[52] The cequier was much more than an administrative officer. The Valencian poet Jaume Roig characterized him as the supreme arbiter of irrigation in the huerta:

(With order, calm, deliberation, measure, judgement, and rectitude he apportions the water; the lofty cequier gives it free to the hereter.)

In fulfillment of his role as enforcement officer of the canal, the cequier made regular inspections. The regulations of Benacher and Faitanar stipulated that the cequier or his lieutenant "patrol the said canals at least once each month, with one or more of the inspectors and the syndic of the commons." ⁽²⁾ In practice the canals were constantly patrolled, if not by the cequier then by his guards or by officials in charge of the division of water in the secondary channels. The patrols had a police [53] function. Gil Roiç of Castellblanch recounted in March 1413 that "as lieutenant of the cequier of the [Moncada] Canal, he was walking along the said canal the past Wednesday evening with six men whom he included in his company, in order to prevent the dishonest acts which might be committed with the water of the said canal." ⁽³⁾

These dishonest acts (fraus) were defined in the regulations of the communities or municipalities (stealing water, flooding the road, irrigating without right, for example). The cequier would "denounce" such acts in the commission and the fine was exacted later. The cequier could also settle summarily such disputes as he might encounter; the decision, though ad hoc, was binding on both parties. ⁽⁴⁾ The power to initiate a judicial process without one of the disputants actually seeking a decision from him was crucial to the cequier's authority. ⁽⁵⁾ Justice must be swift lest valuable water be lost. This summary justice was a completely oral process; no records were made of the judicial act. Thus, in the case of the canals of the Valencian huerta, little is known of the ordinary justice of the medieval cequiers or of the fines they exacted for simple infractions of the regulations.

An oral decision of the cequier might later be written down, however, if the parties wished to obtain a legal record of it. One such notarial record describes the judicial process of the cequier of the Favara Canal in 1418. A conflict had arisen between a certain Francesch Armengol and some irrigators living upstream from him in the suburb of Russafa. Armengol claimed that the others were letting drainage water into the canal illegally. The cequier, Bonanat Prats, with the counsel of four inspectors, "summarily, and without any writing" ("de una paraula e sens scriptura alcuna") decided in favor of Armengol and ordered that the channel in question be closed "with a good canal check at the head of Armengol's land." If the upstream irrigators continued to drain into that channel, they would incur the penalty of 60 sous. Normally such a decision would not have been recorded, but in this case Armengol requested that the sentence "be reduced to writing and a public instrument be given him." ⁽⁶⁾

By a stroke of good fortune, two account books of the fines [54] imposed by the cequiers of Castellón on irrigators of the cequia major in the years 1443 and 1486 have survived. ⁽⁷⁾ They record 898 separate actions and give a picture of daily irrigation problems and the methods used to deal with them. In most respects the picture should be applicable to the Valencian huerta as well. It may well be that similar accounts were kept by Valencian cequiers; but if only two books survived from Castellón, it is understandable that none should have survived in Valencia.

The Castellón fine-books describe two kinds of situation (see Tables 4 and 5). In the first the cequier, his assistant, the guard

The proportion of charges brought by community officials to those brought by irrigators was approximately two to one in both books (see Table 6). In neither year did the cequier himself impose many fines (only 1.2 percent in 1443 and 5.7 percent in [56] 1486); rather, the guards assumed the major role in enforcing the regulations. The 1443 book contains 217 entries (53.5 percent) in which the accuser is not specified (the form of the charge is "X was found . . ." or "Y was accused . . ." -- fouatrobat, fouacusat). Most likely, the accusations were made by guards. In 1486 the two guards Nadal Galent and Mateu Barofet participated in 58.5 percent of all actions recorded.

A low irrigation fine is characteristic of traditional irrigation societies. Robert Gray, in a study of such a society in Africa, found data similar to mine: relatively low fines varying according to the seriousness of the crime. ⁽¹⁷⁾ Breaking the rules is worth the nominal penalty if ones crops are badly in need of water. Gray suggests that theft of water might be considered an institututionalized form of conflict and concludes that society's acceptance that some irrigators "may break the law to steal water with only a small risk renders the irrigation system more flexible and averts more serious conflicts if some of the men should lose their crops because of failure to obtain water legally." ⁽¹⁸⁾

Evidence suggests that the way in which regulations were enforced in Castellón (for example, the preponderance of aygua vedada fines over those for stealing water) did dissipate somewhat the aggressive energies of the irrigators, in that the commons tended to make itself the subject of abuses which otherwise might

The involvement of the average irrigator in Castellón in conflict with either the officials or a neighbor was minimal. Only one-third of all individuals mentioned in the fine-books participated in more than one action in the course of the year (Table 8a). Of these repeaters, 41.4 percent participated in only two actions, 24.5 percent in three, 14.5 percent in four, and 7.6 per-

a= "Fou atrobat" (charge assumed to have been made by an official)

a= "Fou atrobat"

a= "Fou atrobat"

a= "Fou atrobat"

The record of one particularly fractious individual, Pere Johan (Table 14), is a rare example of an irrigator in chronic conflict with his neighbors. Between March and June 1486 he made five accusations of theft of water, and all five accusees were fined 1d. He himself was accused thirteen times between March and October; two accusations were disallowed, and he paid a total of 11d. in fines for the year. Moreover, ten of the eighteen actions were conflicts with one family, the Vecianos. Twice Johan accused Pere Veciano (probably the son of the Pere Veciano mentioned in the 1443 book, Table 11) of stealing water from him and once he made the same charge against Johan Veciano the Younger. In turn, the Vecianos accused Pere Johan six times of stealing water and once of a drainage offense. It is inconceivable that relations between the Vecianos and Pere Johan were anything but hostile. It would be interesting to know the physical disposition of the fields owned by Pere Johan and the Vecianos. A close study of the "Libres de Values" -- massive registers of landholdings in medieval Castellón ⁽³¹⁾ -- could yield valuable data on the morphology of intracanal conflict. (During the short time I spent in the Castellón archives, I was unable to connect Veciano holdings with any of Johan's; but Pere Johan's land definitely did border that of the notary Johan Valenti, who charged him with flooding his field in October 1486. ⁽³²⁾) The fact that chronic conflict between individual irrigators was rare is a tribute to both the efficiency of the distribution system and the vigilance of the guards.

Although the Valencian evidence does not yield as complete a picture of the cequier's role as we have for Castellón, still it is [65] possible to confirm the practical identity of procedure in those two towns as in the others where irrigation was conducted according to the dictates of the fueros of the kingdom. In modern times, though, the Valencian cequiers have participated in a weekly joint session called the Tribunal of Waters, an institution whose medieval roots are shrouded in mystery. ⁽³³⁾

When a huerta guard finds an irrigator committing an infraction today, the irrigator is ordered to appear before the Tribunal of Waters, at the Gate of the Apostles of the Cathedral of Valencia, on the following Thursday. There the syndics of seven canals⁽³⁴⁾ -- inheritors of the dignity of the medieval cequiers -- meet to pass judgment on all the infractions committed during the previous week. The infractor is "denounced" by the guard of his own canal, whose syndic then questions him and hears testimony. Then the syndic stands aside, and the merits of the arguments are weighed by the syndics of the canals of the opposite bank. If the accused is found guilty as charged, the president of the Tribunal so announces.

Valencians of today unanimously believe that the Tribunal antedates the Reconquest. ⁽³⁵⁾ The fact that its traditional meeting place is at the site of the city's former mosque is deemed especially crucial by several authors. There is ample precedent in the Islamic world for public judicial functions that took place in the mosque; ⁽³⁶⁾ and Vicente Giner Boira suggests that, when the mosque was consecrated a Christian church and Muslims were forbidden to enter, the court was moved outside so that the Muslim irrigators could continue to attend. ⁽³⁷⁾

The arabist Julián Ribera took exception to the hypothesis of the Tribunal's Islamic antecedent, stating that in Islamic Law judicial authority is "unipersonal," that is, that there can be only one competent authority in any case. ⁽³⁸⁾ But Ribera misinterpreted the true nature of the Tribunal. There is no question of any collegiate jurisdiction. On the contrary, the syndics today only state whether, in their opinion, a man is guilty or not; they function not as a panel of judges, but as a jury. The Tribunal can neither stipulate nor execute the punishment: the syndic of each canal applies the punishment and fine in accordance with [66] the regulations of that canal. ⁽³⁹⁾ The syndic does not intervene in the verdict of his co-syndics (just as the judge does not sit with the jury); he only executes the verdict. Each syndic, therefore, retains his discrete, "unipersonal" jurisdiction.

