[93] The economy of Córdoba and its territory has not, generally speaking, received nearly as much attention as that of neighbouring Seville or the well-known trade axis which connected Burgos with the Netherlands. One reason for the failure, until quite recently, to study the Cordoban material is the continuing preoccupation of many economic historians with the more spectacular manifestations of international trade. As a result of the belief, held by some, that the 'progress' of the European economy from a rural to an industrial base was caused in large measure by the development from the medieval period of towns and trade, economies such as that of western Andalusia have generally been studied only in terms of their part in the patterns of international commerce. Thus attention has been mainly focused on the ports of Málaga, Cádiz and Seville, which were used as trading stations by the Genoese, who dominated this sector of the economy from the thirteenth century onward. ⁽¹⁾ Whether such an evolutionary model is helpful or not in the study of economic development is a matter for debate, but in any case it is a fact which must be recognised that the late medieval Andalusian economy was primarily agrarian, particularly in the interior regions, such as Córdoba. In view of this, any investigation of the role of the city and its surrounding area in the production and marketing of commodities must begin with the organisation of agriculture.
 

Grain was and is the most basic of all agricultural products. It has been estimated that in the fifteenth century over sixty per cent of European food requirements were met by cereals, and in this general picture Andalusia figured as an exporting region. ⁽²⁾ As far as the production of grain is concerned, recent work by Ladero and González Jiménez now [94] makes it possible to calculate, at least approximately, the amount produced in various years in the Andalusian dioceses. ⁽³⁾ The calculations for total harvests in the diocese of Córdoba, as for other parts of Andalusia, are based on the yield of the tercias reales, the two-ninths of the ecclesiastical tithe which had been collected by the Crown since the thirteenth century. The tithe on cereals was collected in kind and thus Ladero has been able, by multiplying the tax-yield by forty-five, to calculate the probable total volume of grain production in the diocese between 1486 and 1510. ⁽⁴⁾ As was customary in Andalusia until quite recently, the grain produced was pan terciado, that is, two-thirds wheat and one-third barley, the wheat being devoted to human consumption and the barley being reserved for the plough animals. There are, as usual, various difficulties with the figures, which are incomplete because the city parish of St Mary, with its large stocks of grain in the hands of the bishop and Cathedral chapter, is not included, and neither are some of the more important señoríos, in which the lords legally or illegally collected the tithe for themselves. Nonetheless, the figures do give some indication of general trends in the period. As might be expected in an area of dry climate but without the assistance of irrigation, there could be variations, sometimes of up to thirty-three per cent, between consecutive harvests. There was a ten or fifteen per cent increase in average yields between 1495 and 1502, with a relapse in 1510. Ladero suggests that in order to compensate for the areas excluded from the tax documents, ten or fifteen per cent should be added to his published figures. ⁽⁵⁾

Approximate calculations of total yield are of limited interest without some information on the distribution of grain production and the amount produced per hectare. In order to estimate yields per hectare, Ladero works from the figures of Pierre Ponsot for the seventeenth century in western Andalusia, which are four or four-and-a-half to one for wheat and five or six to one for barley, increasing to five or six-and-a-half and ten or twelve to one, respectively, in the eighteenth century. The traditional measurement used in Castile for the weight and the capacity of grain, the fanega, had as its metric equivalents 55.5 litres or 44.3 kilograms. However, the fanega was also the name used to designate the area of land notionally required to produce that amount of grain, and was reckoned at about 0.4 Ha in the Toledo area and 0.6 Ha in Andalusia. On this basis, Ladero, following Ponsot, calculates the average yield in the kingdom of Seville in the late fifteenth century as about 11.1 to 12.5 Hl per hectare. ⁽⁶⁾ However, on the basis of an [95] estimate from a royal document of 1489, which gives a twelve-fold yield for the neighbouring Campiña of Ecija, Ladero believes that the contemporary yield in the Córdoba Campiña was probably similar. Thus if, as was normal practice, one or one-and-a-half hectolitres of cereal were sown on each hectare, the yield would vary between twelve hectolitres and eighteen, which would be considerably higher than the  yield in the kingdom of Seville as a whole. Such figures would, however, be apphcable only in the Campiña and not in the less fertile Sierra. ⁽⁷⁾

The area cultivated with grain in the late Middle Ages was probably about 32,000 to 48,000 Ha, with an equal area fallow, which is about half the area being used for grain in the province of Córdoba in the 1960s. According to the records of the tercias reales, about eighty per cent of this production came from the Campiña. By far the largest harvests, according to these figures, came from the southern towns, such as Castro del Río, Santaella, Hornachuelos and Montoro, which belonged to Córdoba, and Baena, Palma del Río and Montemayor in señorío. There was a smaller number of productive centres, such as Villapedroche, Fuente Obejuna and Belalcázar, in the Sierra. In order to go into greater detail, it is necessary to turn to the investigation which was undertaken for military purposes in September 1502, by the corregidor Diego López Dávalos on behalf of the Crown, of the grain-holdings of individuals. The investigation covered the royal towns of Castro del Río, La Rambla, Montoro, Adamuz, Bujalance, Pedro Abad, Santaclla, Pozoblanco and Fuente Obejuna, as well as the parishes of Córdoba itself.

The resulting totals, which survive in Simancas and have been published by Ladero, are particularly valuable as a statistical indication of the extent to which the leading inhabitants of Córdoba lived from the production of the tierra and its inhabitants. The investigation ignored all holdings of less than ten cahices (sixty-six litres) of rent, but this leaves all the major figures in the reckoning, and in the process a useful indication is also given of the distribution of the richer citizens among the parishes. Easily the richest parish in terms of grain rent was St Mary's, which included the Cathedral. The bishop's table (mesa), or household, alone held 13,200 Hl of grain, the other Cathedral dignitaries, including the canons, held 21 000 Hl and other individuals in the parish held 7,500 Hl. These included five veinticuatros and the widow of another, and all the others mentioned came from prominent office holding families. The next wealthiest parish in terms of grain, with 13,000 HI, was St Nicholas 'de la Villa'. Here the most important [96] holdings were those of the marquis of Priego, who lived in this parish and kept part of his grain there. Others mentioned include three veinticuatros, the wives of two others, the wife of a jurado and another jurado. Next came St Peter with 7,000 Hl, including the holdings of the Aguayo, De los Ríos and Cárcamo families, which all had offices in the town. Five other parishes, St Marina, St Saviour, St Mary Magdalene, All Saints' and St Dominic, produced totals ranging from 6,500 Hl to 3,500 Hl. The remaining parishes, St John, St Andrew, St Nicholas 'del Ajarquía', St Lawrence and St Michael, together mustered only eight per cent of the town's total stock. As Ladero observes, the investigation highlights the control exercised over the surrounding countryside by the politically dominant families of Córdoba. Apart from the bishop and chapter, only forty-eight corporations or individuals are recorded as holding more than fifty cahices (330 Hl) of grain, and it is clearly no accident that these individuals include members of office-holding families such as the Fernández de Córdoba, Méndez de Sotomayor, Venegas, Godoy, Hinestrosa, Páez de Castillejo, De los Ríos, Ponce de León, Argote, Carrillo, Cabrera, Narváez, Aguayo and Angulo.

Equally valuable are the results of this investigation in the tierra. Here, the corregidor's officials, who acted in conjunction with the local magistrates and constable in each place, seem to have encountered considerable resistance. Seignorial towns were not visited at all and in realengo many inhabitants went away, leaving their relatives or servants to answer the investigators' questions. Nonetheless, the results give the best available indication of who received rent in grain in each of the nine places visited, how much they received, the types of farm which they had, their size and rent regime. The investigators were also to ask about the purchase of grain for resale, but, significantly, there are no answers to this question.

The full results have been published by Ladero, but in general terms they confirm those of the holdings in Córdoba itself. The difference is that the answers from the término also show those who failed to produce a surplus of grain. The most extreme case recorded is that of Pozoblanco, in the Sierra, where no one declared a surplus and there were no absentee landlords. In contrast, in Castro del Río, in the Campiña, thirty-two arable farms (cortijos), parcels and milis produced the massive total of 5871 Hl of grain in rent. Nearly all of this was delivered either to the Church or to the houses of private individuals in Córdoba. The importance of absentee landlords in the Campiña is illustrated by [97] the fact that two such proprietors held 536 Hl of wheat and 182 Hl of barley in Bujalance. Five absentee landlords between them held 1449 Hl of wheat and 683 Hl of barley in Santaella. In contrast, even in these and other major centres of grain production, such as Adamuz, La Rambla and Fuente Obejuna, very few people actually had any grain to spare after paying their rent in kind and supplying their own needs. Ladero quotes the example of two peasants in Pedro Abad who produced a harvest of 140 fanegas (77.7 Hl), but after handing over forty-six fanegas in rent and allocating the necessary amounts for their own consumption and as seed-corn they were left with a surplus of only fifteen fanegas. The document suggests that many tenant-farmers in the Córdoba area were not even in this precarious state. In La Rambla, some declared that they were not producing enough to live on, and the tenants of the cortijo of Algallarín, near Adamuz, which was owned by the Jeronymite monastery of Valparaíso, answered that after paying the rent they did not have enough grain for food and seed and had to buy it elsewhere. If even tenant-farmers (labradores), who were by no means at the bottom of the rural hierarchy, were in such straits, it is not hard to imagine that much of the population of the Córdoba countryside in the early sixteenth century must have been on the verge of starvation at most times.

Although not designed for that purpose, the 1502 investigation does give some indication of the structure of land-holding. It is clear that the pattern of large-scale absentee landlordship, which has already been described in a general Andalusian context, applied in the Córdoba district and particularly in the Campiña. There were small landholders, especially in the ruedos which surrounded the towns of the tierra, but most peasants worked on other people's land. Some of those recorded in the 1502 investigation held public office in one of these towns and others are described as stewards for absentee landlords, but most were simply ordinary tax-payers. Fuente Obejuna was unusual in apparently having a more equitable distribution of land and no absentee landlords. In this area, it appears that far more peasants worked their own land. ⁽⁸⁾

The conditions under which the arable land of the region was worked are best shown in contracts recorded in the notarial registers of the city itself, which include sub-lettings as well as the activities of absentee landlords. It was normal, but not inevitable, that a complete cortijo should be let to one person or group of people. Quarter- or third-shares were quite commonly let separately. The contracts were almost always arrendamientos for a period of years between three and eight, and the [98] rent was generally fixed at a certain quantity, expressed in cahices, of pan terciado, to be delivered each year to the owner, generally at his or her house in Córdoba. The tenant was expected to pay the tithe on the grain concerned. ⁽⁹⁾ Somewhat exceptionally, the alcaide de los donceles in 1507 let a cortijo in the Campiña near Aguilarejo to Juan Prieto, a blacksmith, for a rent of 27,000 mrs in cash per annum for three years. ⁽¹⁰⁾ It is unfortunately rare for tenants' occupations to be mentioned in contracts, though it was common for consortia to rent farms from their landlords. There is also evidence of sub-letting for purposes of exploitation. In November 1485, for example, Alfón Beltrán, a citizen of the parish of St Lawrence, let to a fellow-citizen of the parish two cahices (14.4 Hl) of arable land which he had rented for three years from Juan de Cabra, in the Cortijo de la Almedilla. More interesting, perhaps, is a rare contract of February 1481, involving the letting of arable land in return for a perpetual censo, or ground-rent. Alfón Fernández, a stone-mason of the suburb of Torre Malmuerta, which was counted in the parish of St Marina, gave to a labourer, Rodrigo Alonso, and his wife, who lived in the same suburb, a piece of arable land with space for building one or more houses, in a site identified only by the adjoining properties, in return for a perpetual censo of 150 mrs per annum. The conditions were that Alonso was free to sell or otherwise dispose of the land, provided that he did not do so to 'a knight, or to a monastery, or to a powerful man', or without offering it back to the lord first. It is unclear whether this lord was someone other than the stone-mason, but it seems probable that he was and that the contract represents the sub-letting of property held for censo from an unnamed third party. This and the indication in the contract that a future sale of the censo by the tenant to another was envisaged, serve to illustrate the large measure of freedom of disposal which was allowed to those who held lands or other property by censo. ⁽¹¹⁾
 

Incomplete as the surviving figures for grain production may be, and clearly both tax-returns and investigations of the kind made in 1502 are highly susceptible to error, they are nonetheless better than any which are available for the other staples of Mediterranean agriculture, wine and olive oil. One important source for the location, if not the quantity, of wine production is the account of the tithes collected by the bishop of Córdoba in 1510, which is preserved in the Cathedral archive and [99] has been published by Cabrera. ⁽¹²⁾ In that year, ten percent of the bishop's rents, calculated in maravedís, came from wine, twelve per cent if only tithes are included. ⁽¹³⁾ The main alternative source of information on the location of vines is the notarial archive, but references in private contracts conflict, in some cases, with the bishop's lists. The reason for this discrepancy seems to be that the 1510 document only includes the sums still owing in rent on wine and not the full amount due. In addition, the notarial registers in Córdoba do not normally include contracts concerning seignorial towns.

