[151] The classical topographical division used for the lands of Mediterranean Europe is the threefold ager, saltus, and silva, which correspond to an economic classification into arable, pasture, and woodland. The term ager refers to all cultivated land; saltas includes all lands used for grazing, regardless of botanical composition; and silva refers to all natural arborescent vegetation (planted groves and orchards are counted as tree-crops on arable land -- ager). But it should be recognized that ager, saltus, and silva refer to land use, rather than land potential. Consequently, the spatial extent of each category is variable. A change in one necessarily has repercussions on one or both of the other two. Arable, for example, historically has expanded at the expense of pasture and woodland. In traditional Mediterranean peasant societies there was a close relationship between arable agriculture, stock raising, and the utilization of the woodlands (Delano 1979: 166-7). As early as the first century, the agronomist H Columella (Spanish Columela, who was a native of the Roman city Gades - now the Spanish city Cádiz) recognized the desirability of combining cultivation and pastoral activities (1824: 1, 232-3).

As we have seen, in the traditional rural society of Castile, the distinction between arable, pasture, and woodland was often blurred. The derrota de mieses, for example, extended grazing into the arable lands; and there could be both cultivation and grazing in the  monte. Nevertheless, the classical land-use trifurcation is serviceable to measure the changing balance between the different types of economic activity. There is a disagreement among scholars regarding the extent of the ancient forests of Iberia, but they were unquestionably far more widespread in medieval times than in the modern period. But the Middle Ages witnessed a progressive deforestation, and by the late medieval period the forests of Old Castile had already been considerably reduced in area, as the result of cuttings for fuel and [152] lumber, and because of the fire clearings (rocas) of both stock raisers and cultivators (Hopfner 1954). Furthermore, eight centuries of Reconquest occasioned the wanton destruction of woodlands by fire and for the construction of stockades. The armies of both sides destroyed forests to desolate the environs of a besieged city, and the inhabitants of a stronghold themselves liked to do away with surrounding forests to avoid surprise attacks from an enemy concealed in the undergrowth (Sánchez-Albornoz 1963: 29). The progressive reduction of the area of woodlands provided ideal geographical conditions for the growth of stock raising. Moreover, during the Reconquest the danger of Moslem raids made mobile property (livestock) a better investment than easily destroyed crops and orchards. These factors promoted the rapid expansion of ranching, in preference to arable agriculture, into the new frontier settlements of the Duero-Tajo region of central Spain. And from the mid-1100s this flourishing Castilian pastoralism was a powerful factor in the Christian expansion into La Mancha and Andalucía. Of course, there was also a development of arable agriculture, but cultivation was clearly of secondary importance in an economy that was overwhelmingly pastoral. The predominance of livestock raising is reflected in the fueros of the frontier cities, which gave special protection to the pastoral sector. The creation in the thirteenth century of the powerful royal Mesta, and of the various municipal Mestas, is further evidence of the early strength of the stock industry (Bishko 1963: 49, 54-65; 1978).

As the empty spaces of Castile became populated, and with the decreasing menace of Moorish attack, arable agriculture came to occupy an ever more important position in the economy. As indicated earlier, the  montes suffered an increasingly widespread damage at the hands of cultivators, stockmen, and city dwellers in search of fuel and timber. And the demographic pressure upon the available land resources not only occasioned the growth of ager and saltas at the expense of silva, but also an increasing antagonism between the first two. During the late Middle Ages, the Castilian bourgeoisie, and some of the aristocracy, became interested in the exportation of wool. And because the crown's chief revenues came from taxes on the wool industry, it is hardly surprising that the laws of the kingdom showed a pastoral bias. This was particularly true during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. But despite royal pampering of the stock industry, the demand for grain and other arable crops could not be denied. [153] The demographic growth of the 1500s made it essential to expand the area under cultivation to feed the swelling population. Furthermore, there was a market for wine, grain, and oil in Spain's overseas territories. Consequently, although Charles V tried to favor (and exploit) the wool industry as his predecessors had done, he continually found himself obliged to grant licenses for the plowing of new lands. As the agropastoral balance shifted in favor of cultivation, the Mesta lost its favored position. But the change was gradual, and there were other factors at work. Charles V, for example, had assigned to the Fuggers the revenues of the lucrative pastures of the military orders, and the bankers pressured him not to permit further usurpations or plowing in their rented pastures. The Mesta also exerted its still formidable influence, and in 1525 the emperor issued a decree to return to pasture all new plowings made during his reign (Gómez Mendoza 1967: 501-2, 508-9). But the effect of this seems to have been minimal, for the plow moved inexorably forward, and it did not halt when the emperor made a new anti-plowing pronouncement in 1551 (Laiglesia 1918-19: u, 360). During the reign of Philip II there was continued resistance to the new plowings by the Mesta and other pastoral interests, which inspired a royal order of 1580 for the restoration to pasture of all lands plowed in the previous twenty years. But the advance of the plow was favored by the increasing difficulties of the royal treasury, which sold the towns licenses to plow their pastures and  montes . The towns, for their part, were willing to pay for the privilege of expanding the area of arable, because their  vecinos demanded it, and because in many cases an expanded cultivation was the only way the towns could pay their rising taxes (Domínguez 1973b: 160).