The members of the Tribunal today do act collegiately in nonjudicial matters, however. Since the eighteenth century, at least, they have jointly exercised the right to petition Madrid on behalf of the irrigation rights of the entire huerta. ⁽⁴⁰⁾ Under the terms of article 295 of the Law of Waters of 1866 the Tribunal was finally accorded official status in public law as a special tribunal.⁽⁴¹⁾ In 1943 its President, on behalf of his colleagues, addressed a memorial to the Minister of Public Works, urging that the turns between the huerta and the Pueblos Castillos established in 1321 by privileges of James II remain in force. ⁽⁴²⁾ In so doing, the members of the Tribunal stressed that they were moved by the desire to defend the rights of the canals of the entire vega. ⁽⁴³⁾

But in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the jurates and council of the city of Valencia, not the cequiers, were the protectors of irrigation rights of the huerta as a whole. ⁽⁴⁴⁾ This is not to say that the medieval cequiers were lacking in group definition. On occasion the city did exercise its authority in irrigation matters through the cequiers. In 1345 the council ordered two jurates and some cequiers to proceed upstream to the diversion dam of Benaguasil in order to inspect the water and to see that the city and huerta had a sufficient supply. ⁽⁴⁵⁾ In August 1414, in the course of a great drought, the jurates, with the permission of the governor, summoned "all the cequiers" to a Saturday morning meeting in the council room in order to discuss "affairs of the canals and repair of their intakes." ⁽⁴⁶⁾ In 1457 the jurates elected as administrators of the water of the lake of Tortajada ⁽⁴⁷⁾ (which was to be diverted through the Alfambra River into the Guadalaviar) Bernat d'Almenara, cequier of Moncada, Guillen Lorenç and Johan Perez, cequiers of Mestalla, and Pere Marti, cequier of Favara. ⁽⁴⁸⁾

It seems logical for the city to have consulted the cequiers as a group from time to time when their experience and knowledge [67] were needed in matters affecting the entire huerta. These ad hoc meetings and commissions of cequiers demonstrate that the huerta cequiers did have some group definition; but such definition falls far short of indicating the existence of any formal and permanent body such as the modern Tribunal. Two recently published documents verify meetings of the cequiers in the traditional seat of the Tribunal in the early fifteenth century. ⁽⁴⁹⁾ First, a decision of the cequier of Favara made in situ in settlement of a conflict in September 1418 ⁽⁵⁰⁾ was committed to writing the following March 30 -- a Thursday -- in the morning (hora prime), "in the Plaça de la Seu of the city of Valencia, in front of the Gate of the Apostles" in the presence of the cequier, the inspectors, and the interested parties. Even more significant are the Benacher-Faitanar regulations of 1435 which stipulated that the "fines assessed by the cequier against delinquents should be exacted and judgment of them should be made in the Plaça de la Seu, and in no other place." ⁽⁵¹⁾ This evidence shows that in the early fifteenth century the cequiers were holding court and exacting fines in the traditional assembly place of the Tribunal. But it is doubtful that this proves the existence at the time of any formal Tribunal.

The Valencian historian Francisco Javier Borrull wondered why James I and his successors failed to assign the Tribunal a special building in which to meet, for they had provided for the court of the justiciar, the bailiff, and the Consulate of the Sea. He reasoned that, had the Muslims themselves had a special building, James I would have reserved its continued use for the Tribunal; he therefore concluded that the meetings must have taken place outdoors, in the atrium of the Great Mosque, where the meetings continued to be held after the mosque became the Cathedral. Borrull regarded the Tribunal as a judicial corporation, assumed it had always taken such a form, and thus could not explain the absence of documentation concerning this judicial body which was every bit as important (in his view) as the justiciar's office and the Consulate. ⁽⁵²⁾

This insistence upon regarding the Tribunal as a collegiate panel of judges rather than as a jury, and as a necessarily formal [68] rather than originally informal institution, is at the heart of the general inability to uncover its origins. I believe that the Tribunal could not possibly have been the invention of some king or caliph, but that it was a customary, informal institution of long evolution. Records of its existence in the Middle Ages are sparse, because it had no status in public law and as a judicial body was nonessential, ⁽⁵³⁾ because the fueros provided for irrigation justice in the office of cequier and in channels of appeal to the governor's court. One can, therefore, only hypothesize concerning the ultimate origins of the Tribunal. It could have originated in the Islamic period as a subjurisdiction of the judgeship or qadâ; ⁽⁵⁴⁾ it could have more ancient roots in customary meetings of elders to discuss irrigation matters; ⁽⁵⁵⁾ it has obvious analogies with the law merchant. ⁽⁵⁶⁾ Possibly all of these elements are present in the Tribunal's history.

Here we can only consider what the function of the Tribunal, or proto-Tribunal, might have been in the Middle Ages, long before it acquired formal status. What advantage was there in splitting the cequier's judicial and executive procedure into two phases, the denunciation in situ and the formal act of sentencing and fining? What advantage did a joint meeting of all the cequiers in public have over the individual action of each cequier? It seems fair to suggest that the primary function, historically and practically, of the Tribunal and its informal antecedent of the Middle Ages was not judgment, but consultation among those who best knew the custom of the huerta. Part of the cequier's authority was thus brought under the scrutiny and consideration of all the irrigators of the huerta, through their delegated officials and through the presence of irrigators at large, ⁽⁵⁷⁾ just as nonjudicial aspects of irrigation such as arrangements for turns were also regarded as the responsibility of all. The convening of the cequiers was an embodiment of the basic precept of consensual authority in irrigation.

One March evening in the drought year of 1413, the lieutenant cequier of the Moncada Canal, Gil Roiç of Castellblanch, was [69] patrolling the canal in order to prevent acts contravening the regulations. ⁽⁵⁸⁾ When he came to the mill of En Codinachs in Benimàmet he found the gates of the mill's return ditch closed; as a result water was backing up and spilling over the canal banks, to the detriment of the irrigators. The next day Roiç returned with a certain Aparici Romeu of Puig. He brought with him a hook with which to raise the gates of the ditch in question, in order to lower the level of water in the main canal so that it would not spill over. At this point the mother ⁽⁵⁹⁾ of the brothers Codinachs told him not to touch anything; Roiç replied that she did ill to waste the water of the canal, which "was of profit to other places as well as her own." The woman answered that if water was spilling over it was because the bank was broken down and that Roiç ought to repair it. While she argued with Roiç, one of her sons appeared, told him to touch nothing, and asked to be shown the "fraud" in question. "And since the lieutenant wished to show him the place where the fraud was, he went to a bridge above the mill." The scene which ensued is indicative of the high tensions conspicuous in irrigated areas when water is short; the slightest misunderstanding can set off a fight:

There came then Master Ausias, Master Manuel, and another brother (only it wasn't Master Pere) and they came with squires and with others of their vassals, bearing arms. And as he was showing them the said fraud and saying to them, "Look, here it is!" one of them came over towards the man called Aparici Romeu who was in the company of the lieutenant, saying, "Halt, Sir Humpback, that I might undo your hump!"
    Aparici turned, and when he had turned, they gave him a lance-blow. Recoiling backwards from the blow, he fell into the canal. Another of the brothers -- he didn't know which -- jumped into the canal with his dagger drawn, and here the two men locked arms. As Aparici placed his hand on the dagger of the other so that he would not harm him . . . they gave him a lance-blow on the back so hard that were it not for the hauberk which he wore, they would have wounded him.

In spite of the elaborate mechanisms of control whose very basis was the consensus of the irrigators themselves, violence lay ever just below the surface, ready to erupt, especially against officials, if provocation should be given. The medieval irrigators were extremely excitable about their rights being "disturbed," and millers and cultivators alike were willing to fight in an instant if they felt that their water supply was jeopardized in any way.

The balance of rivalry between millers and agricultural irrigators was always precarious; the millers, outnumbered, disliked, and feeling that the cequier -- as the farmers' man -- was naturally inimical to their interests and needs, were ready to fly off the handle at the slightest challenge. Cultivators, too, turned their hostility against officials. Here the provocation was usually associated with turns -- with installing and removing canal checks, and with opening and shutting channels and divisors. For example, Jacme Ilari, divider of the water of Mislata in the district of Patraix, was officiating at a turn one night in August 1414, a drought year. "He divided the water and gave it to Jacme Fuster," and after he had done so Pere Tortosa came riding up with three men, bearing "lances, swords, and lashes," menacing Ilari and Fuster both with his lance. Ilari threatened Tortosa [71] with a fine (raising it by ten sous with each threat). Finally one of the armed men got into the canal and Tortosa ordered him to undo the check. With that Ilari, "seeing the furor or fury" of Tortosa, retired and took his claims to the governor's court. ⁽⁶¹⁾

Violence against officials was not the sole province of hotheads such as Pere Tortosa and the Codinachs. It was sometimes the expression of mass resistance as well. During a dispute between upstream and downstream irrigators on the Favara Canal in 1456, the mechanisms of autonomous control broke down completely. The rights of the downstream folk were to have been protected during their turn by the posting of guards upstream to see that no water was diverted there. But the upstream guards had been menaced with cudgels and were so intimidated that they abandoned their posts, and the downstream men felt constrained to ask the governor to send an enforcing agent (porter). ⁽⁶²⁾