The large totals ascribed to the city parishes once again indicate the extent to which Córdoba's citizens benefited from the production of the countryside. On the whole, the values recorded as owing to the bishop on wine in the different parishes correspond to the distribution of wealth in terms of grain-holdings. Once again, the largest total is that of the Cathedral parish of St Mary, followed by those of St Marina, St Mary Magdalene, St Peter, St Dominic and St Nicholas 'de la Villa'. The smaller totals are those of St John, St Saviour, St Nicholas 'del Ajarquía, and St James, the last having apparently been omitted from the grain investigation of 1502, as All Saints' was from the 1510 document. Notarial evidence suggests that the main areas of wine production in the tierra were in the river valley around Córdoba itself and Alcolea, in the Sierra round Trassierra, in Fuente Obejuna to the north and around Bujalance, La Rambla and Santaella in the Campiña. On the whole this impression is confirmed by the list of episcopal rents. Of the places just mentioned, large totals are ascribed to Trassierra, Fuente Obejuna and Bujalance and smaller amounts to Santaella, La Rambla and Alcolea. To supplement the notarial evidence, sizable totals are recorded for the seignorial towns of Fernán Núñez and Luque in the Campiña and Chillón far to the north. Additional royal towns mentioned include Almodóvar del Río, Montoro, Adamuz, Hornachuelos and the towns of the Pedroche. ⁽¹⁴⁾

Unfortunately, the figures for olive oil in the 1510 document are even more fragmentary than those for wine, as it appears that the farmers of the rent had largely settled their accounts when the list was drawn up. About seven per cent of the bishop's rents in that year seem to have come from the proceeds of olive cultivation, and the main areas of production mentioned are Castro del Río, together with the neighbouring seignorial town of Espejo, Fernán Núñez, Posadas, Adamuz, Santaella and Hornachuelos, to which the notarial documents add La Rambla and the Sierra of Córdoba. ⁽¹⁵⁾

[100] As elsewhere in Andalusia, vines and olive-trees were commonly cultivated in the same properties, so that it is desirable to study the organisation of production of both commodities at the same time. There is no general survey of wine and oil holdings to match that for grain. Instead, references in notarial documents must be used. The normal unit of measurement for the area of vineyards and olive groves was the aranzada (0.37 Ha), but the exact size of holdings was rarely included in contracts, which generally refer to pedazos (parcels) of vines or olive-trees. The contracts normally included buildings such as stores (bodegas) and houses for labourers, as well as presses for the grapes and olives. In contrast with arable land, vineyards and olive-groves were commonly let for one or two lives in return for a censo, or ground-rent, paid mostly in cash but partly in kind. Less frequently, lettings (arrendamientos) were made for between two and nine years, in return for an annual rent which was also paid mostly in cash but partly in kind. ⁽¹⁶⁾ The vineyards and olive-groves of the Córdoba area, which like those elsewhere were grouped in pagos, were often held by members of the upper echelons of local society. Thus the contracts already referred to involved properties held by Don Martín de Guzmán, the widow of the veinticuatro Gonzalo Yáñez de Godoy, Egas Venegas, who was lord of Luque, and Doña María de Sotomayor, the daughter of the lord of El Carpio. However, as Manuel González discovered in Carmona, this kind of property, unlike most arable lands, could still be found, in the late Middle Ages, in the hands of lesser men, including tradesmen and artisans. ⁽¹⁷⁾ Thus in 1483, Juan Rodríguez, a carpenter, let some vines in the Sierra of Córdoba for three years and there is considerable evidence of the ownership of vineyards, with power of free disposal, by shoe-makers, fruiterers and even labourers (trabajadores). ⁽¹⁸⁾
 

It is also appropriate to consider briefly at this stage the cultivation of fruit, particularly oranges, lemons and pomegranates, and vegetables. Orchards and market-gardens, often irrigated (huertas), were mainly to be found in the valleys of the Guadalquivir and Guadajoz, and the largest concentration was naturally around, or even within, Córdoba itself and devoted to the supply of the urban market. These properties were let in a similar manner to that employed for vineyards and olive groves, and huertas might be divided into very small sections or let to [101] share-croppers. Huertas often formed part of properties which were primarily used for vines or olive-trees. ⁽¹⁹⁾

It is clear that, apart from the extraction of surplus agricultural production from the surrounding countryside, the disposal of surpluses was the essential feature of the regional economy. The Christians who reconquered Córdoba in the thirteenth century inherited a highly urbanised economy in which the central markets of the city dominated the sales and purchases of rural inhabitants. In Islamic Córdoba, the main commercial quarter was, as elsewhere, the alcaicería (in Arabic, al-qaysariyya). This term covered an area of shops and workshops for artisans and traders, which might be shut off from the rest of the city when required and which generally belonged to the ruler, who let the shops to individual tenants. Those who occupied the alcaicería itself were generally engaged in skilled and luxury trades. The rest of the Islamic market structure of the larger towns, such as Córdoba, consisted of a nearby square or squares where transactions not requiring permanent buildings might be carried out, and further markets close to the gates, where producers from the countryside might dispose of their surplus and acquire cash in order to pay taxes which were collected in specie and to make purchases for themselves if they were lucky enough to have any money to spare. ⁽²⁰⁾

Unfortunately, there is no surviving plan of Córdoba before 1811, but even at that date the Muslim influence on the layout of the city was still obvious. Town-planning as such was not part of the Islamic conception of urban life. Instead, life revolved round the central religious and trading quarter, in the Medina. Roads led directly from the town gates to this central area, which contained the Great Mosque and the main markets. Otherwise, there was no street-plan as such, and it is more than probable that late medieval Córdoba still presented a predominantly Muslim appearance. The Mosque had been little altered, at least from the outside, and apart from a few palaces, which were more like fortresses than their Renaissance and Baroque successors, and the parish churches, there were few buildings large or impressive enough to be distinguished from ordinary dwelling-houses, shops or workshops. The Islamic view of domestic architecture as providing refuges of peace and seclusion from the heat and bustle of the streets and squares had led to a profusion of blind alleys, which could be shut [102] off in case of civil disturbance. Such features still existed and still had their uses in the late fifteenth century.

The Córdoba alcaicería occupied a more or less square block of about 2,500 square metres, which survived in the late Middle Ages, immediately to the east of the mosque in the parish of St Mary. It had four main gates, which were shut at night, and probably consisted of about a hundred tiendas (shops or workshops), which were used both for the manufacture and for the sale of luxury goods. These tiendas probably did not contain living accommodation, other than for watchmen, although they are often referred to as casas tiendas. Cloth-merchants, silk-merchants, goldsmiths, shoe-makers, blacksmiths and many other traders and craftsmen were represented, each group having its own street or part of a street. This Islamic practice was reinforced by the 1435 municipal ordinances. The tenants held their shops in the alcaicería by annual rent. The sum of three maravedís, a peppercorn rent, had to be paid to the farmers of the rent in the first fortnight of January. However, the payment of this sum only guaranteed entry to an auction (subasta) which was held over the next four months. Only one tenant was allowed in each shop, except in the case of a father and son. Agreements by prospective tenants to keep their bids low seem to have been common. ⁽²¹⁾

In the early stages after the Reconquest, the Crown retained a considerable direct interest in the urban economy, which was inherited from the former Muslim rulers. Some of this remained in the fifteenth century. For example, in addition to the alcaicería, the Crown possessed four cobblers' workshops, known as realejos, in various parts of the town, which were let annually for a cash rent of 1800 mrs and a chicken or fish, in the late fifteenth century. However, most other royal possessions of this kind were gradually given away to secular or ecclesiastical lords. As has already been noted, the limitation of sales-points for taxed goods was encouraged in order to facilitate collection, and a case in point is the grain market (alhóndiga), which remained in its traditional place, close to the alcaicería and the mosque. Grain was supposed to be brought there for taxation and sale, but the alhóndiga was apparently alienated for the first time to a nobleman as early as 1241. In 1261, Alfonso X granted thirty-three pottery workshops in the parish of St Mary to the Cathedral chapter. In the late fourteenth century, the alienation of the rents of the alcaicería began and in 1393 Henry III granted all the royal tiendas therein, together with the shops in the corral of the alhóndiga, to the brothers Alfonso and Ruy Méndez [103] de Sotomayor, who were both veinticuatros of Córdoba. Among the additional concessions included in this grant was the almotaclacía, which was a rent paid by the tenants of shops in the alcaicería. Not all the shops were in royal hands, as some contracts for private sales exist, but most of the alcaicería remained in the Méndez de Sotomayor family throughout the fifteenth century, until on 30 December 1489, Don Alonso de Aguilar, head of the house of that name, bought half the shops, the rent of almotaclacía, and the realejos, together with a share of the almojarifazgo, for 350,000 mrs, from Luis Méndez de Sotomayor. A year later, he bought the rest from Luis's cousin, Gonzalo Méndez, for the same amount. For the purpose of a fictitious sale of these assets by Don Alonso to his son, Don Pedro Fernández de Córdoba, in 1497, they were valued at a million maravedís. ⁽²²⁾

A similar mixture of public control and private enterprise existed in the case of the meat markets. The traditional points for the slaughter of livestock and sale of meat, the carnicerías, were in the parishes of St Andrew, St Saviour and St Mary. An additional carnicería was opened in the parish of St Mary Magdalene in 1504, at a cost of 1245 mrs to council funds. The requirement that all meat should be sold at these fixed points was confirmed by the Crown in 1493. However, the town council engaged in a long battle to gain control over the slaughterhouse (matadero) in the Plaza de la Corredera, which belonged to the Cathedral. The ecclesiastics had begun a process in Church courts before 1489, in order to preserve their rights. Despite the diversion of the case to secular courts, the slaughterhouse remained in the Church's control, but the council was allowed to use it. ⁽²³⁾

Mention has already been made of the almotacén, the municipal official who was responsible for supervising markets and, in particular, weights and measures. The name is a transcription of the Arabic muhtasib, an official who, in the Islamic world and originally in Syria, had supervised the administration of the special law called hisba (calculation), which had been developed on Hellenistic models for the control of urban economic life. Hisba legislation became a part of Christian practice in the eleventh-century Reconquest, and by the twelfth century the almotacén had become the normal chief market official in the towns of Castile and León. In the process of transfer from one culture to another, he may have abandoned his Islamic links, but in some cases, at least, he acquired even more powers than his Muslim predecessors. In Andalusian towns such as Córdoba, the office of the almotacenazgo became after the Reconquest a municipal rent. In [104] Córdoba, it was alienated to the Méndez de Sotomayor and the lord of Luque, in the early fifteenth century, but by the Catholic Monarchs' period it had been returned to the council and was being administered by fieles. Apart from the charges for the use of the official measures, the almotacenazgo consisted largely of taxes on the importation of foodstuffs and manufactured goods by non-citizens. ⁽²⁴⁾

Any attempt to describe the full diversity of the urban economy of Córdoba would inevitably become a catalogue. Even if the Christian city was considerably smaller, both in area and in population, than its Muslim predecessor, it nonetheless retained a vast range of trades and crafts, many of them specialised and sophisticated. However, in order to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of the economy of the whole region, it is necessary to examine the supply of certain basic commodities to the city.
 