Although the equilibrium in the sixteenth century was plainly shifting toward cultivation, the towns made an effort to maintain a certain balance between pastoral and arable activities (García Sanz 1977: 275; Martín Galindo 1958: 62-3). The weight of tradition, and the needs of a growing population in an era when interregional transportation was cumbersome and expensive explain this concern. What happened in the villages of the  Montes de Toledo is a good example of this. As population pressure in the mid-1500s caused a crescendo of demand for more arable land, many former pastures of the area were planted to grain, with the permission of the city of Toledo (the owner of the  Montes). But the council of Toledo tried to moderate the effects of the increased cultivation by establishing new [154] pastures to take the place of those lost to the plow (Weisser 1976: (1 56-62;Jiménez 1965: 98-l00).

There was normally a complementary relationship between cultivated agriculture and stock raising in the sixteenth-century Castilian rural economy, but that did not prevent the eruption of squabbles, and even violence between arable and pastoral interests. The reader is referred back to chapter 3 for a discussion of the problems between the royal Mesta and local interests, and for additional considerations about the expansion of arable. Despite the gradual erosion of Mesta influence during the century, the association of livestock owners continued to protest the changing agropastoral balance, and it tried to maintain as many of its old privileges as possible. As indicated above, Charles V and Philip II issued a number of royal pro-pasture orders, and it is generally true to say that the Mesta was able to retain its theoretical predominance. But in practice, especially during the reign of Philip II, the labradores and other arable interests gradually got the upper hand. By the 1580s a sort of informal anti-Mesta alliance had been formed, including noble landowners and a number of city governments (particularly from Andalucía and Extremadura). These parties ardently defended agriculture, and vehemently denounced migratory herds as being the cause of all the evils of the period, including high prices, the depopulation of rural villages, and the deforestation of Castile. They argued that the privileges of the Mesta ran counter to the ancient liberties of the towns and cities. These arguments, and the changing economic reality, led the Chancillerías increasingly to hand down decisions favoring the extension of cultivation. These pro-arable court decisions of the mid and late 15005 were symptomatic of the decline of Mesta influence, both at the court, and also in the economy. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, Miguel Caxa de Leruela, a staunch defender of the Mesta, lamented (1631: 3-7) the sixteenth-century expansion of arable, which he regarded as excessive. Caxa blamed the economic ills of Castile on the loss of pastures and the corresponding diminution of the number of livestock. There is indeed ample evidence that the Mesta, and pastoralism in general, had been relegated to an inferior position vis-á-vis arable agriculture. But the Mesta's power, though greatly reduced, was still sufficient to constitute a continuing nuisance to land-hungry, expansion-minded labradores. A résumé of corregidores' reports from the last years of the reign of Philip II indicates that the activities of Mesta officials were still regarded as a [155] hindrance to agriculture in the provinces of Zamora, Salamanca, Cßceres, Badajoz, Ciudad Real, and Jaén. ⁽¹⁾ And the arbitrista Barbón y Castañeda, writing in the early 1600s (1628: fol. 10), also named harassment by the Mesta as a continuing cause of the unfortunate plight of the Castilian labrador.