In the above examples, violence was associated with individual or mass noncompliance with the orders of irrigation officials. In the first instance, the cequier or guard's discretion was questioned; in the second, the basis of consensual authority was invalidated by mass disobedience. The cequier had considerable discretionary authority in the administration of the turns of his own canal. The less water available, the more the cequier's power assumed critical importance and, consequently, the more likely he was to come into conflict with the hereters. In times of drought control became more stringent; this was the case on both autonomous and municipal canals. In the course of the drought year of 1413 the commons of Benacher, Faitanar, and Quart petitioned the governor for a letter ordering all the residents of those canals to obey the two guards, Marti Darmelles of Valencia and Miquel Ametler of Quart, who were charged with guarding the canals of Benacher and Quart from Alaquàs up to the diversion dam, "guarding night and day, so that no person might take the water of the said canal." ⁽⁶³⁾ The city of Castellon took similar measures to ensure the success of the turn in March 1473. The jurates proposed that since many people wished to irrigate both "in their turns and outside of their turns," and since many were losing their crops because they could not irrigate, it seemed best to elect [72] special officials for the overseeing of turns who would be empowered "to give water to those who had need of it." Therefore the council named Guillem Castell and Bernat Pelegri for the turn of Wednesday and Thursday, Anthoni Lorenç and Jacme Marc for Friday and Saturday, Johan Vilaroig and Pere Angles for Sunday and Monday, and the officials of Canet (the tail region of the canal) for Tuesday, "giving them all the power necessary for giving water to whosoever has need and for making all the necessary orders and rights of access." ⁽⁶⁴⁾

The shorter the water, therefore, the greater the challenge to the cequier's authority. His discretion was challenged on other grounds as well. In most of eastern Spain the principle which guided the order of turns was that the man farthest upstream go first. ⁽⁶⁶⁾ But the cequier, in times of water shortage, could use his discretion to alter the order according to some other priority; such alterations could easily lead him into conflict with individual irrigators. Miquel Climent owned a vineyard in Almudafer, a suburb of Morvedre, which was irrigated from the cequia major of Morvedre. Several times Miquel had asked Matheu Folquera, the cequier mayor of Morvedre, and his lieutenant to give him the place in the turn which was his by right for the irrigation of his vineyard, according to the customary practice in time of drought. Not only had the cequier not given him water, but what was, in Miquel's view, even worse, he had given it "to the hereters situated, in order, below Miquel's vineyard, and never had he wished to give the water to Miquel." The result was the total ruin of the vineyard; Miquel now sought penalties from the governor (an appeal to the jurates of Morvedre having failed because the cequiers argued that they, not the jurates, had jurisdiction in the affair), and that he be allowed to regain his just place in the turn. Miquel thought he had every reason to expect that, by custom, the top field -- namely his -- ought to drink first. In this case the cequier appears to have assigned the water to downstream irrigators, perhaps those growing bread grains, in preference to Miquel and his grapes. ⁽⁶⁷⁾
 

[74]Other disputes seem based on the nature of irrigation systems themselves. The location of a man's turn-out determined in large part his relations with the irrigators above and below him. A primary function of an equitable system of distribution is to compensate the downstream irrigators for their unfavorable location by exacting concessions from landowners near the head of the canal. The degree of regulation and the efficacy with which regulations are enforced determine in what way spatial factors make themselves felt.

To be sure, all irrigation disputes are "upstream-downstream" disputes. But methods of control vary in accordance with the distance separating the disputants and the number of people involved. The farther apart the disputants and the greater the number, the less were the communal officers able to deal with the dispute. When disputes took on a political dimension, as frequently happened in the Valencian huerta where the canals were long enough to include several coalitions of villages, intervention of higher authority was often required. ⁽⁶⁸⁾ The villages near the head of the canal opposed those near the tail; and, on very long canals, the villages in the center section formed a subgroup which sided now with the head villages, now with the tail, depending on how great its need for water was. The huerta canals tailed off into swamp areas, and those villages upstream and nearer the urban nucleus were more highly developed and had more economic leverage than those downstream. The tail villages, as a result, had to find support either from the king -- by suing in his court -- or from the city fathers.

Upstream-downstream rivalries on three huerta canals in the fifteenth century, and the related problem of inter-rech disputes, can be examined as specimen cases of political polarity in local irrigation.

THE MONCADA CANAL

The Moncada Canal was the longest in the huerta, entering the sea past Puçol, about twenty kilometers from its diversion dam near Paterna. The flow of water was regulated by four control gates (tables) and by a series of seven return ditches (almenares), the first of which was near the head of the canal. ⁽⁶⁹⁾ About halfway along its course the Moncada Canal passed through a siphon under the Gully of Carraixet after a sharp turn seaward at Massarrojos: its course continued in a northeasterly direction after the Gully until it reached Rafelbunyol, where it turned sharply and flowed due east to the sea past Puig and Puçol near the bounds of the municipal district of Morvedre. In the Middle Ages, the villages along the canal formed discrete political groupings: the upstream group (sobirans) included all the villages from the head to the Gully (Paterna, Benimàmet, Burjassot, Godella, Rocafort, Massarrojos, Moncada, and Alfara --see Map 1); Puig and Puçol were the keystones of the downstream group (jusans); and the intervening villages, the migans, had shifting and ambivalent loyalties.

Throughout the course of the fifteenth century Puig and Puçol brought numerous suits in the governor's court against the commons and officials of Moncada. The first such suit, brought by Puol in 1415, resulted in the Governor's nullification of an order by the cequier to close the canal for cleaning. The cequier, Guillem Campmar of Meliana, had ordered the water shut off on the Monday following April 3. The men of Puçol, pointing out the danger to the crops (already in dire condition in that drought year), argued that cutting off the water was not necessary and could as well be done "at the end of the present month of April, as is customary to do each year, or at another time when the crops would be fuller grown and stronger than they were at present." ⁽⁷⁰⁾ Finally they appealed, through their procurator, Bernat Steve, to their rights to the water of the canal as vouchsafed by the Pragmatic Sanction of King Peter IV.

Throughout the century, this privilege of the King of Aragon [76] of August 5, 1374, ⁽⁷¹⁾ was the mainstay of the argument of Puig and Puçol, many times reiterated, against the cequier and the upstream villages of the Moncada Canal. It provided for the disposition of Moncada's water when the river was in tanda. By provisions in a privilege of James II in 1321, the Pueblos Castillos were to receive all the water of the Guadalaviar in time of drought for four successive days; the huerta canals, Moncada included, received all the water for the four following days. ⁽⁷²⁾ In addition, in times of extreme need it was provided that the four upper canals of the huerta, Moncada, Quart, Tormos, and Mislata, would let some of their water flow to the four lower canals. ⁽⁷³⁾

Peter's privilege of 1374 provided that, for the aid of its crops, the city had the right in time of drought to take one-fourth of Moncada's water. ⁽⁷⁴⁾ The other three-fourths remained in the canal and was used for milling and irrigating fields up to the Gully of Carraixet. Moncada's water was to flow through almenares ⁽⁷⁵⁾ into the river, joining that of the Pueblos Castillos and flowing with it to the city for its four days of the river tanda. On these days the water remaining in the Moncada Canal was to be used by all the hereters up to the Gully of Carraixet; afterward Moncada ran full again, but no water could be taken by the hereters above the Gully. The water in the canal at this time (that is, during the four days on which the Pueblos Castillos had the tanda) could be used only by the hereters below the Gully: three days for Vinalesa, Foios, Albalat, Museros, Massamagrell, and Rafelbunyol, one day for Puig and Puçol. On that final one day the water was to flow to Puig and Puçol to mill and to irrigate crops and fields "at the discretion of the cequier of the said canal, and on that day all the lateral branches of the said canal up to the districts of Puig and Puçol are to be closed and no one might dare take the water or withhold it from the residents of the said places of Puig and Puçol, under penalty of sixty sous." ⁽⁷⁶⁾

The discretion of the cequier was critical because he had power not only to arrange details of the distribution but also, as in the above case, to deny the water completely. The revocation of Guillem Campmar's order at the beginning of April 1415 [77] was only a stopgap action. Three weeks later Puçol was back in the governor's court, this time with the support of the Bishop of Valencia. ⁽⁷⁷⁾

The bishop's procurators and Bernat Steve, who represented Puig, stated that by virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction of Peter IV the residents of Puig and Puol were entitled to one day of water per week, but that the cequier was abusing this right, causing "the total destruction of the said places. . . which by reason of not having the water which is due them are being turned [from regadiu] into secà, and, for the same reason, are soon to come to depopulation and ruin" if the governor did not provide redress. ⁽⁷⁸⁾

Because of their disadvantageous position at the tail of the canal, Puig and Puçol were obliged, both in 1374 and in 1415, to accept subordination to a magnate in return for support. Only with the help of the King in the earlier instance and of the Bishop of Valencia, Hugh of Lupia, in the latter, could the two weak villages countervail the will of the city and its satellite villages upstream.