Among agricultural staples, it has already become clear that wine production was a significant activity in the region and that vineyards were an important source of wealth, not only to the leaders of local society but also to quite humble traders and artisans. Licences issued by the council to individuals for the tax-free import of their own wine for private consumption or for some special occasion, such as a wedding, indicate the involvement in this activity of virtually all the veinticuatros and jurados, various monasteries and individual churchmen, merchants and artisans and inhabitants of the tierra. The frequency of these licences, which are recorded in the council acts, is greatest in the summer months, but there seems to have been no month in which the traffic stopped. However, while it is easy to show the importance of wine production in the area, it is not certain that the Córdoba district was self-sufficient. In 1479, the council discussed the illegal import of 'Castiian wine' and a commission was set up to investigate. In 1493, Pedro de Illescas was fined 5000 mrs for selling Castilian wine in Córdoba. Nonetheless, the fact that no special measures concerning wine were taken in the emergency period of the early sixteenth century suggests that the region was indeed largely self-sufficient. ⁽²⁵⁾

Until 1497, it seems that the town council made no attempt to regulate the wine trade, beyond those measures necessary to ensure the [105] collection of taxes on import and sale. However, in January of that year, the council discussed the problem of 'regrating' or speculation in the retailing of wine. The alcalde de la justicia, Gonzalo Monzón, issued a requerimiento to the council to act and as a result the producers were asked, parish by parish, to state their views on the best way of marketing their wine. As so often, the discussions proved inconclusive, but from February 1497 onwards the licences granted by the council to producers to sell their wine in private taverns were recorded in the actas capitulares. Clearly, the wine-growing interest was a powerful one and this is shown by the prominence of veinticuatros and jurados among the recipients of tavern licences. As always, taverns remained a regular source of disorder among the urban population. ⁽²⁶⁾

The supply of olive oil, like that of wine, seems to have remained in the hands of producers, who sold their surplus in private outlets scattered throughout the city. Although a council licence was needed in order to construct an olive-mill, none was required in order to retail the oil and the few attempts at municipal regulation were limited to bans on export during the apparently small number of periods, such as 1503, 1507 and 1514, when supply failed to match demand, and to vain efforts to control prices. The producers claimed, when faced with price controls, that there were ample supplies available, but although in 1514 one veinticuatro went so far as to propose that council members who owned olive-groves should leave the chamber when the subject was discussed, municipal regulation seems to have been largely ineffective. ⁽²⁷⁾

More successful efforts were made by the council to control the supply of salt to Córdoba. Although this traditional regalian right had been alienated to secular nobles by the fifteenth century, the concessionaries who held the salt-workings in Castro, Espejo and Aguilar, only the first of which was still a royal town, were not allowed to sell any of their production until the supply of the city had been assured, apart from seventy cahices (37.2 tonnes) which they might sell to cover the cost of production. According to the 1435 ordinances, all citizens of Córdoba who produced for the council's fiel a document certifying their citizenship, in the Plaza de la Corredera between 15 August and 30 September, [106] might receive a quota of salt, according to their social rank. An alcalde mayor would receive twenty-four fanegas, a veinticuatro eighteen, a jurado twelve, a caballero de premia eight and an ordinary citizen or the widow of a caballero de premia four. In 1500, the Crown ordered the corregidor to investigate whether the system was still working satisfactorily. Unfortunately, the identity of the holders of the salt-workings in the later period is not revealed in the documents. ⁽²⁸⁾

As in other Andalusian towns, the production of soap in Córdoba was a monopoly in private hands, but under the supervision of the council. This was already the case when the 1435 ordinances were drawn up and the soap was made in special houses, the casas de almona, which were situated in the parish of St Peter in Córdoba and at various points in the tierra. In 1489, the Crown decreed that soap should be made and sold in the city, at a fixed price, by the monopoly-holders, who were to be authorised by the royal council. After this, the claim of the veinticuatro Juan de Sosa to a share in the monopoly was referred to that body. He appears to have lost his claim, as after Lic. de Aguila had been sent to investigate, the owners of the casas de almona were said to be Gonzalo Carrillo, Egas Venegas and Alfonso de Aguayo, all veinticuatros, and Doña Juana de Horosco. The owners did not exploit their holdings personally, but let them en bloc to another individual. In 1477 this was Antón Martínez, the son of the jurado of St Peter's, Martín Alonso, and in 1486, 1493, 1494, and 1495 it was another of Martín Alonso's sons, Pedro Fernández, who is described as a cloth-merchant (trapero). Lettings of casas de almona were normally for a period of one to three years, in return for a cash rent and an annual tribute, generally of chickens. The same applied to contracts for sub-letting such houses in the tierra. The monopolists were protected by the town council, with the support of the Crown, provided that they submitted to price-control. Negotiations were conducted between the council and the 'lords of the almona', not the tenants. In 1489, the Crown accepted the monopolists' rights, but stipulated that those who had charged more than the agreed price were to pay a levy to the town in compensation. In 1490, the council announced that soap was to be obtained only from these almonas and that the price was to be five maravedís a pound. After an investigation by the royal council, in 1493, the profit margin was fixed at one maravedí per pound. The almonas were supervised by the [107] council, which also protected the monopolists from illegal competition. The council fixed the price of soap by means of an assay, in which the ingredients required to produce fifty-eight pounds of soap -- one arroba of olive oil, one-third of a load of firewood, one fanega of ashes and one fanega of lime -- were taken and priced. The resulting price was then set by the full council, to include the statutory profit margin. This procedure was meant to be carried out every four months. Most of the results survive between 1493 and 1514, indicating a variation in price per pound between 3.5 and 5.0 mrs. ⁽²⁹⁾

It is generally only in cases where a monopoly existed that prices were controlled by the council. The marketing of fish in Córdoba was in the hands of the fishermen themselves, who appear to have formed their own trading guild (gremio) for the retail of fish. The main issue in this period was the attempt by individual citizens to prevent the use of rivers and streams within their lands for this purpose. In 1478, the Crown ordered the justices of Córdoba to act against anyone who threatened the goods of its fishermen and in 1489 the council was ordered to maintain the guild's privileges. The royal policy was given further impetus when the judges of boundaries, Diego de Rojas and Lic. Sancho Sánchez de Montiel, whose main activities will be surveyed shortly, heard cases against Pedro de Porras in 1478 and Diego Fernández de Córdoba, veinticuatro of Córdoba and governor of the castle of Almodóvar del Río, in 1490, for closing fisheries to general use by the city's fishermen. In September 1493 the Crown went further and proposed to the council that a monopoly for the sale of fish should be introduced. Apparently in anticipation of resistance, the alcalde mayor was told to impose the new system if the council had not agreed to it within a week. In the event, the council voted against it by twenty to one, with two abstentions, among the veinticuatros, and four to none among the jurados, whose opinion was asked for once, on the grounds that a large number of citizens would be harmed if the system were changed and that the current price of nine maravedís a pound did not justify a monopoly. The scheme for Córdoba seems to have been quickly forgotten, but there was apparently a monopoly in Bujalance, at least, among the towns in the tierra. It was normally only at the beginning of Lent that the council attempted to regulate fish prices, so as to avoid profiteering in a time of special demand, and otherwise there [108] were no controls. Fish might be imported via Seville to Córdoba by a royal privilege of 1440, confirmed in 1478, but the scale of the traffic is not known. ⁽³⁰⁾

Very great importance was attached by the council to the supply of meat to Córdoba. The method used in order to ensure that the markets always had enough meat to sell was to turn the supply (abasto) into a rent, which was farmed out to certain individuals, who might or might not be butchers themselves. The agreement would cover beef, pork and the meat of castrated goats, to be sold at a fixed price per pound, and would normally run from about Pentecost until the first of the three days preceding Ash Wednesday, known as Carnestolendas, in the following year. Summer and winter prices were generally included in the contract, changing over in May-June and November-December. It was normal for the council to fix a price for merino mutton in Lent.

It was the responsibility of the municipal market officials to check that the butchers' stalls were stocked for enough hours in the day and levy fines if they were not. The council might, in case of need, order the butchers to slaughter animals sooner than they had intended. At the time when the Crown was introducing encabezamientos for the alcabala to many Castilian towns, it proposed, in 1493, that Córdoba should make abasto agreements for meat over four or five years at a time, but the local council successfully rejected the proposal. One problem seems to have been the involvement of council members in abasto consortia. In 1498, Diego de Aguayo was one of the suppliers and in 1501 Alonso de los Ríos, lord of Fernán Núñez, followed suit. In 1502, the council decreed that veinticuatros and jurados should not contract for the meat supply, but very soon the arrangements collapsed. In the summer of 1502, the two contractors, Alfonso Fernández Malcome and Pedro Sillero, were arrested by the Inquisition and the council at first failed to find substitutes. It is interesting to note that during its attempts, it discovered that the cost of undertaking the supply was between 600,000 and 700,000 mrs. Egas Venegas offered to lend the council the money, if two publicly owned dehesas were given as securities, but the council was rescued by a group of butchers who signed a contract of the normal type in September 1502. The dehesas of Villalobos and La Bastida, which Egas Venegas had been hoping to take over, were apparently let by the council to butchers for the grazing of livestock for slaughter. On 17 October 1502, for example, the [109] council agreed to pay six maravedís a pound for the meat produced in the dehesa of La Bastida, to a consortium of tenants led by Diego de Palma. The production of the property was estimated at 833 pounds of meat. ⁽³¹⁾
 