It is well known that the population of Castile increased dramatically during the sixteenth century. By the last decade of the 1500s the kingdom as a whole had grown by at least 50 percent, and there were many areas that had experienced a veritable demographic explosion (Ruiz Martín 1967). This population increase had to be accompanied by a corresponding expansion of the food supply. There were three possible ways of effecting this: (1) by raising agricultural productivity through intensive cultivation; (2) by enlarging the area under cultivation; or (3) by combining the first two possibilities. In sixteenth-century Castile, the food supply was augmented primarily through the second possibility - by putting new lands to the plow. It would be tedious to cite all the available sources attesting to the fact that new land was being broken in all parts of the kingdom. All authorities, both contemporary and recent, are in agreement, and this can be amply substantiated by an abundance of documentary evidence in various archives. It is also well known that these new plowings were made primarily at the expense of the pastoral sector, as Caxa de Leruela had correctly observed at the beginning of the seventeenth century (Vassberg 1980).

Much of the expanded cultivation was made possible by taking advantage of the tierras baldías. In 1536 a vecino of Córdoba gave the principal reason for this. He testified that the advance of the plow in the area had been principally into the  baldíos, rather than into privately owned lands, because in the former the labradores needed to pay no rent, but only the tithe. ⁽²⁾ As indicated in chapter I, the Castilian labrador had the right, albeit ill-defined, to occupy and to exploit unused tierras baldías. Due to factors outlined earlier, this occupation tended to become transformed into permanent possession, which perpetuated the effects of the expanded cultivation. Many of the  baldíos that were the object of this new cultivation were in  monte. Thus, the increase in arable contributed to the deforestation of Castile.

Map 4 provides a graphic representation of one example of the expansion of arable at the expense of  monte , and of the gradual transformation of the economy from the pastoral to the arable. The [156] example at hand is the town of Horche (Guadalajara). In the 1300s Horche was a small pastoral village (200  vecinos in 1399) in the montes of Guadalajara. Arable agriculture was a mere subsidiary activity, and the space dedicated to cultivation was very small, probably limited to the most fertile and level soils near the village itself. But as the population of Horche grew, it needed more arable lands, and the town began the plowing of the  monte which dominated its territory. Permission to expand cultivation into the  monte was secured time and time again through purchase from the crown. The chief cause of the progressive destruction of the  monte in the territory of Horche was demographic pressure. The greater the population, the more land needed to be plowed. But not all of the population increase was natural: the availability of land in Horche encouraged immigration from neighboring villages with a shortage of arable. And this population influx, of course, made it necessary to plow still [157] more land. By the time of the Relaciones (1575) the population had grown to 500  vecinos , and by then the arable sector had become undeniably more important than the pastoral. The tithes from olive oil alone, in fact, were twice as much as those from wool-bearing animals. Horche still maintained large flocks of sheep, and there remained an abundance of pasture on which to graze them. But the situation continued to change, with the sustained demographic growth. By 1596 there were 600  vecinos in Horche, and the march of the plow had persisted at the expense of the  monte . The economy had nearly completed its transformation from the pastoral to the arable, and this shift in economic activity was reflected in the town's land use. By 1601 nearly the whole of the territory of Horche was under cultivation. The  vecinos of the place still grew some livestock, but this had now become an activity very much subsidiary to arable agriculture. And what common  monte still existed was now nearly all outside the territory of Horche, in lands shared with other towns in the Tierra of Guadalajara (García Fernández 1953: 56-62).

Of course, not all places participated equally in the transformation of the agropastoral balance. In some towns the rhythm of change was faster, or slower, than in the case of Horche. And, due to special circumstances, there were some places where pastoral interests were long successful in resisting the expansion of arable. In 1558, for example, the village of Berrocalejo (Cáceres) reported that it was poorer than ever, because of a shortage of cultivated land. It seems that the area was dominated by  dehesas owned by absentee nobles who were interested only in livestock, and who refused to permit new plantings on their land (Corchón 1963: 133-4).

