1 largely an organization of middle class sheep owners, with a considerable proportion of the poorer pastoral element during its earlier years, and with perhaps a slight tendency toward more concentrated ownership during and after the latter part of the sixteenth century. At no time, however, in its long history was it any sense a combination of large owners. In general the internal organization of the Mesta was simple, efficient, and, because of its concentration under the President and the quadrilla heads, eminently fitted for the work with which it was entrusted. The whole purpose of the Mesta required, above all things, concerted action, whether it be in the prosecutions of its itinerant legal staff, in its financial obligations to the crown, or in its collective bargaining with pasturage owners. As we proceed to examine the history of each one of these three fundamental interests or activities of the organization - judicial, fiscal, and pastoral- the efficient functioning of the internal mechanism just described will become evident. It was not until the demoralization of the eighteenth century that the institution became encumbered with throngs of notaries, superfluous attorneys, and bailiffs. The curse of empleadismo which has long been one of the plagues of the Spanish body politic then settled upon the ancient gild of the sheep owners, and bankruptcy, followed by disintegration, soon overwhelmed it. While study of the internal organization of the Mesta might be interesting and instructive, because of the light which it throws upon a practically unexplored field of economic history, namely the industrial and gild life of Spain, it is the external relations of the institution which reflect its real importance in the evolution of Spanish society. From the time when the name of the Honorable Assembly of the Mesta of Shepherds was first inscribed on the parchments of the thirteenth century, until the organization was converted into the present-day Stock Owners' Association in 1836, it was always the zealous and able guardian of the welfare of its members in their relations with those whom they met on their annual marches. As has been indicated above, these relations fall into three main categories, namely, judicial, fiscal, and pastoral, using the last in the limited sense of pertaining to pasturage. These were, of course, by no means mutually exclusive; the chief functions of the itinerant judiciary of the Mesta, for example, involved the protection of the flocks from extortionate tolls and pasturage rentals. A historical survey of each of these activities will present, far more effectively than a study of formal charters and bulky ordinances, a fair and accurate picture of the part actually played by the Mesta in the economic history of Castile. |