The difficulties with the meat supply in 1502 began a period of severe problems in the supply of vital commodities, and in particular meat and grain, to the town. These years are worthy of detailed consideration, because they reveal the consequences for regional society of the distribution of political power and economic resources which has already been described. As far as meat is concerned, acute shortages seem to have begun in 1504. In August of that year, the council ordered all those within its jurisdiction who were rearing sheep for meat (carneros) to slaughter one-third of their stock at once, but not to sell the rest, on pain of a large fine to the royal exchequer. The export of livestock from Córdoba's territory was also banned. In 1505, however, the town's problems became even more acute, when no Córdoba butchers came forward to take on the abasto contract, and the council sent in desperation to other towns, such as Jaén, Ubeda, Baeza, Ecija and even Jerez, seeking suppliers. As a temporary expedient, various veinticuatros offered loans, as did the corregidor and one jurado. At the beginning of March, a group of cloth- and general merchants undertook the contract, but by the time arrangements were made for 1506, many of the town's flocks had died and the council failed to find a supplier. As it was at the same time struggling to find money to pay for grain imports, there seemed little hope that the 500,000 mrs for the year's meat could be found. The council petitioned the Crown to allow an imposition on wine to help repay loans for the purchase of meat. Livestock-owners were threatened with confiscation of goods, according to the quotas allocated to them earlier in royal levies of animals in wartime. In addition, to encourage stock-breeders to slaughter their animals, all taxes on the sale of cows and oxen were temporarily abolished. There were, however, repercussions. First, the tax-farmers naturally complained that the three meat rents were not being collected. Then the Crown reacted to complaints from Córdoba's butchers about the council's threats against them. The town was ordered to send a representative to Granada [110] to discuss the matter with the audiencia. After this, an unhelpful letter arrived from Ferdinand, instructing the town to find suppliers, so that the meat rents might be collected once more. The council could only reply by pointing out the difficulties. There were similar problems in 1507 and the situation did not significantly improve until after 1510. The most important change in the later period was the direct sale of animals from private lands at the public markets in 1513. Those who by-passed the traditional monopoly of retailing in this way included several office-holders, such as Pedro de los Ríos and Cristóbal de Morales. In the following year, the financing of the meat supply was reformed, on royal orders. A fund of 460,000 mrs was to be devoted to this purpose and kept in a chest with keys held, one by the corregidor, one by the veinticuatros and one by the jurados. The money was to come half from the previous suppliers and half from the council. The council appointed deputies to supervise the working of the system and a group of butchers continued to supply the meat to the markets in the usual way. ⁽³²⁾

It is not possible to consider the problems of meat supply in Córdoba without also taking into account the question of cereals in the region. As should become clear when legislative and commercial measures on the subject are examined, the balance between pastoralism and cultivation was of vital importance to the development of Andalusian society and, indeed, to the fate of Spain as an imperial power in the sixteenth century.

In the light of Ibarra's important study, it has been taken as axiomatic that the Catholic Monarchs had a definite policy on grain, which was to regulate both prices, by means of fixed charges, and trading movements, by means of export controls and the construction of a network of public granaries, or alhóndigas. Ibarra provides ample evidence that such a policy was being implemented by the Crown by the early sixteenth century, but it is interesting to see what actually happened in an area such as Córdoba. ⁽³³⁾ In contrast with the region round Jerez, Córdoba was not especially noted as an exporting area for grain. There are records of licence being granted to individuals for the export of grain consignments in 1479, but these are insignificant in comparison with the traffic out of Jerez. ⁽³⁴⁾ As in other parts of Andalusia, the harvests in the Córdoba area in the last years of the fifteenth century [111] seem to have been satisfactory, but in November 1502, the council began to take steps to protect its supplies from the holders of royal export licences. At this time, it followed up the September investigation of individual holdings, which has already been referred to, with a royal letter ordering 'lords of vassals' not to obstruct the flow of grain to Córdoba. In July 1504, the council appointed two caballeros de premia from each town in the tierra to patrol their local area in order to prevent the illegal export of grain. Such was the zeal of these guards that in 1505 the council agreed to return some consignments which had been incorrectly seized at Castro and Bujalance, from individuals who included Alfonso de Córdoba, lord of Zuheros. ⁽³⁵⁾

Before the emergency became general, in April 1506, extra supplies were obtained for Córdoba from seignorial towns which still had a surplus. The dependence of the town on private individuals, first in terms of grain shipments and later in cash, became ever more obvious and led to the paradoxical position in which the council was attempting to preserve the sale of grain as a process under public control, to which private interests were to be subordinated, and at the same time becoming totally dependent on those interests for the grain that was sold. Thus while shipments were arriving from seignorial towns, their lords were officially excluded from trading in grain because they held offices in Córdoba as well. The seriousness of the crisis ended this contradiction, however, as in April 1506, everyone who had grain was authorised to sell it, the avowed reason being the threat of disorder if this was not done. The council ordered that all remaining supplies should be brought to the council meeting-house and, when it became clear that no more was forthcoming locally, the Crown was petitioned for help. Eventually, 90,000 fanegas of wheat arrived from Sicily and 40,000 from France, but the council could not pay for the grain and was forced to ask Genoese merchants in Seville to buy it at the dockside, on behalf of Córdoba, with the council's publicly owned property as a security of reimbursement. The guarantee for the Sicilian shipment was the enormous sum of 10,000 ducats (750,000 mrs), which could only be supplied from the fortunes of the local magnates, who therefore had to advance both cash and securities. The grain was transported from Seville to Córdoba on carts, some of which seem to have been commandeered from various towns in the tierra. ⁽³⁶⁾

Complaints were regularly made in and to the council about the quality of the grain that was being shipped and there were threats of paying less if it did not improve, but of course nothing came of them. Ultimately, [112] the success of the town's efforts to secure adequate supplies of the available foreign grain depended on the council's credit rating, and it soon became clear that this was not great. The Genoese let it be known that 'for greater security and their own good', they preferred to do business with private individuals rather than the council, when securities were required. Thus when the lords no longer had grain to supply, the town still depended on them for cash. As a temporary expedient, it was possible for the council to excuse itself from paying Francisco de Riberol for the Sicilian grain which the Genoese had supplied, on the grounds that this had been a transaction between private individuals, but ultimately the council was held responsible. In 1510, it agreed that its mayordomo, Luis de Valenzuela, should repay, from the fund which had been set up during the emergency to finance the import of grain, the sum of 300,000 mrs, which had been transferred to it from the money held by the corregidor for works on the fortifications of the Calahorra. The rest of the grain fund (depósito) was to be paid to the Genoese, Francisco de Riberol and Antonio de Sopranis, and supplemented from the bread sisa if necessary. After an agreement between the corregidor and the creditors, the letters of obligation which had been signed when the contract was first drawn up in 1506 were deposited with a Genoese, Domingo de Marín, and a Cordoban cloth-merchant, Juan García, until the debt was paid. Four years later, Antonio de Sopranis obtained a letter of execution from the royal council, ordering the mayordomo to produce 576,170 mrs which had been deposited with him by the veinticuatro Pedro Muñiz de Godoy. The mayordomo persuaded the council to reduce the amount to 332,170 mrs and, on 9 October 1514, the town pledged its property for the repayment of 315,915 mrs. There was little sign of a settlement, however. ⁽³⁷⁾

So far, in order to explain Córdoba's difficulties over grain supply in the early sixteenth century, it has been assumed that the cause of the problem was a series of bad harvests, between 1502 and 1507 in Córdoba and from a year later in the kingdom of Seville. It has also been assumed, by Ibarra and others, that the introduction by the Crown in 1502 of fixed prices, a tasa, of 110 mrs per fanega for wheat and 60 mrs for barley, was an attempt to halt price-rises which were caused, as usual, by shortages. However, the evidence for grain production in Córdoba and the rest of Andalusia, which has already been quoted, suggests that the cause of the supply problems in these years was not poor harvests but a failure to put grain on the market, possibly accompanied [113] by a rising population, at least until the plague of 1507. It appears that the 1502 harvest was well up to the level of the 1490s in the kingdom of Córdoba, and Ladero suggests that it was the Crown's attempt to set grain prices at a lower and more stable level which initially created shortages. The intention may have been, as Ibarra thought, to help ensure cheaper grain for ordinary people and reduce the export traffic which the Crown itself had earlier fomented by issuing licences. Another motive was probably to obtain as much cheap grain as possible from Castile and Andalusia for military campaigns in Roussillon and Naples. The result of the 1502 lasa as applied in Córdoba has already been made plain and the local council was in no doubt as to the cause of the problem. In April 1503 it was openly stated that the low prices paid under the lasa were deterring those with surplus grain from sending it to the market and as the council was itself dominated by major grain-producers, it was in the best possible position to know. There is no record in Córdoba of prices as high as the 600 or 1000 mrs per fanega recorded in Seville in 1503-6, but the agreement for selling one-third of the Sicilian consignment in 1506 specified a price of 310 mrs per fanega, while the French wheat was sold at 260 mrs a fanega. When the official prices were first introduced to Córdoba in February 1503, they involved reductions in the prices fixed the previous November by the council, from 136 to 110 mrs a fanega for wheat and 68 to 60 mrs for barley. Almost immediately, though, the pragmatic of 1502 became irrelevant, and Ladero's summary of the causes of the problem cannot be bettered:
 

Certainly it will be difficult to find a better example of a cereal crisis in whose origin and development the maladroit application of political measures and speculative zeal played a larger part. As a result, when Isabella I died, Andalusia and the Crown of Castile as a whole were suffering from the worst general famine of the reign. ⁽³⁸⁾
 

One other factor is inescapable in explaining the problems of grain supply in Córdoba in the early sixteenth century, and this is the role of pastoralism in the regional economy. Increasing stress has been placed in recent work on the importance of stock-breeding in western Andalusia. Much effort was devoted to the raising of cattle, which not only contributed to meat supplies but also supported the leather crafts for which Córdoba had been famous since Muslim times, though [114] unfortunately there are no detailed figures for cattle ownership. Nonetheless, even if the numbers of cattle were increasing and cow-hide was tending to replace sheep and goat leather in Cordoban goods, there is no doubt that the sheep was by far the most significant animal in the regional economy. ⁽³⁹⁾

Little can be said about pastoralism in late medieval Castile without reference to the Mesta, the national association of sheep-breeders which dominated this activity throughout the Crown of Castile. As a result of Klein's pioneering study, it has been natural to assume that the Castilian export trade in wool was conducted by means of migrating flocks, which moved between grazing grounds in the south, including the Córdoba area, and the northern fairs. If this were a true picture, it would suggest that grazing in the area was rented by outsiders for the use of transhumant flocks during the winter months. Klein draws a Mesta route along the Guadalquivir and then northwards through the Sierra Morena, more or less following the line of the modern road from Andalusia towards Madrid. ⁽⁴⁰⁾

In actual fact, Córdoba's connection with the Mesta seems to have been tenuous and hostile. There was at least one Mesta route (cañada) which crossed the northern part of Córdoba's término via Belalcázar, the valley of Alcudia, in the province of Ciudad Real, the Mochuelo pass and Villanueva de Córdoba, a town of the Pedroches. On 10 May 1490, the Crown gave the Mesta licence to build a bridge over the river Guadalmez, and further evidence of Mesta activity in the area may be found in the case brought by Gonzalo Mexia, lord of Santa Eufemia, against the Mesta shepherds, which reached the royal council. Mexía's hostility towards the Mesta was matched by that of the town council in Córdoba. In 1497, the procurador mayor, Alfonso Martínez de Angulo, stated in council that, 'this city never had a mesta and that it should not walk through her lands'. In 1510, the council took a copy of the Mesta ordinances, but it was again stated that the council had had no dealings with the Mesta for at least eighty years, in the area to the south of the castle of El Vacar and Adamuz, though its activity was permitted further north, for example in the Pedroches. ⁽⁴¹⁾