As indicated in chapter 3, the sixteenth-century population explosion also encouraged an arable assault upon the especially designated pastures for livestock -- such as the  ejidos, the dehesas boyales, and various other areas that were theoretically safe from the plow. The demographic pressure that made it imperative to expand the area of arable, exerted a simultaneous and unbearable strain on the  montes of Castile, for lumber and firewood. As a result, it seemed that the montes fled the cities. In almost every place where there was an important concentration of population, there came to be a wide circle of deforested surrounding lands that were used almost exclusively for cultivation (Hopfner 1954: 423-4). The city of Toro (Zamora), for example, which had once boasted a number of common woodlands, by 1542 found itself with no montes at all, and was obliged to rely on [158] roots and vine prunings for fuel. ⁽³⁾ The late-fifteenth-century and early-sixteenth-century development of the Castilian commercial economy in Medina del Campo (Valladolid), Segovia, Toledo, and other centers hastened the destruction of entire forests in a wide radius around these trading cities. And there were some places where industrial activities contributed to deforestation. The requirements of the mines of Almadén (Ciudad Real) and the textile works of Segovia, for example, were partly responsible for denuding the local hillsides (García Sanz 1977: 31-2, 143; Quirós 1965 224). The consumption of forests for these non-agricultural purposes facilitated the extension of arable, because cutting down the trees made it easier for new areas to be brought into cultivation.
 

As indicated in the previous section, the increase in agricultural production in sixteenth-century Castile was based primarily upon an extension of the area under cultivation, rather than upon a qualitative transformation of the existing agrarian productive forces. In other words, there was a spatial expansion, rather than real development - a mere increase in the quantity of work, land tilled, and animals used, without altering those elements organically to increase productivity. However, sixteenth-century Castile did witness one important technological change - a change without which the great agrarian expansion would have been difficult, or perhaps even impossible. That change was the gradual substitution of the mule for the ox, as the predominant draft animal. The change was revolutionary in several respects. For centuries the ox had been the traditional draft animal. This was true not only of the entire medieval period, but even back in Roman times. In the first century the Hispano-Roman agronomist Columella (1824:1, 53-5) had specified the ox for plow power, and according to Ambrosio de Morales (1577: fol. 96) the ox was so closely identified with Roman agriculture that a coin was minted in Roman Spain depicting a yoke of oxen plowing on one side. But during the course of the sixteenth century the ox was displaced: whereas in 1500 the ox was still the normal work animal, by 1600 the mule had become the most widely used agricultural work animal, except in certain isolated or backward areas, mainly in the mountains.

The reason for the switch to the mule was quite simple: expansion [159] was the order of the day, and a mule could plow nearly twice as much land as an ox. The mule was also more suitable for use in vineyards and orchards, where a yoke of horned animals was not only difficult to maneuver, but also a potential danger to tender vines and branches. Furthermore, the nucleated Castilian peasant population, the extreme parcelization of farm land, and the prevalent biennial system of fallow favored the use of mules, because they could move from village to field, and from one field to another much faster than the proverbially slow-footed oxen. This was an important consideration when new lands were being brought into cultivation, because fields were becoming increasingly dispersed. Moreover, mules could be used as pack animals, to supplement the peasant's income during slack periods in the agricultural calendar. This could be an important additional source of income for the peasant with a small amount of land. Many peasants of the La Bureba villages of Burgos province, for example, were active as muleteers (arrieros) along the Burgos- Bilbao trade route (Brumont 1977: 45-52). Thus, agricultural considerations were not the only factors involved in the ox-mule selection.

The use of mules brought many advantages, but there were also some drawbacks. Although mules worked faster, they usually plowed shallower furrows, leaving the soil less able to absorb heavy rains. And it seems that the more superficial work of the mules tended to produce reduced yields. But more important was the fact that mules could not be used as draft animals unless they were properly fed. They needed grain, normally barley, which meant that a significant proportion (perhaps one-quarter) of the harvest produced through mule power was consumed by the mules themselves. Oxen, by contrast, could get along perfectly well without grain, sustaining themselves exclusively on the  dehesas , fallow fields, and other common pastures that were readily available at no cost locally (Anés 1970: 120-2; Domínguez 1973b: 159).

