Editing Mesta (section)

==Operation of the Mesta==

===Organisation===
The Mesta's original charter of 1273 was supplemented in 1276 and renewed in 1347 and 1371.<ref>Klein, pp. 184-5</ref> Its internal organisation was originally governed by regulations of 1379, which have been lost. However, ordinances of 1492, supplemented by a code of 1511, regulated its operations for most of its existence. It was organised into four geographical units ({{Langx|es|quadrillas |lit=groups or gangs}}) (''cuadrillas'' in modern Spanish) based around the principal pastoral cities of the northern meseta, [[Soria]], [[Segovia]], [[Cuenca, Spain|Cuenca]] and [[León, Spain|León]], where most of the flocks of Merino sheep had their home pastures.<ref name="Butzer, p. 41">Butzer, p. 41</ref> Its governing council consisted a president who was, after 1500, always chosen from the members of the Royal Council, and the leaders of each of the four quadrillas.<ref>Butzer, p. 39</ref><ref>Klein, pp. 49-50</ref> The office of president was so powerful that, when the reformer [[Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes]] was appointed to this post in 1779 to eliminate the organisation's abuses, he went far towards dismantling the Mesta's organisation by promoting agriculture in the [[Sierra Morena]], one of its principal winter pasturelands, despite opposition from Mesta members.<ref name="Klein, pp.51-2">Klein, pp.51-2</ref>

The most important administrative officials of the Mesta were the ''alcaldes de quadrilla'' (also called alcaldes de mesta, two elected by each quadrilla, who were entrusted with the general administration of the laws relating to its members. There were also financial and legal officials who represented members in arranging leases and in disputes with third-parties.<ref name="Klein, pp.51-2"/>

The assemblies of the Mesta were open to anyone who paid its membership dues, which were based in the number of sheep each owned, and no minimum ownership was required. However, it was estimated that only around one-tenth of its membership attended these assemblies. Although every member present had a single vote, nobles and substantial owners had the greatest influence and were often able to direct proceedings.<ref>Klein, pp.49-50</ref> Initially, the Mesta held three assemblies a year, but from 1500 this was reduced to two, one in the southern pasturelands in January or February, and the other in one of the four northern quadrilla centres in September or October. These assemblies dealt with the organisation of the next transhumance and the election of Mesta officials, and proposals were first voted on by each quadrilla, then in a general assembly, where each quadrilla had a single vote. In the 18th century, meetings were often reduced to one a year, always held in Madrid.<ref>Klein, pp.50-1</ref>

Although great nobles and major monasteries are frequently recorded as Mesta member, these large owners were not typical of the industry. The limited available evidence from the 16th century suggests there were between 3,000 and 4,000 owners, that two-thirds of the sheep migrating annually were held in flocks of less than 100 sheep and that very few flocks exceeded 1,000 sheep. Although by the 18th century, there were fewer small owners and several owners held flocks of more than 20,000 sheep, the Mesta remained largely an organisation of owners of small to moderately-sized flocks, and never simply a combination of large owners.<ref>Klein, pp.59-62</ref> However, it is also clear that, in the Mesta's final century of existence, many of the owners of small flocks had to abandon the annual migration, unless they were employed by large owners as shepherds, because their small flocks were no longer allowed to be grouped into larger units, as had been the case in earlier centuries.<ref>Marín Barriguete(2015), pp.218-9</ref>

===The annual migrations===
There is little information on the annual migrations in the first century of the Mesta's charter, although as northern flocks were supplying the meat markets of Toledo then, this suggests that producing wool was not yet their predominant purpose.<ref>Butzer, p.38</ref> There is also nothing about how the migrations were carried out in practice in the Mesta ordinances of 1492 or its code of 1511, and only occasional documentary evidence about this from legal proceedings dating from the 16th to 18th centuries, which discuss the customary practices governing this migration.<ref>Klein, p. 21</ref> However, from the 16th century, if not earlier, the pastoral transhumant cycle, involving the dates of the two migrations, the length of daily marches and frequency of rests, and the times for lambing and shearing, was designed to ensure the best conditions for the feeding, growth and reproduction of Merino sheep. The availability of fresh grass throughout the year resulted in the increased fineness of their fleeces, and  it was realised that transhumance was essential to create wool of a quality that sedentary sheep flocks could not match. This circumstance was used to justify the Mesta's privileges.<ref>Marín Barriguete(2015), pp.201-2</ref>