In June 1416 the sobirans fought back. At that time representatives of Burjassot, Godella, Rocafort, Massarrojos, Benifaraig, Carpesa, Borbotó, Moncada, and Alfara -- that is, all the places upstream of the Gully of Carraixet -- argued before the Governor that according to James I's donation of the Moncada Canal to all the irrigators ⁽⁷⁹⁾ they had unimpeded use of the water. Recently it had come to their attention that "some of those who irrigate from the water of the said canal below the Gully," following the Bishop of Valencia and the residents of Puig and Puçol, sought to prevent the cequier from administering the canal according to its own regulations and to the fueros; they sought a surety (ferma dedret ⁽⁸⁰⁾), and this was embodied in a letter from the Governor to Hugh. ⁽⁸¹⁾

On July 11, the procurator of the bishop and of the hereters della lo riusech-- all those downstream from the Gully -- replied that the ordinances of the canal were to be followed in times of abundance of water but not in times of shortage, when the provisions of Peter IV should be put into effect. ⁽⁸²⁾

By the time of the next suit, in 1424, a political switch had [78] taken place and the city of Valencia was associated with the bishop as co-lord of Puig. ⁽⁸³⁾ The plaintiffs argued that the water of Moncada was customarily divided by jovates and fanecates, and that Puig and Puçol, like the other villages along the canal, should receive water in proportion to the amount of land they had (Puig had sixty jovates, Puçol eighty). But now the cequier of Moncada, Jacme de Almenara, constrained them to pay cequiatge on the basis of number of jovates even though they were not receiving a just share of the water. Puig and Puçol therefore refused to recognize Almenara as cequier but regarded him as a "private person." Almenara, for his part, argued that when there was enough water in the Guadalaviar for all Puig and Puçol received their shares according to the number of jovates. But when there was a shortage a different procedure went into effect: two deputies were elected who, along with the syndics and inspectors of the canal, were to divide the water, taking the scarcity into account, according to their best judgment. Almenara added that he had been elected by a majority of the syndics and therefore had jurisdiction in spite of the fact that he had been opposed by Steve and Pascual Cases, syndics of Puig and Puçol. He therefore justly had "ordinary and contentious jurisdiction" and could indeed force the hereters to pay the cequiatge. ⁽⁸⁴⁾

The rebuttal of Puig and Puçol is most significant: they alleged that the upstream irrigators had indirectly stolen their water by conspiring to use the canal regulations against them so they could not obtain justice. The villages upstream of Puig and Puçol controlled the election of the cequier (ten votes to two), whose judgment must be accepted by all. As a result there was no recourse to any other official or judge but those elected by the upstream irrigators, and they were for the most part upstream men themselves. ⁽⁸⁵⁾ Thus the residents of Puig and Puçol, when denied their day in the Moncada Canal turn, were forced to beg justice from the hereters sobrians. The jusans could never -- they felt -- obtain justice from judges who themselves had participated in cutting off their water. ⁽⁸⁶⁾ Such was their rationale for recourse to the governor's court and for their answer to the [79] other side's contention that only the cequier of Moncada and not the governor was competent.

On occasion the jusans had to obtain the physical intervention of the governor. Upstream from Puig and Puçol were numerous fields, called alters, which were so high that they could only be irrigated when the canal ran full or by backing up water with checks. In 1438 Johan Ponç, cequier of Moncada, argued that it had been the practice for these alters to be irrigated on Puig and Puçol's day of the tanda. ⁽⁸⁷⁾ Puig and Puçol claimed that this practice contravened their rights, and they secured from the Governor the assignment of a porter to patrol the entire canal on the day of their turn to enforce the Pragmatic Sanction of Peter IV. On July 13 the porter, Anthoni Perez, together with a notary and the syndics of Puig and Puçol, went personally upstream along the canal. Coming to the turn-out of Massamagrell, ⁽⁸⁸⁾ a village with many alter fields, Perez ordered Johan Aparici, the çabacequier, to close the gate; Aparici complied. A little later Felip Boyl, lord of Massamagrell, came personally to the gate; the porter ordered him not to open it but in spite of the order "the said noble took some hooks and opened the gate." The porter then ordered Aparici to close the gate under pain of 500 florins and Aparici obeyed. Seeing Boyl move to reopen it, Perez ordered him not to do so under pain of first 1,000, then 2,000 florins; when Boyl put the hooks in the water the fine was raised to 3,000. Aparici shut the gate again on orders from Perez and Boyl opened it again, saying that he would always do so because it was his right. ⁽⁸⁹⁾ On the two succeeding turns of Puig and Puçol, similar action was taken against those who had opened their turn-outs illegally.

On July 18 of the same year Boyl began a countersuit against Puig and Puçol, claiming that for one hundred years or more it had been the custom to open the turn-out of Massamagrell on the days when Puig and Puçol were irrigating. ⁽⁹⁰⁾ Testimony, given by the present cequier against Puig and Puçol and by past cequiers and çabacequiers, was generally inconclusive. The most telling testimony was that of Vicent Pasqual, who had been [80] cequier in 1435, 1436, and 1437, and who said that during his tenure he had repeatedly sought to have the turn-out of Massamagrell shut on Puig and Puçol's day but had never been successful in enforcing this. ⁽⁹¹⁾

If the situation of Puig and Puol was precarious, the plight of those whose rights to water were less secure was severe indeed. Between Puçol and Morvedre was a swampy region known as Arrif. ⁽⁹²⁾ James I had given Morvedre the right to take water from the Moncada Canal to irrigate this district from the point where it crossed the Valencia road. ⁽⁹³⁾ Such a donation, especially since Arrif was outside the bounds of the Valencian huerta, must have met with immediate and continuing resistance from the irrigators of Moncada. In 1301 James II took note of Arrif's right to Moncada water, and of the malicious practice on the part of some residents of that canal of refusing to clean the canal and of widening their turn-outs so that water which should have been used to improve the lands of Arrif was instead flowing uselessly into the swamps. ⁽⁹⁴⁾

The passage of years did nothing to improve the situation of Arrif relative to the Moncada Canal, and in 1449 a suit was pending between the irrigators of the Arrif (or Riff) Canal as plaintiffs and the irrigators and cequier of Moncada as defendants. The men of Arrif claimed they had the right to a turn in the Moncada rotation. There had been no definitive judgment in the case, and as a result grain and other crops were drying up "through the great fault of the cequier and upstream hereters of Moncada who have permitted, and today still permit, the water of that canal (Moncada) to be lost in the swamps." ⁽⁹⁵⁾ The lands of Arrif, the argument continued, "could be well irrigated owing to the great richness and fertility of the water of the Guadalaviar and the Moncada Canal." They asked the Governor to order the sobirans to return the water to the main canal when they finished irrigating so that it could be diverted into the canal of Arrif.

The defendants pleaded that "owing to the water shortage and dryness of the fields for the past three months and at the present time, the first or upstream irrigators of Moncada had [81] many times had compassion for the irrigators of Puig and Puçol, who are the downstream and last irrigators of the canal and those who have the last turn." And, seeing that the crops of Puig and Puçol were perishing of drought, the sobirans "with compassion and reverence for God" had given the jusans one or two free days ("hun jorn o dos de gracia") beyond their turn. It was not true that there had been abundant water and that the excess went to waste in the swamps; the irrigators of Moncada had been accustomed to giving some turns to Arrif of their own free will -- that is, not through any right of the latter -- causing shortage of water to all the hereters of Moncada, "axi als sobirans com als migans e jusans." ⁽⁹⁶⁾

Indeed, the tenor of Moncada's argument was that the whole system was under attack and that, though the good upstream irrigators might, when they were able, have compassion for others less fortunate, they still must abide by the prescribed rules and procedures that had provided the most efficient and just way of distributing the available water, especially in times of shortage. No new rights could be admitted, nor could old priorities be changed. The testimony of one llaurador, Matheu Cristofol of Burjassot, communicates the mood of the irrigators (especially those upstream) during drought conditions: "He has seen and sees today that the men of Puçol complain that they cannot have water and he sees many others, who are before Puçol in the turn, complain that the water of the canal does not suffice them. And the witness believes that were it not for the good order and administration which the canal has it would not be able to supply half of its irrigation district." ⁽⁹⁷⁾

From the point of view of the upstream man, then, the canal ordinances were the embodiment of equity and order; to the downstream man they were biased rules, made by and for the upstream irrigators and prejudiced against those downstream.

THE FAVARA CANAL

The physical and political morphologies of the Favara Canal were quite similar to those of Moncada. It was the longest canal (8.2 kilometers) on the right bank of the Guadalaviar, diverting [82] water from the river at its dam in Mislata and flowing then to the Valencian suburb of Patraix and then to the Gully of Catarroja. Before the Gully it split into two branches, one crossing the Gully toward Albal, the other watering Massanassa and Alfafar. ⁽⁹⁸⁾ As on the Moncada Canal the tail villages, Albal and Catarroja, were separated from those upstream by a gully that formed a natural division. Catarroja and Albal were analogues of Puig and Puçol and had similar conflicts with the upstream irrigators. Massanassa and Alfafar, on the northern side of the Gully, tended to side with Catarroja somewhat more than the migans of Moncada sided with Puig and Puçol.

The main Favara canal officially terminated at the divisor creating the branches of Albal and Massanassa. The hereters of these branches were responsible for cleaning them; in every other way, however, they participated fully in the affairs of the main canal, in the election of cequiers, inspectors and deputies, payment of cequiatge, "just like any upstream hereter," and election of one special inspector for each village for the surveillance of the annual cleaning work on the main canal. ⁽⁹⁹⁾

Even though they had representation, the downstream villages could always be outvoted. Without fronting on the main canal, they shared the responsibilities of those who did but were at a disadvantage in receiving their share of the water. In 1457 the jusans refused to pay cequiatge when they felt that their rights to water were being prejudiced by those upstream. When the canal ran full and when the branches and turn-outs upstream were open, no water reached the divisors of Catarroja, Albal, and Massanassa; when these places had the tanda the upstream branches were supposed to be shut. The guards provided for in the regulations were of no use, claimed the jusans, since the sobirans frightened them away with cudgels. To counter these "violences and oppressions" they sought the appointment of a porter by the Governor to enforce their rights ⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ in the same way as Puig and Puçol had sought such assistance.

