Mesta

Mesta, Spanish sheep owners guild. Chartered by Alfonso X in 1273, the Mesta was granted important pastoral privileges and protection by the Castilian crown in exchange for financial contributions. It represented the interests of migratory sheepowners, whose flocks moved seasonally between northern and southern parts of Spain in search of pasture. In 1500 the organization came under the control of a royal council, thus giving the crown monopoly control over the wool, and in 1501 the Mesta received the right to use in perpetuity land it had once leased for a low rent. It was a source of increasing income for Ferdinand II (1452–1516) and Isabella I (1451–1504), who extended the traditional tax on herds to a tax on each sheep in the pasture. Frequently the source of hostile pasture disputes, the Mesta's privileges came under attack in the eighteenth century and were abolished during the reign of Charles III in 1780, when his minister Campomanes became president of the guild. The organization itself was finally destroyed by the liberals in 1836.

In Latin America, a similar institution took root and expanded in New Spain and enabled Spanish authorities some control over pastoral activities. Unlike Spain, the New World adaptation of the institution was designed to benefit all stockmen, not just members of a sheep-raising guild. Liberal opposition brought an end to it in 1812. Although the Spanish crown provided that the Mesta be established elsewhere in Spanish America, in other parts local cabildos managed grazing and pastoral affairs.

See alsoFerdinand II of Aragon; Livestock.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Julius Klein, The Mesta: A Study in Spanish Economic History (1920).

William H. Dusenberry, The Mexican Mesta (1963).

Nina Mikun, La Mesta au XVIII siècle: Étude d'histoire sociale et économique de l'Espagne au XVIII siècle (1983).

Jean Paul Le Flem, "El Valle de Alcudia en el siglo XVIII," in Congreso de Historia Rural: Siglo XV al XIX (1984).

Additional Bibliography

Pérez Marín, Tomás. Don Vicente Paíno y Hurtado: Defensor de Extremadura en la lucha contra la Mesta. Mérida, Badajoz: Editora Regional de Extremadura, 2000.

                            Suzanne Hiles Burkholder