The Mesta records indicate that, from 1436 to 1549, in excess of 2.5 million sheep took part in the annual migration. This number declined during the remainder of the 16th century, and more steeply in the early 17th century to a low point of some 1.6 million sheep in 1603 to 1633, climbing slowly for the rest of the century then more rapidly from the start of the 18th century to a maximum of around 5 million transhumant sheep a year for 1790 to 1795, before a catastrophic decline following the French invasion of 1808 and the [[Peninsular War]].<ref>Melón Jiménez, pp.735-6</ref> In 1832, in one of the final years of the Mesta's existence, it was responsible for 1.1 million transhumant merino sheep, 2.0 million other fine wool sheep that were not transhumant and 4.9 million other sheep that were not transhumant and which produced only low-grade wool.<ref>Melón Jiménez, p.733</ref>

The most complete account of the organisation of the migrations, given by a shepherd, was recorded in 1828, in the organisation's last decade.<ref name="Klein, p.24">Klein, p.24</ref> By the 18th century, the shortage of pasture made it essential for the sheep owners to have grazing leases in advance, to avoid arbitrary price rises by landowners. They therefore relied on having a salaried ''Mayoral'' or chief shepherd with sufficient power and experience to negotiate pasture leases for all the sheep in his flock, termed his ''cabaña'': their role in earlier years may have been less prominent than in the 1828 account.<ref name="Marín Barriguete2015, p.217">Marín Barriguete(2015), p.217</ref> Some mayorales were guilty of fraud, agreeing to unreasonably high pasture rents with landowners and receiving a share of the excess. However, it was only by the institution of {{lang|es|mayoralia}}, associations of owners which rented grazing and employed shepherds collectively, that owners could secure access to grazing lands. Despite Mesta regulations, the {{lang|es|mayoralia}} competed with one another for the best grazing, and the most affluent groups monopolised this to the exclusion of poorer ones.<ref name="Marín Barriguete2015, p.218">Marín Barriguete(2015), p.218</ref>

Most of the Merino flocks from the late 15th century on had their home pastures in León, Old Castile and north-eastern La Mancha, an area divided between the four quadrillas of León, Segovia, Soria and Cuenca, each of which dealt with a section of the annual transhumance.<ref name="Butzer, p. 41"/> Flocks from León and Old Castile traveled between 550 and 750 kilometres to their winter pastures, while those from New Castile and La Mancha rarely travelled more than 250 kilometres. All these usually completed their migration south in a month or less, reaching their winter pastures in October, and they usually began their returned north in April and May.<ref name="Klein, pp.28-9">Klein, pp.28-9</ref>

The preparations for the journey south began in mid-September, when each owner's cabaña, which was branded with his marks, was placed in the hands of an experienced mayoral, who had to be experienced both in managing sheep and choosing good grazing. Larger cabañas were kept together on the march, but divided into smaller units termed ''rebaños'' of about 1,000 sheep managed a shepherd with several assistants and sheepdogs.<ref name="Klein, p.24"/><ref name="Marín Barriguete2015, p.217"/> The shepherds were normally engaged for a year ending in June when the flocks were returned to their home pastures, and usually paid mainly in kind, with grain, a proportion of lambs born and cheese produced, but not in wool, and with a cash fee for each 100 sheep herded.<ref>Klein, pp.58-9</ref> In earlier centuries, smaller flocks called ''hatos'' were grouped to form a rebaño, but this practice ceased in the 18th century as smaller owners gradually ceased to engage in transhumance or were forced out by the difficulties of securing grazing.<ref name="Marín Barriguete2015, p.218"/> In the early centuries of the Mesta's existence, owners of flocks were obliged to defend their stock against possible attacks by Muslim raiders or armed robbers, either in person or by making a payment, but this requirement ceased in the 16th century.<ref>Pastor de Togneri, pp.382-3</ref>

On arrival in the winter pastures, the shepherds inspected whether the pasture lands they had previously leased were adequate. Despite being granted, in theory at least, free access to southern pastures by royal charter, from the middle of the 16th century few stockholders came south without first arranging suitable pasturage, otherwise they had to pay excessive rents for any remaining low-quality grazing, often in the hills.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), pp.138-9</ref> The rebaños were divided between a number of pens built for shelter and for lambing, which took place in the winter pastures. Any old and infertile rams and diseased and weak ewes were culled soon after arrival to protect the quality of the wool, and of weak lambs were culled shortly after birth.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), pp.139-40</ref>

The lambs were ready to travel north in the following spring, and the flocks left the southern plains from mid-April. Their wool was shorn on their way north, and was then washed, and taken to one of the Mesta warehouses, the largest being in Segovia. The wool was later sent the fairs, especially Medina del Campo, or to the northern ports for shipment to Flanders and England. After the shearing, the journey north then resumed at a slower pace, and the last flocks reached their home pastures in May or early June.<ref name="Klein, pp.28-9"/> They would then be moved to their summer pastures in the hills, often hungry and weak after the long journey north.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), p.131</ref>