THE QUART-BENACHER-FAITANAR SYSTEM

The Quart dam diverted water from the Guadalaviar just below that of Moncada, but on the right bank of the river. The [83] Quart Canal then flowed through Manises and across a ravine (the Rambla of Manises) separating that village from the district of Quart over an aqueduct two hundred forty yards long. This section of the canal was known in the Middle Ages as the Canal of the Arches (Cequia deis Archs) because it was supported by twenty-eight arches. ⁽¹⁰¹⁾ In Quart the canal bifurcated by means of a divisor into the canal of Quart proper, which watered the district of Quart and part of Chiriveila, and the canal of Benacher, which irrigated Aldaia and Alaquàs. ⁽¹⁰²⁾ Faitanar was the eastern branch of Benacher and the largest of the three branches of the Quart system; it drained into the Favara Canal above Massanassa. ⁽¹⁰³⁾

The Quart system is of particular interest because its subdivision into three discrete physical units had clear administrative and jurisdictional ramifications. A longstanding dispute between Benacher and Faitanar over whether there ought to be a single cequier for both or separate jurisdictions was resolved in 1435 following a report by a panel of technical experts. During the first hearing of the case in August 1434, ⁽¹⁰⁴⁾ the Governor appointed Mossen Jacme Gil, Jacme Perfeta, Arnau Faura, Pere Vives, and Berthomeu Casesnoves to study the matter and submit the results of their deliberations. Casesnoves was a surveyor and builder of irrigation works by profession; ⁽¹⁰⁵⁾ Gil would become cequier of Rascanya in 1437; ⁽¹⁰⁶⁾ Perfeta owned a mill on the Algirós branch of Mestalla; ⁽¹⁰⁷⁾ Faura and Vives were both irrigators of Benacher and Faitanar ⁽¹⁰⁸⁾ and were most likely included as representatives of the respective branches.

Details of the dispute are not recorded but can be surmised on the basis of the solution recommended by the experts: the best way to have done with disputes between the upstream (Benacher) and downstream (Faitanar) irrigators would be for the two canals to have only one cequier, who would exercise all the jurisdiction and power formerly exercised by two. They further declared that all the irrigators should pay cequiatge and other common expenses "equally, by cafizate," the first in order of irrigating, just like the middle and last, and the men of Faitanar just like those of Benacher. Finally, the commission declared that the two present cequiers would return all fines collected and [84] that each would void all those pending from irrigators in the jurisdiction of the other. ⁽¹⁰⁹⁾

It is clear from the sentence that the downstream irrigators of Faitanar had refused to pay all or part of the cequiatge, on the familiar grounds, no doubt, that the sobirans had failed to give them their due share of the water. Second, there had ensued as an expression of endemic conflict between the two branches a jurisdictional free-for-all, with the cequier of each fining the hereters of the other with great abandon. The decision arrived at was probably the motive for drawing up new ordinances on May 29, 1435. The split jurisdiction had been a recent and temporary situation (ordinances of the combined canals were in force in 1421), a manifestation of the acuteness of upstream-downstream rivalry. ⁽¹¹⁰⁾

INTER-RECH DISPUTES

Disputes between communities, like those between branches of a single canal, were based to a large degree on spatial factors. The map of the huerta reveals a certain arbitrariness in the composition of individual canal networks, particularly those of the right bank. Some branches could just as well have belonged to one system as another, and all the networks were to an extent interlocking. There was lateral interlocking between parallel main canals and vertical joining through escorredors (drainage ditches). The closer two parallel systems were to each other, the greater the opportunity for confusion. When, for example, the Rovella commons sought to build a new extension between the river and the Favara Canal, the commons of the latter objected on the grounds that "the interval between one canal and another ought to be quite far." If not, drainage problems would increase (the groundwater level rises with each new canal), the banks of the channels would be weakened, and mutual destruction of the canals could result. ⁽¹¹¹⁾

For similar reasons there were statutory prohibitions against running water from one system into another: the cequier of Benacher and Faitanar, for example, was forbidden to run water into the Mislata system. ⁽¹¹²⁾ In some cases, however, irrigators in [85] the rech of one system had limited rights to use the water of another. Several irrigators of Tormos in Burjassot were allowed to irrigate with Moncada water through a turn-out near the watering trough of that village. Moncada had the right to keep this roll, or canal turn-out, shut except "when three or four estates having irrigation rights from it are in need." But in this instance the Tormos men were keeping the turn-out open all the time, running Moncada's water into the Tormos Canal. ⁽¹¹³⁾ Inasmuch as inter-rech disputes involved more than one cornmunity they were most often composed by appeal to the governor, who alone could enforce the sentence in both rechs. In the summer of 1435 the Governor imposed fines on officials of the Chirivella branch of the Mislata system for illegally diverting water from Faitanar. ⁽¹¹⁴⁾

Some conflicts arose from the very way in which water flows. When, for example, the normal surface slope is decreased as a result of the normal level being increased at some point downstream, a variable backwater results. ⁽¹¹⁵⁾ Such backwaters -- regolfs d'aygua, in medieval Valencian -- caused by various kinds of obstructions in the channels (checks, divisors, or mills, for example), had destructive effects upstream and produced conflicts between the harmed individuals and those responsible for the obstruction. Effects on the flow resulting from construction of mills, divisors, and other permanent structures had to be taken into consideration at the time of their emplacement. To this end, technical specialists called levelers were consulted, not only in the planning and building stages but also thereafter, when unforeseen hydraulic difficulties arose. ⁽¹¹⁶⁾

A canal check is anything placed in a channel for the purpose of diverting water. To divert, the irrigator frequently needs to reduce the velocity of flow or to raise the level of the water or both. (The Valencian term parada, "stop," stresses the slowing function of a check, whereas the Murcian synonym rafa, "raising [86] up," ⁽¹¹⁷⁾ stresses the second.) Checks were often improvised -- any slat, rock, or even a pile of rubble would produce the desired effect. Occasionally checks were implanted permanently to reduce the velocity of the current. They were frequently placed downstream from mills, where they equalized the effects of a sharp drop upstream from the mill. ⁽¹¹⁸⁾ A check might also be placed at the head of a continuously flowing secondary channel to divert water into it. ⁽¹¹⁹⁾ In 1408 several men of Castellón, irrigating from a channel called The Cequiol, complained about a backwater resulting from a rock placed in the channel by Pere de Reus to divert water to a watering trough. The council ordered the rock inspected; if it projected upward so as to create a large backwater, it was to be lowered enough to eliminate the backwater. ⁽¹²⁰⁾

Backwaters could cause excessive silting, as occurred on the same canal two years later. Some irrigators complained that a check placed to divert water to the cathedral works caused The Cequiol to become stagnant; in fact, so much silt had gathered that the men who had contracted to clean the channel were now unwilling to do so unless the council would supplement the cequiatge funds. ⁽¹²¹⁾

Mills also were common sources of conflict. ⁽¹²²⁾ Mills need a constant water supply, which may not always be possible when turns are instated. Even in normal times millers and cultivators have different hydraulic requirements. The cultivator likes a uniform, steady, and level flow of water, but the miller must have a drop in the channel. He must build up head for his mill, but at the same time avoid backing up the water so strongly as to cause flooding and caving in the banks upstream. For these reasons, technical advice was needed at the time of construction. Anthoni de Veses, who purchased a mill on the Favara Canal and rebuilt it, was later accused by downstream irrigators of depriving them of water. Veses claimed that this could not be true inasmuch as he had rebuilt the mill with the help of "good masters and levelers of water." ⁽¹²³⁾ But in spite of precautions mills were constantly causing damage to other water users. The town of Castellón took action in 1410 against Domingo Dolç, [87] whose mill was causing backwaters great enough to break down the banks of the canal. ⁽¹²⁴⁾

If mills indeed had been properly "leveled" and their hydraulic problems taken into account at the time of their building, how could such damage ensue? In some instances, the original hydraulic balance was disrupted by the miller's changing the operation of the milling apparatus. In 1446 a dispute arose over the mill of En Ferrada on the Algirós branch of the Mestalla Canal, a fulling mill designed to run with two millstones (rodes). The present miller, Jacme Perfeta, was operating with only one stone, possibly because he wished to avoid the unpleasant vibration caused by two. ⁽¹²⁵⁾ With only one wheel operating, the head needed to turn the mill was reduced by half, and a backwater resulted upstream. In this case the backwater was so great that the water overflowed the banks of the canal and spilled into the neighboring canal of Bonvehi. ⁽¹²⁶⁾ A mill located on a drainage ditch could hinder proper drainage: the mill of En Caner ran on water from the moat of the city of Valencia, but because of the check placed in the moat to divert water to the mill a backwater was created which prevented the moat from draining properly. The council ordered the jurates and some master masons to investigate. ⁽¹²⁷⁾

Sometimes the miller was the aggrieved party. In another dispute on The Cequiol of Castellón, the owner of the mill of En Altamora, Domingo Mascho, claimed that he had the right to the unimpeded flow of water through his mill's canal without any obstruction upstream in the form of rocks, mud, rushes, or anything else. Some irrigators who had land near his mill and who took water from The Cequiol (which canal, he took pains to point out, had been "leveled and measured" in days of old) were trying to impede the flow of water to his mill by putting brush, mud, and rocks in The Cequiol to raise the water level. ⁽¹²⁸⁾ The problem here was not the usual direct miller-farmer confrontation, in which the miller was accused of creating the backwater, but rather that the miller was suffering as a result of the cultivators' desire for more water.