However, it has recently been forcefully stated by Bishko that excessive concentration on the national Mesta has led to the neglect of local grazing interests, which, in Andalusia at least, were generally far more important to the local economy. In the case of Córdoba, there was no formal association of graziers in this period, but the interest was nonetheless extremely powerful and the examination of local material [115] on pastoralism and its social and economic role in the area answers many of the questions which Bishko asks in his general survey. ⁽⁴²⁾

Although there are no general figures on stock ownership to match those for grain production, there is ample evidence of large-scale sheeprearing in the area. In 1500, for example, Córdoba council began a case against the council of Cabeza del Buey (Badajoz), before a judge of commission, accusing twenty-three shepherds from that town of owing the roda and portazgo on 22,000 sheep and goats to Córdoba's tax-farmer, for 1499 and 1500. Similarly, a complaint from Juan de Lorca, the farmer of the servicio and montazgo of Córdoba diocese in 1502-6, revealed a large-scale traffic in flocks belonging to local graziers in the La Rambla area, which were being sent to pasture in Estepa and Ecija (Seville), Villamartin (Cádiz) and Ronda and Antequera (Málaga). This was apparently a regular practice and not one provoked by special circumstances, such as the 'dry year' of 1506. The demand for grazing was not only evident in the La Rambla area, but seems to have been a preoccupation in the Córdoba region throughout the period. It is unlikely that graziers would have laid themselves open unnecessarily to the payment of servicio, which was inevitable if they sent their stock out of Córdoba's territory, had there not been a shortage of grazing. ⁽⁴³⁾

The anxiety to increase the area available for livestock, and especially for sheep, showed itself particularly in the issue of enclosures, which seems to have dominated the activities of private landlords and the resulting litigation carried on by Córdoba council. The problem is highlighted by the series of documents which the Crown issued to protect public lands and limit the scope of private enclosers. The first salvo in the Catholic Monarchs' attack on the enclosers was a pragmatic, issued by the royal council in Córdoba On 28 September 1490, which forbade all inhabitants of the tierra of Córdoba to enclose more than a quarter of their lands and ordered them to allow all citizens and inhabitants (vecinos y moradores) of the city to exercise common rights on their land. These involved hunting birds and rabbits, fishing, picking asparagus and other plants, gleaning and gathering hay. A further document issued by the Crown in November 1490 mentioned explicitly the connection between enclosures and the rearing of flocks for the wool trade. It referred to complaints received by the royal council to the effect that, during the last thirty years, various inhabitants of Córdoba, who had persistently damaged cultivated lands with their flocks, had been buying the broken-down vineyards and olive-groves at a low price, clearing them of vines and olive-trees, and turning them into enclosed [116] land, which they then expanded by illegally annexing commons. As an added refinement, they were said to have deliberately left gaps in their fences, in order to increase their income by using the town's ordinances to fine other stock-owners whose animals thus entered their 'property'. In view of this, the royal council decreed that the local ordinances on enclosures (dehesas) should be complied with, 'as though they were made and promulgated in Cortes'. All enclosures created without royal licence within the jurisdiction of Córdoba during the previous thirty years were to become common pasture again. Landholders were to permit the free exercise of all common rights in lands 'not being sown, or in pledge, or planted or worked'. Owners who illegally exacted penalties from inhabitants of Córdoba were liable at the first offence to lose the money which they had collected, which was to be divided equally between the victims and the upkeep of Córdoba's bridges and walls. For the second offence, the landholder was to lose all right to the property concerned. To reduce the damage done by livestock in cultivated land, close seasons were established, during which all flocks were to be excluded. For this purpose, a flock was held to be four cows, oxen or other large beasts, ten pigs or fifty sheep or goats. Valuers (apreciadores) were to be appointed by the town to calculate the compensation which was to be paid to landholders. ⁽⁴⁴⁾

The penalties for illegal enclosures were modified in a royal pragmatic of Valladolid, 15 July 1492, which was published in Córdoba on 22 October of that year. No one might, in any case, enclose land without a royal privilege but the 1492 pragmatic changed the conditions under which such enclosures might be made. Citizens of Córdoba were now allowed to hold half their lands within its término as dehesas. Citizens of other towns who held lands in Córdoba were allowed to enclose a quarter, if they lived in the city and an eighth if they did not. Fencing was to be carried out by the medidor (measurer) in the company of fieles appointed by the local council. Fines for illegal enclosures were to be 1000 mrs for the first offence, half for the royal exchequer and half for the council's funds, while for the second offence the landholder would lose all right to enclose his land in the future. The pragmatic was intended to be the basis of a coordinated assault on a serious denial of common rights by landlords. It went on to deal with another method used by enclosers to enlarge their holdings, which was to enclose the uncultivated land (baldíos) included in the property and let it for gain. This practice was forbidden on pain of confiscation of the rent money from the lord and a fine of equal size for the tenant. Legal enclosures [117] by individual royal privileges were still allowed, but all existing holders of such documents were ordered to send them to Court for examination within a hundred days of the publication of the pragmatic.

One clause in the 1492 pragmatic is of particular interest because it hints at royal support for large graziers. Enclosures of less than four yugadas (about 124 Ha) were forbidden, without special permission from the fieles, 'so that the land should not be closed to the grazing of flocks because of such small enclosures'. It appears that the Crown was content to see an extensive wool trade, but this does not necessarily imply support for the national Mesta. It is worth noting that the effort to protect the land from transhumant flocks, included in the 1490 pragmatic, was repeated in 1492 with the stipulation that owners of flocks or shepherds who interfered with private fenced pastures, uncultivated lands or commons were liable to a 1200 maravedís fine and damages to be assessed by the fieles. The movement of flocks was not included among common rights. The clearest indication that the Crown intended action to be taken against illegal enclosures is the instruction for the appointment of an alcalde de las dehesas (magistrate for enclosures) and two fieles, who were to inspect all the properties within Córdoba's boundaries twice a year and implement the pragmatic. The corregidor and veinticuatros were to ensure that these officials' sentences were carried out and that they were given the royal 'security and protection' for their work. ⁽⁴⁵⁾

An alcalde de las dehesas had existed in Córdoba as early as 1447, but there was clearly a revival of activity after 1492. According to a 1496 account, the official was elected at the beginning of each year by two caballeros de premia from each parish, and no one might serve more than one term of office. The elections were by lots, but, as in the case of other urban offices, it seems that the Crown attempted to interfere, for example appointing Arias Savariego to the post in 1512. After a revision of various local ordinances on office-holding in 1496, one of the two offices of fiel for measuring agricultural properties was reserved for the veinticuatros. They were to do the job, in turns, for one year at a time and there were to be no second chances until everyone had served a term. ⁽⁴⁶⁾

A strong indication that Córdoba's pastures were overcrowded in this period may be found in the local council's efforts to restrict the use of grazing within its boundaries by outsiders. According to a council decision of April 1495, such individuals had to keep the local ordinances on land-use and were not allowed to import flocks from seignorial lands. [118] These regulations originated in a letter from the royal council and were presented in greater detail in the ordinances for farms of 9 May 1499. In the new code, the quotas of stock which might be imported to Córdoba's grazing by farmers (labradores) who lived under seignorial jurisdiction were fixed at fifty sheep for each yugada rented, or five cows, fifty pigs or three mares. All livestock above these figures which was found on Córdoba's lands was to be subject to the quinta de los ganados, a levy of a fifth of the animals concerned. The local council's anxiety to protect its pastures from the flocks of other towns was also revealed in a reference, at a meeting in 1493, to the 'old ordinance' keeping strangers' flocks out of the city's grazing, on pain of unspecified fines (probably the quinta) and expulsion from Córdoba's territory. A similar concern was reflected in the repetition, in the ordinances of 1499, of a regulation from Henry IV's reign to the effect that holders of enclosures and farms in Córdoba's territory should not let the grazing to outsiders, though hay might be sold from licensed enclosures to feed the flocks of graziers in seignorial areas, during the winter. There was clearly an attempt to reduce the letting of grazing to outsiders in 1493, when the council decreed that current contracts, running into 1494, might stand, but that new ones should not be made. The issue was still, however, very much alive in 1514. ⁽⁴⁷⁾
 

One of the best sources for information on tensions and difficulties in the countryside in this period is the collection of sentences by the jueces de términos, the 'judges of boundaries' who were sent to Córdoba by the Crown to deal with abuses in the ownership and use of the land. The sentences given by Lic. Diego de Rojas, Lic. Sancho Sánchez de Montiel, Lic. Antonio de Cuéllar and Lic. Fernando Díaz de Lobón, which cover the periods 1477-8, 1491-9, 1513-14 and 1514-15 respectively, survive in collected form, and some of the actual trials also remain. The main charges made in the trials were the illegal enclosure of uncultivated lands (baldíos), the blocking of public thoroughfares, on land or water, including the diversion of streams, the usurpation of commons and other royal lands, particularly on high ground (montes), the seizing of public fountains and fisheries and the illegal enclosure of private lands. The sentences for 236 cases survive and of these 146 were pronounced by Montiel. As might be expected with an enterprise sponsored by the Crown, the judges concentrated mainly on private [119] usurpation of public property. Such offences led to over two hundred of the sentences.

The geographical distribution of the offences was fairly even throughout Córdoba's tierra. The cases are an important source of information on land-use and they indicate that pasture, in this case all enclosed, predominated in two main areas, first, the valley of the Guadalquivir and, secondly, in a band stretching westwards from the Pedroches to Fuente Obejuna, or in other words the Mesta route. Bishko has recently noted that in 1492 the Crown proposed, in response to complaints from the local caballeros de premia, that a municipal mesta should be set up in Córdoba. The suggestion was successfully rejected by the council, for reasons which should become clearer when the boundaries legislation of this period is studied in greater detail. ⁽⁴⁸⁾

First of all, though, it is necessary to show that there was some connection between enclosures and grazing. The royal document of 3 November 1490 referred to the conversion of arable enclosures to pastoral use and the boundaries litigation provides some specific evidence. In 1492, three cases heard by Montiel resulted in convictions for the illegal conversion of arable or other cultivated land into enclosed pasture. All three properties were near Córdoba and the charge in each case was the same. Commander Antonio de las Infantas and his predecessors over thirty years were said to have bought some fruit-orchards and vineyards in the Pago de los Arenales and turned them into enclosed pasture, so that all was 'level and depopulated', although other, adjoining vineyards 'are now populated'. Similarly, the late precentor (chantre) of the Cathedral, Pedro de Hoces, had bought some vineyards and olive-groves in the Pago de las Quemadas and turned them into pasture for wool production (as a heredad de lana), by uprooting the vines. The veinticuatro Pedro Mufliz de Godoy was convicted of uprooting olives and sowing arable land with grass in two properties, in order to let them as an enclosure. He was ordered to return the arable land to cultivation and replant the olive-grove, 'as the other olive-groves are kept in Córdoba,. . . because a place where there are one or two or three olive-trees, sparse and separated, is not understood to be an olive-grove'. In each case, the penalty was the full exercise of common rights and the payment of legal costs. ⁽⁴⁹⁾