===The Cañadas===
The annual migration was made possible by using ''cañadas'' a system of long-distance pathways used by migrating flocks which occur in those Mediterranean countries that practice transhumance. In Spain, some of the paths that run north–south are known to have existed from the early Middle Ages, although claims of Roman or pre-Roman origin are doubtful,<ref>Klein, pp. 28-9</ref> as the ancient sheepwalks that have been described from Spain are generally relatively short and frequently run from uplands east to the Mediterranean coast, rather than from north to south.<ref>Walker, pp. 41-2</ref> Sheep were generally only part of the mixed farming of cereals and livestock in León and Old Castile before the 12th century, less important than pigs and rarely moved outside their local area.<ref>Pastor de Togneri p.365</ref> The cañadas in León and Old Castile may have developed from an increased range of transhumance that first occurred within those provinces, and which were extended south as the northern boundaries of Muslim states retreated.<ref name="Walker, p.38">Walker, p.38</ref>

The expansion of the cañadas southward has been related to three causes, which may have all played their part, but here is no evidence of large scale transhumance in Extremadura, Andalucía and La Mancha when they were under Muslim rule, so the impetus must have come from the Christian north.<ref>Pastor de Togneri p. 366</ref> From the reconquest of Toledo in 1085 to that of Andalucía, stock raising, particularly of sheep, was developed New Castile, at first by over thirty northern monasteries, bishoprics and churches, many with their summer pastures in the Sierra de Guadarrama, and secondly by the military orders, which received royal grants of pasturelands in the Tagus valley.<ref>Pastor de Togneri pp. 367-9</ref> Documents dated from the late 12th century show that the military Orders were regularly driving their sheep from New Castile into the previously Muslim areas of La Mancha, western Murcia and into the Guadalquivir valley, and it is possible that this transhumance had crossed political boundaries between Christian and Muslim states the before local Christian reconquest.<ref>Butzer, pp.38-9</ref>

The third possible cause relates to transhumance organised by the towns of Castile and León. Southern towns, such as Toledo after its 1085 reconquest, sent their flocks to over-winter in the Guadalquivir valley, accompanied by an armed guard.<ref>Bishko, (1963) p.57.</ref> In addition, there was an expansion of transhumant travel south from Segovia and Burgos at the end of the 12th century and the start of the 13th century using cañadas opened by the monasteries, possibly into what was still Muslim territory.<ref>Pastor de Togneri p. 378-6</ref> However, the victory of Los Navas de Tolosa in 1212 opened the pastures of the Guadiana to all Castilian flocks, not just those of the monasteries and military orders. As the influence of the Castilian urban stockholders increased from the last decades of the 12th century, they increased the numbers of the sheep they were able to support by exploiting these new pastures.<ref>Pastor de Togneri pp.372-4</ref>

The main north–south cañadas, or ''Cañadas Reales'', were those designated by royal charter, although their precise routes may have changed over time, as they were only marked and given a defined width when crossing cultivated land, not when crossing open or untilled land. Both near their north and south termini, numerous minor local cañadas joined into or branched off from the Cañadas Reales.<ref>Klein, pp.18-19</ref> Klein describes three  principal groups of cañadas reales wholly within the kingdom of Castile-León, namely the western, or ''Leonesa'', the central, or ''Segoviana'', and the eastern, or ''Manchega'' groups, running through the cities of León, Segovia and Cuenca respectively.<ref>Klein, p.19</ref> Walker splits the Segovian group, adding a fourth group passing through Soria.<ref name="Walker, p.38"/> The Leonese cañadas terminated in [[Extremadura]] and in the banks of the Tagus and Guadiana rivers, those of Segovia and Soria, which were the major routes, ended in Andalucía and the Manchegan ones in [[La Mancha]] and eastern [[Murcia]]. Some authors divide these groups into nine or ten quite separate routes, but Klein noted the possibility of sheep moving between different branches of the western and central groups.<ref>Cahn, pp.2-3</ref><ref>Klein, p.xviii</ref>