Divisors perhaps even more than mills were natural centers [88] of conflict. Indeed, one divisor in the Favara system was called Na Piquabaralla (Lady Pick-a-Fight); ⁽¹²⁹⁾ whether it was so named in anthropomorphization of a traditional potentiality for disruption, or whether such a pugnacious lady did in fact join in quarrels over that particular divisor, the association of divisors and strife made the name an apt symbol. Divisors, after all, divided more than just water. They divided groups of irrigators, as those of Benacher and Faitanar, and Algirós and Rambla.

Because water distribution was based on a principle of proportionality, the divisor -- as the medium by which ratios representing area of irrigated land were translated into real quantities of water -- was the key to the entire distributory system. For this reasons divisors were very carefully and precisely designed, leveled, measured, and built. They had to be constructed solidly enough to withstand any changes in the water level on either side of the "tongue" which might alter the traditionally established ratio. They were built of mortar (argamassa), stone (pedra), or flagstones (loses). ⁽¹³⁰⁾ Another guarantee of stability was the recording of the measurements of divisors in a legal document. At a general meeting of the irrigators of the Favara Canal in 1362 it was decided that all the canal's divisors be "measured and leveled . . . in case they should ever he ruined or have to be rebuilt owing either to war or to the long passage of time." ⁽¹³¹⁾ The inventory, made by the leveler Andreu Julia, recorded only the width (in palms or fingers) of the ditches and an occasional indication of level, such as whether the floor of the canal on either side of the tongue was at a uniform elevation.

The flow on either side of a divisor was affected not only by the width of the channel, but by the level of the beds and the downstream course of the subchannels. The importance of a leveled divisor ⁽¹³²⁾ can be appreciated from several examples of litigation in the huerta of Valencia. The Benacher Canal received its water, as we have seen, from the Canal of the Arches in Manises by means of a divisor which partitioned the water equally between the canals of Quart and Benacher ⁽¹³³⁾ In 1437 the irrigators of Benacher complained that Quart was taking more water than Benacher from the common channel; the offi [89] cials of Quart replied that both sides of the divisor were equal and had originally been at the same level, and furthermore, that Quart's side had been well cleaned while that of Benacher was clogged, owing to neglect by the irrigators.

The original ratio of division of a divisor can be altered by deposits of silt on either side. The tongue of the divisor acts as an obstruction and creates a hydraulic jump. Where the flow becomes tranquil again (see Figure 3), silt is deposited; if it is not removed, water backs up above the obstruction and flows down the other side. In this particular case the court dispatched the levelers Berthomeu Casesnoves and Jacme Gallen to examine the disputed divisor and to determine the height of the water on both sides. The experts reported that they had seen the divisor, but with water flowing through it. When they had asked to see it without water, the officials had complained that emptying the canal at that time (early June) would cause great harm to the irrigators and tile rice crop. Three weeks later the court, on the advice of Casesnoves and Gallen, ordered that the water be equally divided and that "tile floors of the said divisors be raised one-half palm in equal level," and that above and below the division the floor and sides of the channels be strengthened with rock and mortar to ensure the continued equality of distribution. ⁽¹³⁴⁾

As a final example, a dispute between two branches of the Mestalla Canal in 1452 admirably illustrates the hydraulic problems created by the conjuncture of a mill and a divisor. The branches of Rambla and Algirós divide their water --in the words of the document -- in a divisor constructed above the mills owned by Jacme Perfeta, and "each of the said canals, there where the tongue of the divisor is, has its channel and sides of stone, made at [the same] level, in which no change may be introduced, inasmuch as the ancient and accustomed course of the water ought to be preserved." ⁽¹³⁵⁾

Perfeta alleged that some irrigators of tile Rambla Canal had been moved to introduce a change in the divisor; those of Algirós were determined to protect their rights to the ancient course of the water. Rambla's argument was as follows: Perfeta [91] owned two mills on the Algirós branch and had schemed to divert more than the customary volume of water into Algirós'

 

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The divisor, the argument of Rambla continues, was built "with a certain measure, with certain borders, and at a certain level." But Perfeta, to the great harm of the irrigators of Rambla, had caused more water to flow in the Algirós branch; consequently, much less water was now flowing into Rambla, which had more land to irrigate than did Algirós. ⁽¹³⁸⁾ In former times the fulling mill had operated just as all fulling mills do; but since Perfeta had acquired the mill all of its channels had remained open, with the result that the water rushed into the Algirós branch "impetuously. . . and with great velocity." ⁽¹³⁹⁾ Perfeta kept the fulling mill empty and nonoperative so that his flour mill, further downstream, would have a great abundance of water and would be able to move more millstones than it had originally been designed to move.

Perfeta's side of the story was then presented by his procurator, Berenguer Cardona, who had represented him in 1446. It should be pointed out that Cardona appears to have had more experience with irrigation affairs than his opponents in that his arguments are much more specific regarding hydraulic points. Indeed, it is possible to observe in lawyers a certain specialization in hydraulic matters; several men, Cardona included, repeatedly argued irrigation cases). ⁽¹⁴⁰⁾

Cardona argued, first, that this divisor had had the same dimensions for a hundred years or more and that no novelty had been introduced in it. Second, it was impertinent to sue Perfeta for not using his mill, since he alone stood to gain financially when it ran and to lose when it did not; it is the owner's prerogative to decide how to use his property. Third, in a suit successfully brought by Perfeta and the cequier of Algirós against [92] Mercader and the Rambla branch, he had gained the right to widen the channel of Algirós below the divisor in order to obtain more water, on the grounds that what happens below the divisor could not harm the other side. ⁽¹⁴¹⁾ The other side made much of the point that the Mestalla Canal and its divisors dated from the time of the Saracens ⁽¹⁴²⁾ and that Cardona's client was upsetting this balance with his mill. Cardona believed this argument to be an absurdity: at the time the water had originally been divided there had certainly been no provision made "to give a certain advantage in the divisor of the Algirós Canal because of an uncertain impediment that might have been thought up" about some future mill. ⁽¹⁴³⁾ "No man of this life," he mused, "can measure future needs." ⁽¹⁴⁴⁾

Cardona argued that all the mill's channels must remain open and gave a good description of hydraulic jump at a divisor and of a mill's need for a good head of water. It had been established by previous arbitration that the mill had to be run in such a way as not to cause a backwater by which the Algirós Canal would lose water. "The water had to jump at the divisor in such a way that once it had jumped, it could not flow back." ⁽¹⁴⁵⁾

It may be, therefore, Cardona continued, that Algirós, by having "free jump" (lo saltdeliure), drew more water than Rambla. If the irrigators of Rambla wished to alter their channel below the divisor in a like way, no one could complain. Cardona concluded that the banks of the two canals had been built "with such a level and measure" that neither could fail to receive its just portion unless one of the two should be poorly maintained and thus give rise to a backwater. ⁽¹⁴⁶⁾

In closing his argument, Cardona mentioned a pertinent structural point always taken into consideration when divisors are built:

When the water of any main canal is divided equally between two canals, in the construction of the channel and of the divisors of those canals it is customary to note which of the two . . . runs most straight [in relation] to the course of the main canal. And if one of these canals should [93] be found to run more in line [with the main canal], so that it receives the water more freely and gets more than the other which does not receive it thus in a straight line, for this reason it is customary to give advantage of some small width to the [side of the] divisor of the canal which does not run so much in line, and the divisor of the canal which runs in line is made narrower, so that the latter does not receive more water than the former, but both of them receive the water with equality. ⁽¹⁴⁷⁾

Thus with divisors, as with mills, solution to hydraulically based conflict was not always possible within the framework of the community. Consultation with outside experts was necessary, and often the matter became so complicated that only a formal court proceeding could straighten it out.

1. Jaume Roig, Spill o libre de consells, ed. R. Miquel y Planas, 2 vols. (Barcelona, 1929--1950), ll. 14785-14792. Fina Querol Faus sees in this passage "an implicit comparison between the acequiero and God, distributor of eternal justice"; La vida valenciana en el siglo XV: un eco de Jaume Roig (Valencia, 1963), p. 20. Roig made a detailed description of the irrigation system of Valencia (ll. 14760-14813) based on his own experience as an owner of irrigated land. He died while on a trip to inspect the "diversion dams of the canals" (Spill, I, xviii: "Dimecres, primer dia de abril [1478], mestre Jaurne Roig, metge, e mossen Lois Masco, ab altres que tenen heretats, anaven a veure los auts de les cequies, e passat Benimmet lo mestre Jaume se atura e volch descavalcar per horinar; e al descavalcar . . . eli caigue de la mula, e dona tan gran colp que nos poch levar").