A number of cases involved the illegal letting of grazing and among those accused were the veinticuatros Francisco Cabrera and Pedro González de Hoces, who were convicted in 1512 and 1513, respectively, [120] and Don Francisco de Benavides, lord of Guadalcázar, who was convicted in 1514. In his appeal to the royal council, Don Francisco made the interesting statement that the accusation had been brought against him by the stock-breeders (criadores de ganados) of Córdoba. This seems to lend substance to Bishko's theory that the refusal of Córdoba council to set up a local mesta was the result of resistance, on the part of the noble oligarchy which dominated the council, to the complaints of the many lesser men who had grazing interests in the area. In contrast, the Crown's support for the judges of boundaries was clearly seen as part of its general defence of the royal patrimony and attempt to regain what had been lost, which was initiated at the Cortes of Toledo in 1480. ⁽⁵⁰⁾

There is no doubt that the upper nobility was the prime target of the judges' activities, but the magnates were not alone. Although the initiative in bringing cases before the judges belonged to the council, its own members were not exempt from attack. One approach was to require holders of royal privileges for enclosures to produce the documents concerned for scrutiny. Such privileges had to be confirmed by each succeeding monarch if they were to remain valid. It appears that in its zeal to put the pragmatics of the 1490s into effect the council brought actions against those who did have legal titles to enclosures and gained virtually no satisfaction. In no surviving case was a privilege, once presented, found to be invalid, though Pedro González de Hoces failed to produce confirmation of a privilege for the cortijo of Fuencubierta, before Lic. Francisco Galíndez, a judge of commission, and thus lost the right to keep the land enclosed. Of the twenty-eight defences of privileges which survive, twenty-four were successful and the other four inconclusive. Among those involved were the bishop, seventeen veinticuatros, four jurados and two other members of office-holding families. In some cases, the actions brought by the town were welcomed by owners of enclosed land as opportunities to establish their rights and exclude those who attempted to use their lands as commons. The jurado Luis del Bafluelo, for example, protested against the violation of his dehesa of El Ochavillo. In his letter to the royal council, which brought about the vindication of his privilege by Montiel, he claimed that the estate had been in his family for more than a century, thus qualifying as a prescriptive right, but, more significantly, he mentioned that his fellow-citizens were using the laws of Toledo in order to put his rights in question. In several other cases, also, holders of enclosure privileges had them vindicated by the royal judges. ⁽⁵¹⁾

[121] Litigation of this kind indicates the ease with which the wealthy and influential could make use of the Crown's help to resist the implementation of its own laws. Nowhere can this more clearly be seen than in the relations between the great lords of the Córdoba region and the town council over the question of enclosures, and the individuals involved are of sufficient importance for some of the main cases to be examined one by one.

The house of Aguilar, in the persons of Don Alonso de Aguilar and his son, the marquis of Priego, came into conflict with Córdoba over its stock-breeding interests. The main dispute was over the dehesa of Carchena, south of Castro del Río. In 1494, the town brought a case before Montiel against Don Alonso de Aguilar for the illegal enclosure of the sheep-walk which separated Córdoba's lands from those of the seignorial towns of Aguilar, Baena and Cabra. Don Alonso claimed the land in question by prescriptive right, arguing that because of his long and peaceful possession Córdoba council could not bring an action against him under the laws of Toledo, but Montiel was not impressed and found in favour of the city on 21 August 1494, with costs payable by Don Alonso. Five days later, Don Alonso lodged an appeal, but on 1 October Montiel went ahead and placed the landmarks in accordance with his sentence. Don Alonso's proctor went round with him, appealing against each mark as it was placed. The appeal was heard by the audiencia of Ciudad Real in 1495, but was still in progress in 1503, by this time under the direction of Don Alonso's son, the marquis of Priego. Eventually, the appeal was turned down and Córdoba received a letter of execution from the audiencia, which upheld Montiel's judgement and ordered the marquis to pay the legal costs within nine days. The marquis did not pay until 1508 and the council took formal possession of the disputed lands on 10 October of that year. However, this was not the end of the story. According to a requirement presented to Córdoba council by the judge of boundaries, Lobón, on 22 February 1515, the inhabitants of the marquis's town of Montilla ignored all these proceedings, continuing, even after the 1505 letter from the audiencia, to build houses on Córdoba's land in the Castro area and to arrest citizens of Córdoba who attempted to enter it. Lobn accused the veinticuatros of Córdoba not only of failing to visit the city's boundaries regularly, as the law required, but even, in some unidentified cases, of actively obstructing the council's own boundaries officials, when they tried to arrest citizens of Montilla and Cabra who had entered Córdoba's lands illegally. The council expressed suitable horror at this suggestion and [122] on the following day sent a commission to renew Montiel's boundary marks, but this effort seems to have been equally ineffective, as Lic. Galíndez was still trying to enforce the 1505 audiencia verdict in 1516, and Córdoba made another attempt to obtain satisfaction by means of litigation in 1546. ⁽⁵²⁾

All the leading noble families were involved in litigation over boundaries, including the counts of Cabra, the lords of Alcaudete and the alcaides de los donceles. Among families with holdings to the north of Córdoba, the most prominent were the counts of Belalcázar, who have been fully studied by Cabrera, and Gonzalo Mexía, lord of Santa Eufemia, who had a long history of seignorial violence and conflicts with Córdoba council. As early as 1457, Mexía was convicted by Dr Diego Sánchez del Castillo, judge of boundaries for Henry IV, of usurping the lands of El Bercial, Los Robledillos, Las Valverdes and La Cañada de Toril, which were on the border between the lands of Córdoba and Santa Eufemia. Mexía was said to have defied an agreement with Córdoba council, by enclosing these lands and letting the grazing to mountain shepherds from elsewhere, who were apparently connected with the national Mesta. He was accused of illegally arresting citizens of Córdoba who entered these lands and of seizing a pasture for plough-oxen (dehesa boyera) which belonged to Torremilano, a royal town. Montiel heard the case against Mexía in 1493 and found in favour of the council, but Mexía appealed successfully to the Crown. When advising the council to appeal in its turn, the lawyer, Lic. Daza, proposed that its case should rest on three points. First, the town's views had not been heard by the Crown and, secondly, Montiel had given sentence in accordance with the laws of Toledo, which stated that all sentences given by the judges of John II and Henry IV should be implemented. Thirdly, he pointed out that the Crown had not seen the documents of the case heard by Castillo in 1457. In the event, Córdoba managed to restart the litigation and it was still in progress in 1500, but it appears that Mexía won another letter of execution against Córdoba in 1504. Yet another hearing took place at the audiencia of Granada in 1512 and the case was then no nearer a conclusion. ⁽⁵³⁾

The failure of Córdoba council to achieve the implementation of sentences against the upper nobility was often matched in cases involving lesser individuals. In the 268 cases which are documented in the municipal archive, including defences of enclosure privileges, whether instigated by the owner or the town, convictions were achieved in 228. Twenty-six actions failed completely, though all but two of [123] these were successful defences of private enclosure privileges. Five cases were settled out of court and there were nine in which the surviving documents do not indicate the result. Appeals against conviction had to be made within thirty days, or else were not allowed, as in the case of Doña María Manuel, widow of Don Alvaro de Guzmán, in 1493. Thirty-seven such appeals are recorded in the surviving documents and it is clear that this resort was in effect confined to the upper echelons of local society. Those involved included three great lords, Don Alonso de Aguilar, the count of Cabra and the lord of Alcaudete, three lesser lords, Egas Venegas, lord of Luque, Alfonso de los Ríos, lord of Fernán Núñez, and Antonio de Córdoba, lord of Belmonte, one lord from another province, ten other veinticuatros and seven jurados of Córdoba, five members of office-holding families, two lawyers' families, four monasteries and the Cathedral chapter. Only two individuals did not fit into any of these categories. Boundaries were marked in accordance with the sentence, even when an appeal had been made, but defiance of such measures by seignorial vassals made this procedure rather futile. Violations of the judgements of boundary judges apparently occurred on a spectacular scale, as the prospect of ceaseless litigation stretching into the future apparently caused widespread cynicism in relation to the law. One specific example involved the inhabitants, both of the royal town of Bujalance and of Cañete, which belonged to the marquis of Priego. Montiel gave sentence in 1496 against both towns for the illegal sowing with crops of royal lands between the two towns, but when Lobón visited the area in 1515 he found that during the previous twenty-years five citizens of Cañete and eight of Bujalance had between them illegally sown thirty-two fanegas of grain, eight-and-a-half aranzadas of new vines (majuelos) and nine aranzadas of ordinary vines. ⁽⁵⁴⁾

The ease with which the judges' verdicts could be defied, either in the courts or on the ground, obviously reduced their effectiveness. However, the severest blow to the whole enterprise was a document issued by Ferdinand on 13 May 1514, in which all penalties for infringements of the pragmatics on land-use which had been exacted by the royal judge, Cullar, were annulled. Thus the Crown surrendered in fact all that it had been anxious to demand in theory, the excuse being that the fines would upset the finances of landlords in the area. The document ends with the lame remark that in future, if the pragmatics on enclosures were not observed, 'the penalties contained in them will be carried out'. ⁽⁵⁵⁾ The collapse of Cuéllar's efforts did not prevent the [124] Crown from sending Lobón and Galíndez to succeed him, but evidence of penalties' being exacted from offenders or of the effective restitution of lands to Córdoba in this period is non-existent, apart from the ritualistic 'possession' which followed each sentence given by a judge of boundaries. In view of the apparently almost complete failure of the Crown and the local council's attempt to prevent the illegal use of land, it is reasonable to ask why the Córdoba authorities continued to bring cases before the judges. There was clearly the hope, although this was rarely realised, that the costs of the trials would be reclaimed in fines from offenders. Another attraction was that the judges heard cases with amazing speed, in comparison with the normal course of pleas at the audiencia. Nearly all verdicts were reached in two or three days and in many cases less than one day was necessary. The sentence, also, was generally carried out at once, even if an appeal removed its effect. It appears, therefore, that the theoretical possibility of punishing offences connected with land-use, and in particular illegal enclosure, was enough to encourage the town to bring a continuous series of actions whenever a royal judge was in residence. However, the total failure to deal with the wealthier landlords and the abject surrender by the Crown in 1514, when added to the other evidence of frequent petty violation of the boundaries fixed by the judges, suggest that the actual achievements in return for years of effort and expense were not great. The town's litigation against private landlords provides a better indication of the general desire to increase grazing-space in the area as rapidly as possible than it does of the restoration of royal lands to the public use for which they were intended.
 

The destination of the wool produced from the pastures of the Córdoba district is of vital importance in any consideration of the area's economic state and prospects in this period. It is clear that wool was by far the most significant export commodity and, if it could be shown that the surplus was used locally, then Córdoba would have possessed a sound base for an economy dominated by industry rather than commerce. The evidence, however, suggests a very different picture. It is to be found in the notarial archive and consists, in the first place, of over two hundred contracts for the sale of wool for export, between 1471 and 1515. These are supplemented by fifteen transport contracts for wool, which indicate the pattern of the trade. ⁽⁵⁶⁾

[125] The city of Córdoba in the late fifteenth century was a centre for the sale of wool, not only from its own district but from a much wider area, including Ubeda and Baeza in the kingdom of Jaén, Baza in Granada, Antequera to the south and Hinojosa, Belalcázar and the Sierra de la Serena to the north. The wool was then transported by bullock-cart along the Guadalquivir to the port of Seville for loading. The carters lived in towns on the river-bank, such as Alcolea, Córdoba itself, Almodóvar del Río, Posadas and Lora del Río. It appears that the wool was taken to Córdoba in April or May and moved to Seville in June. It appears that the two operations were parts of the same trading pattern and in 1513 and 1515 they were included in a single contract.