There are very few records of numbers of sheep migrating annually before the early 16th century. In the 16th century, the numbers of migrating sheep recorded annually ranged from 1.7 to 3.5 million, averaging around 2.5 million Merino sheep, but the numbers began to decline in the late 16th and particularly in the early 17th century, a time of warfare in the Low Countries.<ref>García Sanz (1978), pp.292-4</ref> Klein places the start of the Mesta's decadence in the third quarter of the 16th century.<ref>Klein pp. 26-8</ref> During that period, only Merino sheep migrated, but the proportion of Merinos driven south in any year depended on the spring rainfall in the northern pastures and the fluctuating price of pasture in the south. After the [[Eighty Years' War]], transhumant numbers rose again, but to a lower level than in the 16th century. This was not because of a decline in overall numbers of Merino sheep, but a reduction in long-range transhumance and a parallel increase in flocks pastured in their home areas. Non- migratory Merino flocks of southern cities such as Córdoba also expanded and competed with transhumant flocks.<ref>Butzer, pp. 41-2</ref>

===The right of ''posesión''===
Perhaps the most controversial of the Mesta's privileges was the right of ''posesión'', which established the Mesta's perpetual title to tenancy for all pasturess leased by its members.<ref>Klein, p.92</ref> Its origin lay in the Mesta's code for its own internal administration, dated 1492. One clause attempted to prevent competition among the sheep owners for winter pasturage through an arrangement for the joint bargaining for pasture leases by lessees acting for the Mesta. Each of the four quadrillas selected a representative annually, to proceed to Extremadura and Andalucía before the annual migration and arrange the terms of grazing leases for the coming winter season. Each member was only assigned sufficient land for his flocks, and each landowner was to be treated equally. The aim was to prevent competition between Mesta members or joint action by the landowning lessors to raise rents.<ref>Klein, p.322</ref>

The 1492 ordinance was an internal Mesta measure only, but a significant action taken by Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1501 in support of the Mesta was to create a law of posesión, which granted Mesta members the permanent tenancy of a stated pasture field, either at the rental paid under their earliest lease, or if a flocks occupied such fields for a season unchallenged or undiscovered by the landowner, for no payment. The probable intention was to prevent competition for grazing among Mesta members, by guaranteeing the earliest flocks to arrive were given priority for leases. However, the Mesta was able to have an interpretation of the rule of posesión accepted  by the courts that was more favourable to its interests, arguing that, as its charter allowed it to represent all sheep owners, it had the right negotiate and allocate all pasturage leases in Castile to prevent disputes or competition between its members.<ref>Klein, pp.323-4</ref>

Although this interpretation was disputed by the landowners of southern Castile, including towns, ecclesiastics, military orders and private individuals, it was upheld by the courts and confirmed in a series of laws passed in 1505. One interpretation, based on the assumption that the privilege of posesión operated strictly in accordance with these laws and could be enforced, was that it retarded the growth of agriculture and had a negative effect on Spain's political development for centuries,<ref>Klein pp.325-6</ref> a view that ignores the active and passive resistance to this legislation.<ref>Marín Barriguete (2015), pp.100-1</ref> An alternative view is that the right of posesión was a form of rent control that guaranteed shepherd access to the pastures at stable prices.<ref>García Sanz, (1998), p.82-4</ref>

The Habsburg monarchs were inconsistent in granting exemptions from the Mesta's privileges, including posesión, in return for payment. However, in 1633, after a sharp downturn in wool sales and the related tax revenue, the rules of posesión were renewed, and pastures converted to arable were ordered to be restored to pasturage. It has been suggested that a weak monarchy and strong local resistance reduced the effect of this measure,<ref>Klein p.339</ref> but a survey of sheep owners in the [[province of Soria]] indicates that far more of them included rights of posesión in their wills in the 17th century, regarding these rights as part of their patrimony, than did so in the 16th century, and that such rights were exchanged between such owners. Although posesión gave rise to frequent legal disputes, these demonstrate an increase in the practice as much as opposition to it.<ref>Diago Hernando, p.70</ref>

The first two Spanish Bourbon kings, under the influence of the doctrines of [[mercantilism]] current in France, renewed Mesta privileges in 1726 and extended the law of posesión to Aragon.<ref>Marín Barriguete (2015), p. 384</ref> Their action was more successful than the 1633 renewal, as appeals in pasture disputes were moved to a court more favourable to the Mesta.<ref>Klein p.343</ref> In contrast to his predecessors, Charles III and his reforming ministers regarded posesión as a mediaeval survival that had outlived its usefulness and considered that its continuation inhibited a necessary growth in cereal cultivation.<ref>Marín Barriguete, (2015), pp. 389-91</ref> This led, firstly to a restriction of the right of posesión in 1761, and then its complete abolition in 1786.<ref>Klein pp.345</ref>