2. Benacher-Faitanar Ordinances, 1435: "Item lo dit cequier o lochtinent de aquell sia tengut de pasegar les dites cequies almenys una vegada cascun mes ab un o mes dels vehedors e ab lo sindich del dit comu."

3. ARV, Gobernación, 2201, 8th hand, fol. 3V (Mar. 30, 1413): "En Gil Roiç de Casteliblanch . . . dix . . . que ell com a lochtinent de cequier de la dita cequia anant per la dita cequia dimecres passat hac huyt jorns en la nit ab sis homens que menava en sa companyhia per evitar los fraus ques poguesen fer en laygua de la dita cequia."

4. It followed that both parties had to be present when sentence was passed. Pere Vives, cequier of Favara, testified that "while he was cequier when a question was before him . . . he had [never] given sentence without the parties being present." ("En pere vives laurador vehi del loch de patrax [sic] . . . dix quell ts. mentres es stat cequier de la dita cequia de favara que questio fos devant ell corn a cequier no ha donat sentencia sens que les parts noy fossen presents"; (ARV, Gobernación, 2278, fol. 48r, Dec. 1, 1449.)

5. The cequier's judicial process was identical to that of the mustasaf (see Chapter X). The oral process in this case was an Islamic inheritance, as James II inferred in a charter of 1316: "We understand on behalf of the masters of the city of Valencia that anciently, before the time of the conquest, it was the custom of this city that the mustasaf, summarily and openly, not having received any petition or opinion in writing, but by hearing the statements of the disputants concerning [Various urban problems] decides by himself or, should doubts occur to him, with the advice of the jurates and of other masters of the city, and of others who were [formerly] mustasafs"; Francisco Sevillano Colom, Valencia urbana medieval a través del oficio del mustasaf (Valencia, 1957), p. 201. See also Arcadio Garcia, "La actuación procesal del mustaçaf," Ausa (Vich), II (1955-1956), 301-310. Blasco Ibañez commented, with regard to the Tribunal of Waters, that "the absence of certified documents and of the frightful scribe was the thing which most pleased these folk who were used to looking up to the art of writing with a superstitious fear, inasmuch as they were ignorant of it. There were no secretaries, no pens, no days of anguish awaiting the sentence, no terrifying guards, nor anything more than words"; La Barraca, p. 82 (Editorial Planeta ed.).

6. ARV, Protocolos de Juan Domingo, 2974 (Mar. 30, 1419): "E dient lo dit cequier que li plahia que al dit n'Armengol qui present era el hauia request diverses veus que aço reduit fos en scrits e ii fos feta carta publica." This document is published in Thomas F. Glick, "Dos documentos medievales referentes al Tribunal de las Aguas," BSCC, 53 (1967), 83-84. Compare another sentence of a cequier (a fine for an illegal canal check) recorded by a notary who had been present at the sentencing (ARV, Gobernación, 2278, 1st hand, fol. 41r, Mar. 23, 1450).

7. (a) ARV, Real Patrimonio, Maestre Racional, leg. 482, no. 9852: "Libre del honrat en Miquel Tripo, cequier de la cequia maior de la vila de Castello del any M CCCC XXXXIII [1443]"; (b) ARV, Varia, libro 402: "Libre de la administracio del offici del cequier de la vila de Castello del any M CCCC LXXXVI [1486], cequier, lo honorable en Joan Marques." These two books are hereafter referred to as Castellón Fine-Book (1443) and (1486). Three similar books from the sixteenth century are preserved in the Municipal Archives of Castellón: (c) "Judiciari del magnifich cequier de la present vila de Castelló del any M D LXXVII [1577], cequier, lo magnifich en Pere Bosch": (d) "Libre del cequier de la vila de Castelió del any M D LXXVIII [1578], cequier, en Pere Navarro"; and (e) "Libre del cequier de la vila de Castelló del any M D LXXVIIII [1579], cequier, en Jaume Bernat." The sixteenth-century books are not as helpful as the earlier ones inasmuch as only the charges, but not the fines, are specified. Recording of fines, it should be noted, was an administrative act of the cequier and did not alter the oral character of the judicial act.

8. 1443: 406 entries, 10 double fines, 5 no charge specified.

9. 1486: 492 entries, 10 double fines, 3 no charge specified.

10. Assumed to be an official

11. Confused reading: "li leva laygua vedada."

12. Actually only 58, but in 2 entries officials charge one irrigator with stealing water from another, named irrigator.

13. Assumed to be an official.

14. In 1473 Galent and Johan Pelega, Castellón guards, insisted that a resident of Almassora pay this sum, which had been fixed in a prior agreement between the two towns (AMC, Libres de Consell, Feb. 9, 1473); Benacher-Faitanar Ordinances, 1435. Compare ARV, Gobernación, 2278, 1st hand, fol. 41r (Mar. 23, 1450): Andreu Ferrer had twice made an illegal check in the canal of the mill of La Gabia (Favara system) and was fined 6 pounds by the cequier.

15. Castellón Fine-Book (1443): fines of 1d.: Jaume Segarra y. Na Lorexa the Widow (Apr. 27), "tenia parador [sic] en la cequia"; Prornens de Canet y. Pere Vilar (Apr. 27), "parador en lo partidor." Fines of 2d.: Johan Guillen y. en (Bernat) Tallant (Jan.10), "li ha feta la parada en lo seu enfront [?]"; Promens de Canet y. Farrag (Apr. 27), "tenie parada en la cequia"; Promens de Canet y. Ciballa (Aug. 7), "tenie parada en la cequia"; Promens de Canet y. En Sampol (Oct. l0), "tenie parada en la cequia mayor." Fines of 4d.: Promens de Canet y. Serano (Mar. 21), "feu parada en la cequia": Guillem Bonet y. Berthorneu Mut [?] (Apr. 3), "feu parada en lo cegol." Fine of 6d.: Promens of Canet y. Serano (Apr. 27), "parada en la cequia."

16. Hamilton, Money, Prices, and Wages, pp. 52, 72.

17. The Sonjo of Tanganyika, pp. 60-61. Although the generalization is suggestive, it does not seem to follow from the evidence. In the village studied by Gray the usual fine for stealing water is one goat, which is said to be "a relatively mild penalty compared to those for other forms of theft." It is hard to understand how one goat can be a small penalty in a society where the average owner has a herd of only fifty-four goats. The fine certainly seems stiffer by far than the penny or two paid by the medieval irrigators of Castellón.

18. Ibid., p. 141.

19. See Table 4, no.10. The offense was expressed "li levave laygua forcivolment."

20. On 21 March Pere Mut accused En Forner regarding "lo postell que era mal tancat." Forner was fined 2d.

21. See Table 9, no. 9

22. Charge against Galceran's wife

23. Charge against Galceran's wife

24. Also on 16 June the cequier fined one Exemeno 1d. for "shutting the fila of Asmet Bocaxo while he was irrigating [from it]" ("tanquave la fila asmet boquaxo que regave").

25. Charge against Bocaxo's wife.

26. Compare Table 14 b) no. 3.

27. Compare Table 14 b) no. 4.

28. Compare Table 14 b) nos. 7-9

29. Talponera: burrow or tunnel of a mole; here, euphemism for a secret and illicit irrigating conduit. See Sarthou Carreres, Provincia de Castellón, p. 70; compare Jaume Roig, Spill, ll. 14801-14803: the hereter "opens intake gates, shuts mole-tunnels of his bank"-obre boqueres/clou talponeres/del seu ribatge.

30. AMC, Libre de Values, 1462. Asmet had a house (alberch) bordering those of Farrag and Dezbatis the shoemaker. In addition, he had 3 fanecates of huerta on the road of St. Mary del Lido, adjoining the field of Anthoni Meria, 5 fanecates of huerta "al moli primer atinent de johan e de mafomat de xivert," and 3 fanecates of mallol, unirrigated, "al fosar dels juheus atinent den marquo e fardo." The estates of Culeyme [Suiaimn] Bocaxo are also listed. Carting, Azmet's profession, was typical of Moriscos; Tulio Halperin Donghi, "Les morisques du royaume de Valence," Annales,11 (1956), 164.

31. On the "Libres de values," see Vicente Traver Tomás, Antigüedades de Castellón de la Plana (Castellon,1958), pp. 81-108. The series extends from 1371 to 1798.

32. According to the Libre de values for 1468, Pere Johan the Younger had a parcel of marjal (probably in the sense of "pasture") in the parish of St. Augustine, bordering land of Johan Valenti.

33. Among the many works which discuss the Tribunal, see Vicente Giner Boira, El Tribunal de las Aguas de la vega de Valencia (Valencia, 1960), R. Ros Marín, "El asesor jurídico del Tribunal de las Aguas" (an interview with Giner), Las Provincias (Valencia), Nov. 12, 1960 Francisco Xavier Borrull y Vilanova, Tratado de la distribución de las aguas del río Turia (Valencia, 1831), chap. vii, Carpentier, Réglements et tribunaux des eaux, pp. 91--l09; Moncrieff, Irrigation in Southern Europe, pp. 180-184; Jaubert de Passa, Canales de riego, I, 469-488; Vicente Boix, "El síndico del Tribunal de las Aguas," in Los valencianos pintados pon si mismos (Valencia, 1859), pp. 101--107, and Blasco Ibañez's incomparable portrait in La Barraca (chap. iv).