Strictly speaking, the ox is an adult castrated male bovine. But in practice, cows were also used as draft animals, and were included in the 'oxen' category. The cow was not as strong as a true ox, but had the advantage of being able to produce calves, and could even supply milk for the peasant's kitchen, although at a greatly diminished amount when the animal was being used for field work. Mules, being sterile hybrids, could not reproduce themselves. Therefore, it was necessary to keep horses and asses as breeding stock for their production, [160] with the result that mules were much more expensive than oxen - to raise, to purchase, and to own. A final advantage of oxen over mules was that overage oxen could be slaughtered for beef, whereas Spaniards did not normally consider mule flesh to be suitable for human consumption (García Fernández 1964: 144-5; Gómez Mendoza 1967: 505-7; Brumont 1977: 45-52).

As indicated earlier, during the sixteenth century most Castilian peasants became convinced that it was better for them to use mules rather than oxen. The general switch to mule power caused some contemporary observers to conclude that the two types of animals were incompatible, and could not coexist in the same locality. That was the position of Diego Gutiérrez de Salinas, who suggested (1600: 62-81) that the introduction of mules inevitably led to the disappearance of the local  dehesas boyales, which were plowed (contrary to the laws of the land) because they were no longer needed. Unfortunately, according to Gutiérrez, after these special pastures were gone, it was impossible to return to the use of oxen, because of the lack of adequate grazing land. This was undoubtedly an exaggeration, but it does seem that the ox had all but disappeared in some parts of Castile by the end of the sixteenth century. Miguel Caxa de Leruela (1631: 142-55) wrote that there were virtually no oxen remaining in the environs of Madrid and Toledo. But Extremadura, and the mountainous parts of Castile, tended to remain loyal to the ox. Brumont (1977: 49-52) describes a sort of 'radicalization' of the ox-mule situation in the La Bureba villages (Burgos) in the late 1500s. In parts of the region, the use of mules became the norm, whereas in other areas mule-use actually regressed, and the local inhabitants went back to plowing with oxen. It seems that there was a tendency for the agriculturalists of each locality to opt overwhelmingly for either the one, or the other animal, depending upon local conditions. But this was not always so. In the province of Segovia, for example, there was a marked increase in the use of mules in the late sixteenth century, but this did not cause the disappearance of oxen, who continued to play a significant role furnishing draft power for the area (García Sanz 1977: 113; Le Flem 1973: 400).

The use of mules in Castilian agriculture was associated with the aggressive expansionism of the century, and with a more progressive approach to production (Maravall 1973: 374-5). For example, in the 1590s, when Castillo de Bobadilla wrote of a hypothetical labrador with a large-scale operation (1608: 11, 41), he naturally depicted him [161] farming with mules, rather than oxen. The shift from ox to mule as the primary farm animal might have been new and even revolutionary in sixteenth-century Castile. But the effects of the Castilian conversion were not nearly so far-reaching as the northern European switch from the ox to the horse several centuries earlier. It seems that equine plow power was possible earlier in the north because of the greater productivity of the three-field rotational system that was prevalent there. One might ask why the three-field system was not adopted also in Mediterranean Europe. The answer seems to lie primarily in climate and soils: the greater rainfall and more fertile soils of the north made it far more suitable for conversion to the triennial system. Furthermore, there were overwhelming practical difficulties standing in the way of a drastic rearrangement of property holdings from the biennial system to the triennial. The weight of tradition normally precluded such a radical change. But northern Europe was able to effect the transformation, because the devastation caused by Viking and Magyar raids in the ninth and tenth centuries made widespread reconstruction necessary. And the reorganization of lands and communities could be made according to the superior new technology of crop rotation (White 1964: 57-78). In any case, in Castile the older Mediterranean two-field system continued to be prevalent throughout the sixteenth century, and the conversion to mules simply involved an extension of the existing system into new lands. Unfortunately, in many cases the newly plowed lands were shallow, hillside soils. They were easily eroded, and some were permanently harmed by the planting. After the first year or two, yields fell dramatically, often making continued exploitation uneconomical. The plowing of these marginal lands meant a decline in productivity. The result was to further increase land hunger, and to encourage an even wider use of mules (Domínguez 1973b: 160; Weisser 1976: 56-62).

