Editing Mesta (section)

===18th century recovery=== 
After a period of virtual bankruptcy in the late 17th century, when the weak government of [[Charles II of Spain|Charles II]] was detrimental to the Mesta, a recovery under the first two Bourbon monarchs reversed this trend, particularly after the [[War of the Spanish Succession]] ended, largely because the government enforced the Mesta's privileges with greater rigour.<ref>Klein pp.342-3</ref> The numbers of transhumant sheep doubled between 1708 and 1780 to reach an historical peak around 1780, assisted by the royal decree of 1748, which confirmed that both summer and winter pastures must remain unploughed and unsown, unless royal permission for ploughing was granted.<ref>García Sanz, (1978), p.293</ref><ref>Simpson p.63-5</ref>

In the 18th century, as legislation controlling the price of pastures became more effectively enforced, the volume of wool exports increased. This was assisted by a decline in the Spanish population in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, which reduced the cultivation of grain. Increased prices for wool exports and the prohibition on returning pastures to arable prevented a growth in cultivation until pressure from reformers after the accession of [[Charles III of Spain|Charles III]] forced through agrarian reforms.<ref>Bilbao and de Pinedo, pp. 109-11</ref><ref>Klein p. 293</ref> However, there is no evidence of the failure of the Mesta's institutions before the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century.<ref>Marín Barriguete (2015), pp. 102-3</ref>