Unfortunately, there is little surviving material from the period between 1471 and 1484, but it does seem that the pattern of the Córdoba wool trade changed after 1486, when merchants from Burgos appear in the records for the first time. At a council-meeting in May 1499, it was proposed that Alfonso de Castro, a merchant from Burgos, should receive a licence to build a house on royal land, 'below the water-mills of Don Tello, to bring and store the wool which he buys in this city', in return for a ground-rent payable to the council. In the period before the Burgos interests began to dominate the trade, Córdoba merchants seem to have purchased wool from other areas, which was brought to the town, for example from Cuenca and Medinaceli, southeast and east of Madrid. It is impossible to establish whether this wool supplied the local industry or was exported, as no evidence for the movement of wool survives from this period, but there is no doubt of the pattern which developed once Pedro de Arceo, regidor of Burgos, appeared as a wool-buyer in Córdoba in 1486, operating jointly with Pedro de Valles of Córdoba. The size of the sample of contracts does not permit sophisticated calculation of the market-shares of Cordoban and Burgos buyers, but in crude figures, the number of sales to local buyers only exceeded the total sales to Burgos merchants in one year between 1486 and 1515. This was 1506, an exceptional year because of political, social and economic dislocation, from which only one contract survives, recording a sale to a local buyer at a low price. ⁽⁵⁷⁾

The contracts appear in the notarial registers in a standard form, though not all the particulars of the parties concerned or of the sale were necessarily included every time. The vast majority concern white merino wool, mostly from full-grown sheep but sometimes from younger animals. Black merino wool was also sold on occasions at a lower price. The description 'Castilian' wool appears once in a contract at 130 mrs [126] an arroba, which was less than half the price of merino wool at its lowest. A typical example of a contract is that made by Lope de los Ríos, veinticuatro of Córdoba, on 5 July 1490, with a representative of Pedro de Arceo.

In Córdoba, on this aforesaid day, Lope de los Ríos veinticuatro of Córdoba, agreed, in the name of Diego Venegas, his brother-in-law, to sell to Pedro de Raceo [sic], merchant, citizen of Burgos, and to Pedro de Ribas in his name, one hundred and twenty arrobas of fine white merino wool of the Puerto del Guijo, at 430 mrs an arroba, 35,000 mrs immediately, and declared himself to be content and paid, and agreed to hand it [the wool] over in a fenced farm, that coming April, on a clear day, after sunrise and in a clean sheep-fold. . . and that when he handed it over [Ribas or Arceo] should finish paying him the maravedís which it amounted to. . . Each party [pledged] his goods thus. ⁽⁵⁸⁾

From the local evidence, it is not easy to discover the reasons for the growing dominance by Burgos merchants of the Córdoba wool trade. It may be assumed that local producers did not feel particular loyalty to the city's own cloth industry, but obtained the best possible price from whatever source. It cannot be shown that the Burgos merchants consistently offered a better price than their local rivals, but nonetheless, the annual averages of the prices offered by local buyers only exceeded those offered by the Burgos merchants in two years between 1486 and 1515. The limitations of the sample dictate caution in the use of these figures. Both groups of merchants offered advance payments, so that this was not a factor which operated particularly in favour of the Burgos men. What seems to have occurred is that during this period Córdoba became part of an export trade in merino wool on a national scale, which was very largely controlled by mercantile interests in Burgos. Pérez shows that merchants from that city were involved in the export of wool from Cuenca and they seem to have had a similar interest in Córdoba. ⁽⁵⁹⁾

Between 1486, when Pedro de Arceo first came to buy wool in Córdoba, and 1515, the annual average price of white merino wool in surviving contracts rose from 346 mrs to 449 mrs per arroba. The Burgos merchants or their representatives tended to make series of annual visits to buy the next year's crop. Sometimes they retained the connection by appointing a local man to represent them. Pedro de Arceo was involved in the trade between 1486 and 1500, Juan de Logroño between 1494 and 1507, Gonzalo López de Polanco between [127] 1492 and 1500 and Alfonso de Lerma between 1495 and 1500. Thirty different Burgos merchants appear at least once during the period as buyers or agents. One factor which may have appealed to sellers was the readiness of some Burgos merchants to make contracts in advance. However, while Arceo began this procedure in 1486, it did not become general until 1515, when thirteen out of the sixteen surviving contracts involved more than one crop, and in one case four were included. It is more probable that the growth of this practice indicates a buyer's market, in which the merchants protected themselves against inflation by committing the producers to a fixed price for several years at a time.

The information included in the contracts reveals the involvement in wool production of virtually all ranks of Cordoban society. As with other rural products, the group of lesser noble and knightly families which controlled the political life of the town was equally conspicuous here. Apart from the widow of the lord of Alcaudete, contracts for the sale of wool were made by fifteen veinticuatros, three widows of veinticuatros, six jurados and an escribano, but they were also made by merchants, tradesmen and artisans, and by tenant-farmers, as well as ecclesiastical corporations. Thus it appears that, despite the dominance of the nobility, a wide range of Córdoba's citizens still had access to local pastures, a state of affairs which might conveniently strengthen the council's resistance to interference from the national Mesta, though it could not save the efforts of the judges of boundaries from defeat at the hands of the larger graziers.
 

The export of so large a quantity of wool from the Córdoba area inevitably affected the local textile industry. This had been established in the city since the thirteenth century. Alfonso X gave Córdoba's weavers a privilege in 1258 and in 1280 the Crown gave the local council a privilege for two shops to retail cloth. ⁽⁶⁰⁾ By the late fifteenth century, the city ranked with the major urban cloth-producers of the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula, such as Cuenca and Toledo.

Although much less is known about the Córdoba industry, its organisation seems to have been similar to that described by Iradiel in Cuenca. Apart from preliminary processes, such as the sorting of wool into its different grades, and simple home-based activities such as the spinning of thread, most stages of production took place in the city itself, in contrast to the rural industry of Old Castile. References to [128] cloth-workers, which are confined to carders, weavers, dyers, fullers and shearers, indicate a concentration of these trades in the seven parishes of the Ajarquía, and particularly in St Andrew and St Peter, although they were also found in the Medina, in smaller numbers. Most production seems to have taken place in domestic workshops, though the complex nature of the fulling process and the need for water meant that this activity took place in riverside batanes on the Guadalquivir and Guadajoz. ⁽⁶¹⁾ The price-lists quoted by Iradiel indicate that Córdoba was capable of producing cloth for the upper end of the market, that is, veintidosenos, or cloth with 2200 threads (hilos). Cloth of this quality, in addition to veintenos (2000 threads), is mentioned in local sources. ⁽⁶²⁾ There is no information about the level of production, though it is known that cloth of lower quality, such as fustians (fustianes) and friezes (frisas), was manufactured. ⁽⁶³⁾ There is also evidence of cloth production in Bujalance and other places in the tierra. ⁽⁶⁴⁾

Regrettably, the organisation of labour in the Córdoba cloth industry has to be largely guessed at. The putting-out system seems to have predominated and more will be said shortly about mercantile influence over production. However, the limited evidence available appears to support Iradiel's contention that it is wrong to suppose, as has sometimes been done in the past, that the Castilian Crown was implacably opposed to the development of guilds. The two possible functions of a guild, as a trade association or as a religious brotherhood, were both applied in Córdoba, as in other industrial towns. Attempts have been made to clarify matters by calling trade associations gremios and religious brotherhoods cofradías, but the Córdoba evidence does not indicate that such a distinction was made. More will be said later about the activities of lay religious organisations, but it is clear that the guilds of cloth-workers, which took an active part in the conduct of their trade, were referred to indifferently as gremios and cofradías. ⁽⁶⁵⁾ In late fifteenth-century Córdoba, the cloth-workers were organised into four guilds, representing weavers, dyers, fullers and shearers. Other trades were either subsumed into these guilds or else unorganised.

Regulation of cloth manufacture was shared between the guilds and the town council. Unfortunately, there are no surviving guild records, so that the industry is seen almost entirely from the council's point of view, though some testimony is inadvertently given in private notarial documents. This major limitation should be borne in mind, as it inevitably gives a rather bureaucratic character to the picture of the industry which emerges. It appears that royal intervention, in the form [129] of a letter which reached Córdoba in December 1500, requiring an examination of existing cloth ordinances throughout the kingdom, caused a revision and extension of municipal intervention in the local industry. The municipal ordinances of 1435 referred to a separate, more detailed set of regulations for cloth manufacture, which was confirmed by Ferdinand in 1483, and which survives in the version drawn up in 1458. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ Up to 1500, the industry was regulated by two supervisors, known as veedores de los paños or veedores de tintas. The appointment was meant to be annual and was made by the council. However, elections in the 1490s seem to have been irregular and sometimes only one veedor (also called a fiel) is recorded. ⁽⁶⁷⁾ After the royal letter had been received, the apparatus for supervising the industry was expanded and the guilds were drawn into greater cooperation with the town council. After 1500, the veedores de los palios confined their attention to the dyers, but additional pairs of veedores were appointed for the weavers, fullers and shearers. The officials of each trade met each year, more or less, to elect their representatives, whose appointment was then ratified by the council. ⁽⁶⁸⁾

Even before royal intervention brought about a greater involvement of the guilds in the control of the industry, the town council was showing the type of concern about the quality of Córdoba's cloths which Iradiel found elsewhere and ascribed to the predominance of mercantile over industrial interests. In 1497, the council appointed a commission to discuss with the dyers possible improvements in the quality of their materials. In 1498, Córdoba council reaffirmed the prohibition, included in its ordinances, of the use of the dye-stuff orchilla, also spelt horchilla, urchilla or hurchilla in contemporary documents. This vegetable dye comes from a marine lichen and was imported at considerable cost from the Canaries. It was normally used in conjunction with other dyes in order to produce a red or purple colour. This process was, however, complex and liable to failure, with the result that some textile ordinances, such as those of Córdoba and the draft ordinances of 1500 for the whole of Castile, forbade its use, as a defence against unskilled or shoddy workmanship. ⁽⁶⁹⁾ Efforts were made at the same time to encourage weavers to produce heavier cloths, and a new town seal, in the form of a crown, was introduced in 1497 for use by the veedor de los paños. ⁽⁷⁰⁾ After 1500, however, the Crown took the initiative, in Córdoba as elsewhere, in the development and control of the textile industry, culminating in the reception of the general ordinances of 151 I by the local council. [130] In the event, Córdoba protested against the new ordinances at the Cortes of Burgos in 1512, on the grounds that the town's own laws, which had been confirmed by Henry IV, kept the seal for cloths in the hands of a fiel (the veedor de los paños) who was appointed by the council and might not exercise his office in the trade during his tenure. Under the new laws, which had been foreshadowed in the royal letter of 1500, the town seal was entrusted to practising dyers. Córdoba failed to secure royal confirmation of the 1458 ordinances and had to follow the 1511 rules thereafter. ⁽⁷¹⁾

In view of the economic and political dominance of the ruling families in Córdoba, it is perhaps surprising that the local cloth industry survived the large-scale export trade in merino wool which was so essential a part of the regional economy. Although production figures do not survive, the urban cloth industry retained a fair degree of prosperity until after 1550, despite the council members' personal commitment to mercantile activity. On one notable occasion, the council made a public stand on behalf of local cloth-producers and against the wool merchants. In April 1515, the council discussed some letters which had been obtained by a group of Córdoba manufacturers, Marco Ruiz and his associates, from the audiencia at Granada, ordering the enforcement of Henry IV's law of 1462, which reserved a third of Castilian wool production for the home industry. The regimiento had apparently joined the protest and now demanded that the pesquisidor should enforce the audiencia's ruling. Significantly, the entry in the council actas refers to a dispute over whether the third of wool production reserved for local producers meant a third of the total or only a third of what remained after the Burgos merchants had made their purchases. The dominance of commerce over industry was thus clearly indicated. ⁽⁷²⁾
 

1. See, for example, Jacques Heers, Gênes au XVe siécle (Paris, 1971), pp. 311, 321, 326, 331-3; Ruth Pike, Enterprise and adventure: the Genoese in Seville and the opening of the New World (Ithaca, 1966), passim; and R. S. Lopez, 'The trade of medieval Europe: the south', Cambridge Economic History of Europe, ii (1952), 314.