This, combined with the gradually deteriorating general economic situation during the reign of Philip II, caused many arbitristas to conclude that the mule was the major source of the growing agricultural ills of Castile. The first of the anti-mule writers seems to have been Juan Valverde Arrieta, who in 1568 published a work entitled Despertador que trata de la gran fertilidad, riquesas, baratos, armas y caballos que España solía tener y la causa de los daños y faltas en el remedio suficiente. ⁽⁴⁾ This work was an impassioned denunciation of the mule. It enumerated the disadvantages of mule-use, and called for a return to [162] ox-plowing, which in the mind of Arrieta was synonymous with the prosperity and abundance of a bygone era. Arrieta's anti-mule tirade caught the attention of the Cortes, which voted in 1580 (Actas: vi, 299-302, 623) to subsidize the publication of a new edition of the work, so the message of the evils of mule-use could be disseminated in the provinces. The following Cortes (1583-5 and 1586-8) continued to press for the restoration of ox-use, but the response from the provinces was disappointing (Actas: VII, 613; VIII, 271-546; IX, 30, 55-62, 256, 258, 313, 358). The use of mules was already firmly entrenched, and the peasants of most areas displayed no inclination to go back to the use of oxen. After the reign of Philip II there emerged a generation of arbitristas who were influenced by Arrieta's work. In 1599 Juan Escribano (a pseudonym?) wrote that the mule was the principal cause of the decadence of Spain. He recommended that the government encourage the return to oxen, through special subsidies. In 1600 Diego Gutiérrez de Salinas published Discursos del pan, y del vino del niño Jesús. . . , which contained (pp. 62-81) a virulently anti-mule section based upon Arieta. Gutiérrez called mules 'adulterous and sterile bastards', and 'corrupt monsters', who should be banished by law from Spain. Another writer was Lope de Deza, whose Gobierno Político de agricultura (1618) lacked the exaggerations of Arrieta and the passion of Gutiérrez. Deza agreed with these writers that the use of mules was associated with the scarcity, poverty, and inflation in Spain, but he also enumerated various other contributing causes (fols. 19-36). And in the end, Deza was willing to permit each labrador to own a pair of mules, so long as the rest of his animals were oxen. Then there was Caxa de Leruela (1631), the defender of the Mesta. Caxa supported Arrieta's anti-mule position because he saw the introduction of mule-use as a major cause of the diminution of Castilian pastures. Another arbitrista who damned the mule was Pedro Fernández Navarrete (1626: 283) who advocated a law absolutely forbidding the raising of mules in Spain. Fernández, however, unlike his colleagues, was not a champion of oxen, but rather of horses. He wanted Spain to emulate the northern European countries in the use of the horse for both agriculture and transport.

There had long existed a serious concern in Spain over the effect that mule breeding had on horse raising, because if the best mares were used to produce mules, then the quality of horses inevitably would deteriorate. And this could prove disastrous for the country's military, in an age when horses played such a vital role in warfare. [163] As far back as the 1300s the Castilian monarchs and Cortes had attempted to limit the number of mules in the country, and to encourage the use of horses in their stead (Cortes: I, 275, 375, 377, 397; II, 397, 533-6; V, 126, 143, 299, 455). But this legislation did little to discourage the proliferation of mules, so in 1520 the monarchy instituted a law prohibiting the breeding of mules in Castile. This anti-mule provision continued to be in force during the reign of Philip II. And it provoked constant protests from towns and villages all over Castile. The Cortes took an ambivalent stance: requesting the prohibition of mules on some occasions; but asking that the prohibition be lifted on others (Antón 1865: 23; Weisser 1976: 14-15; Actas: XV, 631). The crown, always willing to compromise its principles when there was money at stake, gave special exemptions from the anti-mule laws to certain areas. The kingdom of Toledo, for example, the Tierra of Cuenca, and the villages of the Order of Calatrava were permitted to breed mules despite the general prohibition for the rest of Castile. ⁽⁵⁾ In the final analysis, the anti-mule legislation could not be rigidly enforced - the continued increase in mule-use is proof of this - but it inhibited the production and use of mules, thus depriving an expansion-minded peasantry of a vital source of draft power. In the Relaciones, for example, the town of Socuéllamos (Ciudad Real) complained (p. 473) that there was a serious local shortage of mules for agriculture, and that the region normally had to import the beasts from Old Castile. The anti-mule laws causing this shortage may have been misguided, but they demonstrate that there was great concern in the royal government over the transformation that was occurring in the rural world of Castile during the sixteenth century.
 