===Conflicts involving transhumance===
Cereal growing inevitably competed with sheep rearing, and the movement of flocks from the Old Castile to Andalucía created conflict between shepherds and the farmers cultivating crops along migration routes, as well as those local owners of sheep in areas of winter pasture.<ref>Braudel, p. 92</ref> During the 13th and 14th centuries, the widespread introduction of the [[carruca|heavy plough]] in Old Castile led to increased cereal production and led to the abandonment of marginal cultivation, creating more pasture. The emigration of much of the Muslim population from New Castile to Granada and North Africa also led to the abandonment of areas of dry farming there. These changes favoured stock-raising, and there was probably enough land for both pasture and arable farming at first.<ref name="Reilly, pp.139-40"/>

Laws confirming the Mesta's rights and tax privileges were issued seven times in the 14th century. However the frequency with which legislation was restated under relatively strong monarchs, and the absence of confirmatory legislation under weak ones, particularly for much of the 15th century, showed how extensive was resistance to the Mesta's privileges, as it required the Crown's support to enforce obedience to the laws protecting its members.<ref>Klein, pp. 190-1</ref> There is ample evidence from this period of disputes over unauthorised tolls and encroachment on the cañadas, and ploughing of pastures which might only be used for a few months a year.<ref>Klein, pp. 12, 20-1</ref> In theory, the Mesta had the right of pasturage and transit over all land except that in use for growing cereals, vineyards, orchards, hay meadows producing winter feed for cattle and land reserved for deer, but these mediaeval privileges had ceased to exist in reality by the end of the 15th century, largely because the frequency of encroachments on pasturelands and the numbers of unjustified tolls swamped the courts with far more cases than they could deal with adequately.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), pp.132-4</ref>

Itinerant judicial officials, each termed an ''Entregador'', were tasked with keeping open the cañadas and their watering and resting stations, resisting encroachments on public pastures and protecting the shepherds. Initially one such official patrolled each of the four main cañada systems, but their numbers were increased to six in the late 15th century, then later reduced to only three in 1650. They were initially appointed by the Crown to protect the interests of the Mesta and adjudicate in disputes it had with towns and the landowners along the transhumant routes. In 1568, the Entregadors became officers of the Mesta, and lost the prestige of being royal officials.<ref>Klein, pp.86-8</ref>

Flocks migrating south required stops for rest, feeding and watering om route and were vulnerable to excessive charges there, and to excessive rents charged at their destinations by owners of winter pastures. The shepherds had little alternative to paying or risking heavy livestock losses. The military orders also opposed the attempts of northern pastoralists to use winter grazing in their territories.<ref>Bishko (1963), pp. 62-3</ref> The strong monarchy of the late 15th and 16th centuries, which supported the export of merino wool, was better able to protect the members of the Mesta and the emergence of the right of ''posesión'' in the 16th century, attempted to control these charges and rents and guarantee shepherds access to the pastures at fixed prices, although there was increasing pressure for new arable farmland to be brought into use in the 18th century.<ref>García Sanz (1998), pp.82-4</ref>

Under the later Habsburg monarchs, there was increasing resistance to the passage of transhumant flocks. This led to the decline in smaller owners being involved in transhumance and the dominance of the Mesta by those with very large flocks, who had the money to pay for grazing along migration routes and the political influence to enforce their rights. The towns en route either tried to dissuade or divert transhumant flocks from their territory, or to extract as much as they could by leasing their pastures for flocks on their way to and from the south.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), pp 134-5</ref> Although, in theory, the Mesta's legal rights were clear and the association had an impressive apparatus to enforce them, these rights were breached when routes of the cañadas were moved away to fertile pastures or restricted to below their legal width, and illegal dues were imposed. Even where the Mesta's right were restored after lengthy court proceedings, those that had infringed them usually received no financial or other  penalty.<ref>Marín Barriguete (1992), pp 137-8</ref> Both summer and winter pastures used by transhumant sheep were supposed to remain unploughed and unsown, as was reconfirmed by a royal decree of 1748. In the 18th century, this uncultivated land came under great pressure as the numbers of transhumant sheep doubled, but rents for pasture were fixed and the land could not be used for crops.<ref>Simpson, pp. 63-57</ref>

During the 17th century, the powers and incomes of the Entregadors were steadily eroded by the courts, and the government granted exemptions from the Entregadors' jurisdiction to towns willing to pay for them and, by the end of that century they were virtually powerless against the courts and exempted towns, although the office remained in existence for another century.<ref>Klein, pp.122-4, 132-4</ref> By the start of the 18th century, local officials had taken over control of their towns’ grazing grounds, and had enclosing them on the basis that they were so covered with undergrowth as to be useless as pasturage, whether or mot this was accurate. By this time, the Mesta had suffered severely from the general economic decay of the 17th century, and its weakened Entregadors could no longer successfully oppose these local interests.<ref>Klein, pp.97, 105</ref>