34. Although there are eight seats, Moncada is not included; but both Quart and Benacher--Faitanar are represented.

35. See Chap. VIII, n 15.

36. Qadis held court in the mosque, those of Egypt on Mondays and Thursdays (Carpentier, Réglements et tnibunaux des eaux, pp 97-99). In Cairo, the muhtasib held court every other day in each of the two principal mosques, Emile Tyan, Histoire de l'organisation judiciaire en pays d'Islam, 2nd ed. (Leiden, 1960), pp. 279-283. 631.

37. Giner Boira, El Tribunal de las Aguas, p. 9. Giner adds that in former times the president of the Tribunal had indicated the right to speak by a sign of the foot, not the hand, which is an Islamic custom.

38. Julián Ribera, "El sistema de riegos en la huerta valenciana no es obra de los árabes," in Disertaciones y opúsculos 2 vols. (Madrid, 1928), II, 312. See Tyan, Organisation judiciaire, pp. 212--213 ("La regle de l'unicité"): two qadis can be appointed in the same town, but they cannot act collegiately. Their jurisdiction must be distinct, either territorially or ratione mateniae.

39. Ros Marín, "El asesor jurídico," and oral communication from Vicente Giner Boira, May 29, 1965.

40. ARV, Real Acuerdo, 70, fol. 121 (Sept. 22, 1775). The 7 syndics or zequieros petitioned the King for enforcement of the privileges of James II concerning the tanda with the Pueblos Castillos: "Este dia visita en el una carta orden de la A. Camara su fecha diez y nueve de este mes firmada por el Sr. Don Thomas del Mello . . . la acompañan, presentada a V.M. por los siete sindicos, o Zequieros de la Vega de esta Ciudad, en que pide se les conforme el Privilegio que les concedió el Rey don Jaime Segundo de Aragón sobre reparto de Aguas en dicha Vega."

41. Francisco Almela y Vives, Valencia y su reino (Valencia, 1965), p. 388.

42. The "Actuación sobre el tandeo" addressed to the minister was dated July 8, 1943, and was the work of Vicente Giner Guillot, asesor jurídico of the Tribunal and father of Vicente Giner Boira, who succeeded him in that office. The text is reproduced in Exposición de distintas actuaciones del Tribunal de las Aguas de la vega de Valencia (Valencia, 1944), pp. 7-18

43. "Atento el Tribunal de las Aguas a mantener, en todo momento los derechos de las acequias de la Vega de Valencia . . . para que conserven toda su eficacia a través de los tiempos, en beneficio de las tierras que riegan" (ibid., p. 3).

44. The city's leadership in irrigation affairs is the subject of Chaps. IV-VII.

45. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 5, fol. 62v (Aug. 2, 1345): "Oiat lo dit consell ordena e tenc per be que ii jurats e alcuns prohomens cequiers vayen al açut de benaguazir . . . per a regonexer les aygues e que paçen [sic] en manera que la ciutat e la orta daquella hagen sufficiencia daygues."

46. AMV, Cartas Misivas, 12, fol. 180r (Aug. 23, 1414): "per tal com vostra presencia era molt necessaria en los afers de les cequies e fitament de les goles daquelles. . . . On com nosaltres siam en concordia mijançant lonorable governador que disabte primer vinent per lo mati seran tots los cequiers açi en la sala del consell daquesta ciutat."

47. The lake of Tortajada is northeast of Teruel, and the Alfambra is a tributary of the Guadalaviar; see Jaime Marco Baidal, El Turia y el hombre ribereño (Valencia, 1960), pp. 34-35, 133.

48. AMV, Manuals de Consell, 36, 8th bk, fol. 13V (July 1, 1457): "[The jurates] elegiren en regidors e administradors de la aygua de la lacuna de Tortajada ques den dalli traure lançar e decorrer en lo riu d'Alffambra e dalli en lo riu de Guadalaviar que ve a la present ciutat en certa manera e segons ja es stat divisat de paraula, los honorables en Bernat d'Almenara cequier de la cequia de Moncada, en Guillem Lorenç e en Johan Perez, cequiers de la cequia appellada de Miztalla, e en Pere Marti, cequier de la cequia de Favara, presents e acceptants." For more on this mission, see AMV, Cartas Misivas, 23, fol. 109r (July 6, 1457).

49. Glick, "Dos documentos medieyales," pp. 8 1--84.

50. See n. 6 above.

51. Benacher-Faitanar Ordinances, 1435: "Item que les penyores fahedores per lo dit cequier contra los delinquents se exhegesquen e se hajen a exegir en la plaa de la Seu e de fer lo juhi de aquelles e no en altre loch."

52. Borrull, Tratado, pp. 144, 173--175. Borrull's theories on the history of Valencian irrigation are discussed in Chapter VIII.

53. Even today the Tribunal's jurisdiction is not obligatory but voluntary. A delinquent irrigator can choose to be tried by a civil judge (Costa, Colectivismo agrario, p. 543). The forces of tradition and consensus were the Tribunal's prime instruments of compulsion. In La Barraca the Tribunal's action epitomizes communal disapproval of the protagonist Batiste and his family.

54. See discussion of the sâhib al-sâqiya, below, Chapter X.

55. It is typical of traditional irrigation societies that a council of elders makes decisions and judgments concerning the irrigation affairs of the whole community; see Gray, The Sonjo of Tanganyika, p. 58.

56. There are numerous parallels between Valencian irrigation law and law merchant as it developed in medieval Europe generally. Both procedures were summary, swift, almost free from appeals, equitable, not technical, and conducted without lawyers. In originally informal courts, such as the English piepowder court, merchants themselves were the judges of the misdemeanors of fellow merchants, just as irrigators of Valencia were judged by other irrigators. See Frederic Rockwell Sanborn, "Law Merchant," in Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, 15 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1930-1935), IX, 270-274. The Tribunal of Waters was not a rural court but an urban one; most of the llauradors were citizens of the town of Valencia.

57. Carpentier, Réglements et tribunaux des eaux, p. 92, stresses the public function of the Tribunal.

58. The episode can be found in ARV, Gobernación, 2201, 8th hand, fols. 3V--4r (Mar. 30, 1413).

59. Beatriu de Miranot, widow of Bernat de Codinachs, lord of Albalat and Benimmet. In 1416, represented by her son, Mossen Pere Codinachs, cavaller, she charged the lord of Vinalesa, Francesch Blanch, with building a new work in the Moncada Canal prejudicial to the hereters of that canal, of whom she described herself as one (ARV, Gobernación, 2214, 9th hand, fol. 27r, Apr. 11, 1416).

60. There is perhaps a play on words here, unclear to me, which resulted in the misunderstanding.

61. ARV, Gobernación, 2208, ,9th hand, fol. 11r (Aug. 4, 1414). Another more violent incident befell the cequier of Alcúdia de Carlet, Johan Milla, who, as he carne from "diverting the water of that canal" ("vinent de girar laygua de la dita cequia") one day in 1455 was attacked by Ramon Ferrer and Frances Valles the Younger, of Alcúdia, who inflicted upon him two lance wounds in the head and two in the arm (Archivo Municipal de Alcira, Llibres de Consells, 45, fol. 126, Feb. 28, 1455). Milla related this to the justiciar of Guadasuár, his place of residence, as a result of which the same Ramon Ferrer attacked the justiciar's lieutenant, wounding him with two blows of the lance (Archivo Municipal de Alcira, Llibres de Consells, 46, fol, l0, June 12, 1455).

62. ARV, Gobernación, 2288. 25th hand, fol. 3V (July 27, 1456): "haian menaçat e costumen menaçar de bastonades als dits guards a guardes de la dita aygua [donant?] los gran terror e menaçant los de mort, per la qual raho aquest part no troba guard e guardor de aygua e li ha convengut e cove en les dies de la dita tanda hauer un porter.

63. ARV, Gobernación, 2202, 11th hand, fol, 1r (May 2, 1413): "[The commons had provided in its regulations that] dos bons homens stiguen guardant la cequia de Beneger e de Quart ço es del loch de Alaquaç tro a la çut e los roylls de Manizes e aquelles stiguen de nit e dia guardant que nenguna persona no prengua de la aygua de la dita cequia."

64. AMC, Libres de Consell, Mar. 17, 1473: "donant los tot lo poder que necessari es a donar laygua a qui mester la haia e fer tots los manaments e acces necessaris."

65. See Appendix 6, no. 54 (drought citation of May 1, 1443).

66. As expressed in the Murcian jingle "él que está denantes bebe antes" (Diaz Cassou, Ordenanzas y costumbres, p.109) that corresponds to the Arabic saying "the top field drinks first."

67. ARV, Gobernación, 2246, 3rd hand, fol. 15r (Apr. 9, 1432):

[Miquel states bef