nand and Isabella as one of the administrative arms of the central government. The Archive was stored at the monastery of Guadalupe, in the heart of the winter pasturage region, until about 1595, when it was transferred to Villanueva de la Serena, another of the favorite towns for the winter meetings of the herdsmen. There it remained until 1621, when it was removed to Madrid, to be stored in the church of San Martín until the early years of the eighteenth century. It was then installed in its present abode in a house on the corner of the Calle de las Huertas and the Calle de León, across the street from the Royal Academy of History, where it reposed, untouched by historians, for some two hundred years. In view of all these travels and of its constant use as an arsenal for the ever busy legal staff of the Mesta, the excellent condition and the completeness of the files of documents are remarkable. Out of its total of 6000 or more separate manuscript items, several hundred of which are stout folio volumes, less than twenty sheets are in a seriously damaged condition, and the different series of documents are marred by no important gaps. The Archive is now well arranged and accessible, and its value in fields of research beyond the limits of the present study should prove inviting to other students. Its long and unbroken files of judicial materials, for example, afford a rare opportunity for the examination of mediaeval Castilian judicial procedure and the development of the technique of litigation. The Archive abounds in sources of tempting possibilities in the field of general agrarian history: public lands, commons, forests, etc. In general, its strongest period lies in the sixteenth century, with ample sources both before and after that golden age of Spanish history. A word on its completeness, before taking up the different sections in detail. An examination of the usual Spanish libraries and archives, both national and local, private and public, brings out at once the fact that they contain few if any sources on the Mesta: a circumstance which is probably the explanation of the absence of any careful study of the subject. For an institution which aroused such prolonged and vehement hatred, the Mesta is surprisingly uninvestigated. The credit for this immunity may be ascribed to the craft of a few of that body's astute legal agents, who, in 1621, secured a royal order by which they were authorized to remove from the great archive at Simancas, and all other public record offices, all documents bearing on the Mesta. These were deposited in the Archive of that organization, where they remain to this day. They were supplemented in 1642 by the fruits of further searches, this time in the private archives of all families which had ever had an official of the Mesta among their members. The thoroughness with which this work was done is evidenced by the rarity of documents outside the archive of which a copy is not to be found in the neatly tabulated bundles of this collection. 16. Indices: (a) The earliest of these is a list written about 1474, on 142 sheets (n. t. p., n. d.). (b) Registro de Scripturas de la Mesta (ca. 1515). A list of the documents stored in the monastery of Guadalupe. Ms. (c) Registro de las Scripturas y Executorias que tiene la Mesta (ca. 1610). Ms. (d) Inventario de los Privilegios, Executorias y demas . . (Madrid, de la (g) Ynventario de las Executorias, Libros, y demas Papeles .. Ms., 1728, 2 vols. (h) Registro de Escripturas del Concejo de la Mesta (covers 175261). Ms. (1) Inventario del Archivo de la Mesta. Large folio ms., 1832; the last and most useful of these indices, though it must be used only as a chronological guide; its summaries are useless. 17. Cuentas. 13 large folio vols. and 4 bundles, all ms. These are the accounts of the Mesta. They cover the period 1510-1836, with only one gap, 1568-83. 18. Acuerdos. 26 large folio vols. Ms. The minutes of the semiannual meetings, 1499-1836. 19. Executorias. 53 bundles of mss., arranged by towns in alphabetical order. They comprise the briefs, documentary evidence, and decisions in some 3500 suits between the Mesta and various cities and individuals. They range from 1401 to 1836, and form by far the most valuable single group of material in the Archive. They are cited thus: T-2, Toledo, 1488, meaning "legajo (bundle) T-2 of the executorias on Toledo, document of 1488.” The date does not always indicate the year of the material contained in the document, which is frequently earlier. 20. Provisiones and Privilegios Reales. 15 bundles, ms. These comprise the oldest documents in the archive, the royal charters, beginning with that of 1371, which gives the text of the first one of 1273. Some are beautifully illuminated, and, taken together, they form an unusual collection of the royal autographs of four centuries. These documents are the only ones in the Archive that have hitherto been known to scholars, since most of them were printed, with numerous errors, in the codes cited below (Nos. 75-82). 21. Relaciones de los Alcaldes Entregadores. 62 vols., ms. Reports of these itinerant judicial protectors of the Mesta to the semiannual meetings of that body. 1550-1796. 22. Visitas de Cañadas, Veredas, y Términos. 79 vols., ms. Testimony taken by the entregadores while on their tours of inspection of the sheep highways. 1560-1750. 23. Servicio y Montazgo. 3 bundles, ms. Records kept at the royal toll gates of the flocks as they passed southward. 1585-1720. These are copies of the only considerable body of Mesta materials still remaining in the Archive of Simancas. 24. Pleytos de León, de Soria, de Segovia, y de Cuenca. These comprise about 600 bundles, each containing the ms. records of some 40 or 50 cases heard by the entregadores. They are not of any great importance, because the digests of them appear in the collections cited above (Nos. 21-22). It should be particularly noted that, although none of the above sets of documents appears to begin previous to 1.400 and most of them start well on in the sixteenth century, nevertheless they contain quantities of transcripts of documents, introduced is evidence, which date back to 1250 and before. 