2. Ladero, 'Los cereales en la Andalucía del siglo XV', Revista de la Universidad de Madrid, xviii (1969), 223-4.

3. Ladero, 'Los cereales', and 'Producción y renta cerealeras en el reino de Córdoba a finales del siglo XV', Andalucía Medieval, i, 375-96. González Jiménez, 'Las crisis cerealistas en Carmona a fines de la Edad Media', HID, iii (1976), 283-307. Ladero and González Jiménez, Diezmo eclesiástico y producción de cereales en el reino de Sevilla (1408-1503) (Seville, 1979, 1978 on cover).

4. Volume of grain production in hectolitres
 

1486	332,150
1487	422,452
1488	593,833
1489	221,674
1490	430,130
1491	476,119
1492	642,676
1495	541,218
1496	512,481
1502	519,561
1510	455,321

(Ladero, 'Producción y renta cerealeras', p. 376.)

5. Ibid., pp. 376-8.

6. Quoted in Ladero, Diezmo eclesiástico, p. 93 and note. See also note on measurements on p. 193.

7. Ladero, 'Producción y rentas cerealeras', pp. 378-9.

8. Ibid., pp. 379-96.

9. APC Of. 14 vol. 10 sec. 24 fols. 8v-9v, Of. 18 vol. 2 fols. 298, 358V-60, vol. I fols. 298, 309v-12, 335, vol. 3 fols. 672-4, 977, Of. 14. vol. 5 sec. 12 fols. 27v-8, vol. 19 sec. 8 fols. 6v-7.

10. APC Of. 24 vol. 1 fols. 492-5.

11. APC Of. 14 vol.5 sec. 12 fol. 23V, vol. 15 sec. 9 fol. 14.

12. Cabrera Muñoz, 'Renta episcopal y producción agraria en el obispado de Córdoba en 1510', Andalucía Medieval, 1, 397-412.

13. Ibid., pp. 398, 405.

14. Ibid., pp. 401-3.

15. Ibid., pp. 398, 401-3.

16. Censo contracts: APC Of. 14 vol. 21 sec. 12 fol. 17v, vol. 28 sec. 4 fol. 14, vol. 29 sec. 24 fol. 139, vol. 36 sec. 4 fol. 21, Of. 18 vol. 1 fol. 304. Arrendamiento contracts: APC Of. 18 vol. 2 fol. 3v, vol. 2, fol. 204, vol 3 fols. 1024V-5.

17. González Jiménez, El concejo de Carmona, pp. 96-7, 99-102, 123-5.

18. APC Of. 18 vol. i fol. 303v, Of. 14 vol. 1 sec. 4 fols. 85, 87, sec. 5 fols. 1v-2, 9, 9v-10.

19. APC Of. 14 vol. 19 sec. 6 fol. 3, vol. 16 sec. 4 fols. 17v-18.

20. T. F. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain in the early Middle Ages. Comparative perspectives on social and cultural formation (Princeton, 1979), pp. 119-20. Leopoldo Torres Balbás, Ciudades hispanomusulmanas (2 vols, no place or date), i, 281-2, 295, 298, 345-7. María Concepción Quintanilla Raso, 'Notas sobre el comercio urbano en Córdoba durante la baja Edad Media', Andalucía Medieval, 1, 413-22.

21. Quintanilla, 'Notas', pp. 414-15. González Jiménez, 'Ordenanzas del concejo de Córdoba (1435)', HID, ii (1975), 299.

22. Quintanilla, 'Notas', pp. 416-20.

23. AMC Actas 7.9.1502, 8.5.1504. AMC Sec. 19 Ser. 5 No. 7 (royal provision of 2.3.1493), No. 5, No. 12, No. 17.

24. Pedro Chalmeta Gendrón, El 'señor del zoco' en España: Edades Media y Moderna, contribución al estudio de la historia del mercado (Madrid, 1973), pp. 498-9, 511-12. Glick, Islamic and Christian Spain, pp. 121-4. González Jiménez, 'Ordenanzas. . . de Córdoba', pp. 196-8.

25. AMC Actas 9.7.1479, 10.4.1493.

26. AMC Actas 18.1.1497, 30.1.1497, 11.9.1500, 15.10.1501, 15.11.1499.

27. AMC Actas, 13.8.1498, 11.8.1514.

28. González Jiménez, 'Ordenanzas. . . de Córdoba', pp. 208-9, 292-6. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. 40 No. 2 (royal provision of 15.12.1500).

29. González Jiménez, 'Ordenanzas. . . de Córdoba', pp. 209, 296. RGS 7.9.1489, 8.7.1489. APC Of. 14 vol. II sec. 6 fols. 111-18, Of. 18 vol. fols. 43, 549v-51v, Of. 14 vol. 10 sec. ,6 fol. 22, Of. 18 vol. 4 fols. 340-1, vol. 5 fol. 1187v, Of. 14 vol. 29 sec. 24 fol. 15V, Of. 18 vol. 8 fol. 15.

30. AMC Sec. 7 Ser. 8 Nos. 2, 3. RGS 21.11.1478. AMC Sec. 7 Ser. 8 Nos. 6, 7, Sec. 12 Ser. 4 No. 1. AMC Actas 30.9.1493, 18.2.1495, 6.2.1506, 4.1.1510, 8.3.15 12. RGS 15.3.1478. AMC Sec. 7 Ser. B No. 5.

31. AMC Actas 30.3.1493, 4.7.1513, 16.10.1495, 21.8.1497, 25.8.1497, 22.4.1496, 10.4.1495, 8.8.1498, 9.8.1501, 27.6.1502, 31.8.1502, 4.9.1502, 5.9.1502,7.9.1502, 17.10.1502.

32. AMC Actas 23.8.1504, 19.2.1505, 8.3.1505, 15.3.1506, í7.4.1506, 29.4.1506, 4.5.1506, 18.5.1506, 7.4.1507, 28.2.1513, 3.8.1513. AMC Sec. 19 Ser. 4 No. 109. AMC Actas 8.3.1514.

33. Eduardo Ibarra y Rodríguez, El problema cerealista en España durante el reznado de les Reyes Católicos (1475-1516) (Madrid, ,1944).

34. RGS 11.3.1479, 22.5.1479, 15.6.1479.

35. AMC Actas 16.11.1502, 14.7.1504, 31.10.1505, 21.1 1.1505.

36. AMC Actas 20.10.1505, 20.4.1506, 18.4.1506, 6.6.1506, 27.2.1506, 9.9.1506, 28.9.1506.

37. AMC Actas 5.10.1506, 14.9.1506, 22.11.1507, 16.1.1510, 22.9.1514, 9.10.1514.

38. See note 4 above. Ladero and González Jiménez, Diezmo eclesiástico, pp. 89-91, including quotation. AMC Actas 21.2.1506, 22.7.1506, 1.2.1503, 28.11.1502.

39. Charles Julian Bishko, 'The Andalusian municipal mestas in the fourteenth-sixteenth centuries: administrative and social aspects', Andalucía Medieval, 1, 347-74, especially pp. 372-3.

40. Julius Klein, The Mesta. A study in Spanish economic history, 1273-1836 (Cambridge, Mass., 1920).

41. John H. Edwards, 'El comercio lanero en Córdoba bajo los Reyes Católicos', Andalucía Medieval, i, 423-8, esp. p. 425.

42. Bishko, 'Andalusian municipal mestas', pp. 347-8, 353-4, 366-9.

43. APC Of. 18 vol. 3 fol. 844v. AMC Sec. 5 Ser. 42 Nos. 3, 4, 5 fols. 1-22, Nos. 6, 7.

44. ACC Caj. V No. 65, Caj. Q No. 651. AMC Sec. 1 No. 48.

45. ACC Caj. Q No. 651.

46. AMC Sec. 12 Ser. 2 No. 4. AMC Actas 29.12.1496, 4.1.1497, 27.11.1512, 14.12-1496.

47. AMC Actas 10.4.1495. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. 1 No. 5. AMC Actas, 27.11.1493, 2.12.1493, 20.12.1493. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. 3 No. 4.

48. Bishko, 'Andalusian municipal mestas', pp. 354, 363, 366-9.

49. AMC Sec. , No. 48, Sec. 12 Ser. 4 No. 3, fols. 52-3, 62, 77.

50. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. Nos. 7, 16, 18.

51. AMC Sec. 12 Ser. 3 Santaella No. 3, Hornachuelos No. 1, Bujalance No. 1, Ser. 2 Nos. 12, I, 16, 30.

52. AMC Sec. 12 Ser. 4 No. 3 fols. 209-17. AMC Actas 27.5.1495, 29.10.1503, 6.11.1503. AMC Sec. 12 Ser. 2 Castro No.5. AMC Actas 22.2.1515, 24.2.1515. Quintanilla, Nobleza, p. 200.

53. AMC Actas 4.9.1493, 14.8.1493, 19.6.1500, 12.2.1504.

54. AMC Sec. 12 Ser. 4 No. 3 fols. 134-6.

55. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. 1 No. 27.

56. For full references to this material see Edwards, 'El comercio lanero' or 'Oligarchy and merchant capitalism in lower Andalusia under the Catholic Kings: the case of Córdoba and Jerez de la Frontera', HID, iv (1977), 11-33.

57. AMC Actas 10.5.1499.

58. APC Of. 18 vol. 3 fol. 884v.

59. Pérez, La révolution des 'comunidades' de Castille, 1520-1521, pp. 97-107.

60. Paulino Iradiel Murugarren, Evolución de la industria textil castellana en los siglos XIII-XVI (Salamanca, 1974), pp. 35, 28.

61. AMC Actas 11.3.1498. ACC Actas, iv, fol. 8g. APC Of. 14 vol. 4 sec. 16 fol. 29 and vol. 5 sec. 7 fols. 23v-4.

62. Iradiel, Evolución, pp. 117, 122. AMC Actas 8.10.1501, 18.11.1500.

63. AMC Actas 5.7.1499, 8.4.1499.

64. AMC Actas 30.8.1493.

65. Iradiel, Evolución, pp. 75, 147-53. AMC Actas 31.1.1500 (weavers).

66. González, 'Ordenanzas. . . de Córdoba', pp. 266, 281. AMC Sec. 6 Ser. 7 No. 3.

67. AMC Actas 22.6.1495, 14.7.1497, 14.6.1499.

68. AMC Actas 16.12.1500.

69. AMC Actas 14.7.1497, 7.12.1498. Iradiel, Evolución, pp. 179, 182-3.

70. AMC Actas 8.4.1499, 18.8.1497.

71. AMC Actas 1512 (June), petitions to Cortes.

72. AMC Actas 23.4.1515.