized Consulado of Bilbao. In each of these cases, however, the origins of the organizations can be traced back to the early fourteenth century. See also the Documentos

· para la Historia de Pontevedra, iii (1904), containing the ordinances of a similar gild in Pontevedra. These mediaeval codes were used as models for the ordinances of the merchant gilds of Saragossa (1771) and Valencia (1776).

times alleged, she had long been "famous... for fine cloth, before the English knew what it was to be clothed." 1

In order to prevent the development of foreign competition in the fine wool trade, the strictest rules were laid down by the national Cortes, at the behest of the Mesta, prohibiting the exportation of sheep from Spain. Migratory flocks crossing the frontier on their annual migrations into Portugal, Aragon, or Navarre were required to register in order to insure the return of all animals. Heavy penalties were levied upon any herdsman within twelve leagues of the borders if he could not produce a registration card for his sheep. The export of the wool itself came to be restricted in the course of the fifteenth century, when the native cloth factories had become important enough to demand consideration. In 1442 schedules of cloth prices were promulgated so as to protect the coarser native fabrics. Seven years later, heavy import tariffs and frequent prohibitive edicts were used to check the importation of foreign goods. Finally, in 1462, the exportation of more than two-thirds of the wool clip for any given year was prohibited. Charles V later undertook to limit the supply for foreign trade to a half of the annual clip, with a view toward further encouraging the native cloth industry. This brought forth, however, such vehement protests from the Mesta, and from the merchant gild of Burgos, where the exportable wool was gathered for overland shipment to the north coast ports, that the original proportions of two-thirds for export and one-third for home consumption were restored.

The energies of the Mesta leaders, who were never far from the court, had been concentrated more and more, toward the close of the fifteenth century, upon the necessity of expanding the over

1 Smith, Chronicon Rusticum, i, p. 69.

* Cortes, Palencia, 1313, pet. 17; Burgos, 1315, pets. 17, 18; Valladolid, 1322, pet. 43; Madrid, 1339, pet. 5.

Nueva Recop., lib. 6, tit. 18, ley 21.

...

♦ Nueva Rccop., lib. 6, tit. 18, ley 46; Cortes, Toledo, 1462, pet. 27; Laborde, Itineraire descriptif de l'Espagne (3d ed., 1827-30), v, p. 330; Las premáticas que S. M. ha mandado hazer . . . (Alcalá, 1552). The last-named volume comprises a rare collection of edicts concerning the wool trade during the period 14401551. A copy of it is in the Paris Bib. Nat. (Rés. F. 1257:9) See also Monterroso, Práctica para escribanos (Madrid, 1545), p. 143.

seas wool trade. This was, according to their arguments, an indispensable source of royal revenue, a certain means of making England and Flanders the debtors of Castile, and, in short, of capitalizing most advantageously the leading natural resource of the peninsula.

It was during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella that this policy of aggressively promoting wool exports received its greatest encouragement. It became the keynote of the commercial programme of those royal devotees of mercantilism. With their characteristically shrewd appreciation of Spanish regard for tradition, they ostentatiously turned to the past, avoided abrupt innovation, and veiled the coming of their wool trade campaign by confirming the edict of 1462. As we have noted, the latter document undertook to conserve the supply of Spain's 'classic staple' as the basis of a native textile industry. As time went on, however, it gradually became apparent that, for the first time in history, the commercial affairs of the Spanish kingdoms were administered upon a carefully planned policy aimed persistently at one definite purpose, namely, the exportation of those raw materials for which the greatest quantities of gold and foreign commodities could be secured in return.1

The first step of Ferdinand and Isabella in this programme was in connection with the organization of the wool export trade. The efficiency of the Spanish factories at Bruges, London, La Rochelle, and Florence was given careful attention and the merchants interested in them were endowed with special privileges." The importation of foreign cloths into Castile, which had long been extensive and had now taken on increased activity as a corollary to the heavy wool exports, was at first encouraged. It was not until after Isabella's death (1504) that Ferdinand made some attempts to develop a native woollen cloth industry. He introduced elaborately detailed gild regulations and even prescribed a form of domestic or 'putting out' system, whereby

1 Further details of this mercantilism of the Catholic Kings may be found in Haebler, Wirtschaftliche Blüte Spaniens, pp. 6-7, and in Ansiaux, "Hist. écon. de l'Espagne," in Revue d'économie politique, June, 1893, p. 528.

2 Nueva Recop., lib. 3, tit. 13, ley 1.

successive manufacturing processes were completed in turn by different groups of workmen, operating through intermediaries not unlike the entrepreneurs of the seventeenth-century English cloth industry.'

The expulsion of the Jews in 1492 made necessary a further impetus to the exportation of wool and other available raw materials. This was due to the fact that the Jews formed the largest group of merchants in Spain familiar with money economy, and handled most of the operations of foreign exchange. The interval between their expulsion and the coming of the Flemish and Italian satellites of the Emperor Charles-a gap of nearly thirty yearswas a period of confusion in the affairs of Castilian merchants. It was inevitable, therefore, that the latter should be encouraged by their sovereigns to turn to the exploitation of the wool trade as one of the obvious means of adjusting their foreign obligations. This was the situation which in 1494 brought into existence the famous Consulado or foreign trade house of Burgos, to be followed in 1511 by the establishment of a similar institution at Bilbao on the north coast. After the edict of expulsion of 1492, business, particularly the wool export trade, had become hopelessly clogged. Litigations were being delayed, apparently because of inadequate experience with the mechanism of foreign trade, until, in the words of the decree of 1494," some commercial suits bade fair to become immortal." The Consulado was therefore founded at Burgos on the lines of certain trade administrative courts of Barcelona and Valencia. According to the decree, the

1 Nueva Recop., lib. 9, tit. 27, ley 6; tit. 28, ley 1, and tit. 29, ley 6; Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, pt. 2, chap. xxvi; Capmany, Cuestiones crit., pp. 25-72. Guicciardini, Opere, vi, pp. 275-276, makes mention of some attempts to promote a cloth industry in 1512; see also Clemencín, Elégio, p. 244; Cortes, Madrid, 1515, pet. 14; and the city ordinances of Seville, approved by Ferdinand and Isabella in May, 1492, regulating the operations of 31 weavers in that capital: Ordenanças de Sevilla (Seville, 1527), fols. 206-211. The latter were elaborated by Ferdinand in 1511 into a code of 118 paragraphs specifying details on wool-washing, widths and weights of cloth, adulteration, dyeing, inspection, and the distribution of the cloth in successive stages of completion among various crafts: cf. Ramirez, Pragmálicas, fols. clxxvii-clxxxiv. Upon earlier regulations of the native cloth industry and the restriction of the sale of foreign cloths, see Ramirez, fols. cxvii-cxix (1494-1501).