2. The Royal Academy of History (Madrid) The valuable collections of this society are chiefly useful for town charters, ordinances, records of local litigations, and royal privileges. In view of the comparative inaccessibility of the catalogue, some of the printed bibliographies listed above (Nos. 1-3, 12) were indispensable. Six of the collections in this archive have inventarios or indices: Salazar, Sarmiento, Vargas y Ponce, Mata y Linares, Abella, and Bautista Muñoz. These lists are nearly useless, though they do serve to indicate the general nature of each set of papers. Other collections of the Academy, which are not equipped with such lists, are noted in bibliography No. 1, listed above. Of these six, the first two were the ones which proved most useful in the present investigation; the others contain excellent series of documents on Spanish America, copies of which are probably in the Archivo de Indias, in Seville. The Academy has a number of valuable manuscripts on pastoral affairs in its Traggia and Sempere collections, the latter a splendid repository of almost untouched economic materials. An unnamed set of transcripts of local documents from church and town archives was also very fruitful. 25. Salazar. The volumes most used were marked I-36: Indice del archivo de la Orden de Calatrava: a collection which is now in the Archivo Histórico Nacional. It has been well indexed by Uhagón (cf. Boletín de la Real Academia de Historio, xxxv, pp. 5-167), but this 'I-36' Salazar index gives brief notes on some documents which appear to have been lost in the transfer of the collection to the National Archives. I-37, 40, and 41: Escrituras y Cartas de Privilegio. Copies of mss. pertaining to the Military Orders, chiefly Calatrava. K-30 and 31: Rentas Reales and Real Hacienda. Seventeenthcentury mss. and prints on royal finances. O-13 and 15: Privilegios de Burgos. The former has a list of the documents in the cathedral of Burgos; a valuable series, with much on rural conditions, taxation, and land laws. X-1. Memoriales sobre las Yerbas de Villanueva. Discussions (mostly early prints) of the pasturage of the Mesta's winter home. 26. Sarmiento. Vol. v: Miscellaneous materials on agriculture, chiefly eighteenth century. This collection is mostly on Galicia. 27. Sempere. Papeles Varios sobre Economía Política. 8 vols. Mss. copies compiled by the famous Spanish economist, Juan Sempere y Guarinos. They are numbered 12-24-5, B-124 to -131, inclusive. An indispensable source for any line of investigation in Spanish economics or economic history. The set contains not only many original documents, but also many unpublished papers by their prolific compiler, with valuable notes and citations. 28. Traggia. Vol. 19. Numbered B-153. A digest and guide, with frequent excerpts, to the local archive of Teruel, one of the leading pasturage towns of southern Aragon. 29. Monasterios Suprimidos, Documentos de los. A mass of materials, parts of which are üsted in No. 2. 30. Colección de Privilegios, Bulas... de las Iglesias de España. Numbered 25-1-C-1 to C-23 inclusive. A valuable compilation of transcripts and lists made by royal command in the cighteenth century, in the course of a search through the archives of the more important churches in the country. 31. Abella. This collection, which is Aragonese, was found useful for local agricultural matter, especially vols. xvii, xviii, xxii, numbered B-151 ff. 32. Colección de Fueros y Privilegios y Ordenanzas de varios Pueblos del Reyno. Numbered 12-19-1/35 ff. An invaluable collection of twenty or more volumes with slightly varying titles. In addition to these collections, occasional references were found in the Floranes (vols. i, xv), the Velasquez (vols. i, v, vii), and the Salvá (vols, xxxv, xxxix) manuscripts, and in other single volumes numbered E-127, 12-19-2/36 and 2/38. All of the above are manuscripts, unless otherwise noted. 3. The Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid) This collection, which is housed in the upper halls of the National Library in Madrid, is, on the whole, fairly well equipped with indices and guides. It was found to be useful for three groups of material: documents of the Military Orders, especially that of Calatrava; data on various monasteries; and materials on the Royal Council or Consejo Real. 33. Calatrava. The most useful part of this rich collection was the group of Documentos Reales which contains royal privileges to the order. For index, see above, No. 25. 34. Beruela, Lorenzana, Guadalupe, and Oña (monasteries). Docu mentos Reales: these royal privileges are in the tumbos or collections of parchments of these monasteries. The ones used in the present study are mostly of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and deal with pasturage privileges. 35. Consejo Real. A collection of some 2000 bundles of documents, mostly of the eighteenth century, dealing with the business of the Royal Council. Because of the position of the President of the Mesta as senior member of that council, many of its deliberations were taken up with the affairs of the sheep owners. The legajos (bundles) which were most fre quently consulted were nos. 48, 227, 434, 752, 817, 819, 877, and 1446, and, in the Sala de Gobierno (a division of the same), nos. 252, 338, 341, 345, 348, 371, 413, 436. 4. The Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid): Sala de Manuscritos Very few documents were found on the Mesta in this collection, which has been indexed in Bartolomé José Gallardo, Ensayo de una Biblioteca Española (Madrid, 1863-89, 4 vols). There is only one which deals specifically with the subject (No. 36, below), but several others touch upon it incidentally. 36. Memorial al Rey D. Felipe III sobre la conservación de . . . la Mesta... 1619. 6 pp. A memorial to the crown to save the Mesta from the ravages of the reformers of that period. Ms. H-252, pp. 250 ff. 37. Privilegio de Jayme I a la Casa de Ganaderos. Charter of that body of Saragossa, 1218. Ms. 8702. Another ms. on same: Ms. 10332. 38. Relación de lo que han informado los Corregidores . de la labranza y crianza. Discussion of rural conditions by agents of the crown, end of the sixteenth century. Ms. 9372. 39. Ordenanzas de Toledo sobre el Ganado vacuno ovejuno. Reports on sheep and cattle in Toledo, 1395-1454. Ms. 13080. 40. Hermandad vieja de Toledo - confirmación para Documents regarding the taxation of sheep, 1338 ff. Ms. deros 13100. ... los gana |