The establishment of a colonial empire in America had far-reaching consequences for Castilian agriculture. Much additional original research needs to be completed before we can fully understand the changes that occurred, but most scholars accept the general view put forward by Gonzalo Anés in Las crisis agrarias en la España moderna (1970: 92-7). According to this view, the increased demand for Spanish agricultural products caused by the new colonial market spurred a rise in commodity prices, and also in the price of land. It should be remembered that native Peninsular demand -- the result of [164] natural demographic growth -- was also a factor, as was the price inflation triggered by the influx of gold and silver from the New World. In any case, in Andalucía between 1511 and 1559 there was a dizzying rise in the price of agricultural products. During that period the price of wheat doubled; that of olive oil tripled; while the price of wine climbed to nearly eight times its previous level! These high prices encouraged the wholesale planting of new olive groves and vineyards, and the valley of the Guadalquivir was transformed by the new, market-oriented agriculture. In 1549 Pedro de Medina (fol. 19) marveled at the quantities of grain, wine, and olive oil that were annually exported from Andalucía to America, to the Netherlands, and to other Spanish possessions. This caused local shortages, which drove prices up still higher. There was widespread consternation over the effect on Andalucía, and the Cortes of 1573-5 petitioned the crown (Actas: IV, 475-6) to restrict the exportation of wheat from the area, lest a serious famine occur. The Cortes of 1579-82 went on to ask the crown (Actas: VI, 865) to require a special license for the planting of new vineyards, on the grounds that too much land was being converted to viticulture, which was preferred over grain because it was much more profitable. Although the crown did not accede to the Cortes' requests, they are important nevertheless, as a demonstration of the concern over the changes brought by the Overseas markets. In many parts of Castile profits were so high that agriculture became a good investment, attracting capital that otherwise might have gone into trade and manufacturing. This was Braudel's 'treason of the bourgeoisie', motivated not only by profit, but also by a desire to emulate the nobility. In fact, many wealthy commoners were able to purchase titles of nobility and seigneurial jurisdictions, and these new nobles and lords were even more intransigent than the old aristocracy in maintaining the traditional privileges of the medieval system of production and tribute (Braudel 1975: 729-34). Thus, the archaic socioeconomic structures were maintained, and the attitude of the bourgeoisie even stimulated a resurgence of the seigneurial regime.

Landowners tried to increase their production by purchasing as much additional land as possible, to take advantage of the opportunity for high profits. As a result, there seems to have been an increase in latifundism, especially in Andalucía - the region most affected by the American trade. And because there was a strong demand for land, property owners could exact from their tenants [165] higher rents, either in cash or in specie (Anés 1970: 92-l00). The export-oriented capitalistic agriculture was most visible in the Guadalquivir valley, but it coexisted with the traditional subsistence economy. The rest of Castile, however, continued to produce primarily for its own needs, with surpluses exported mainly to nearby urban centers. The vitality of the economy of Andalucía in the sixteenth century provided an employment opportunity for the poorer peasants and landless workers of other regions. For example, we know that many peasants of Extremadura made their way south to labor as migrant workers (Herrera 1971: 431-5) in the vineyards of Andalucía. ⁽⁶⁾

The great boom period for Andalucían agriculture was the middle third of the sixteenth century. After that, the overseas market gradually diminished, because Mexico and Peru were becoming self-sufficient in grain and other products previously imported from Spain. The effects of the loss of this market will be considered later, in chapter 7.
 

In sixteenth-century Castile the crown, always pressed for additional funds, resorted to the widespread sale of municipal charters (villazagos) as a revenue-producing device. The villages (aldeas and lugares) under the jurisdiction of the large municipalities (villas and ciudades) felt tyrannized by them. They complained bitterly about discriminatory laws, and about the highhanded actions of municipal officials. We could give many examples of this type of treatment. For instance, Talavera de la Reina (Toledo) forced its subject villages to purchase its own wine, until the supply was exhausted, before they were allowed to import wine from other areas. The villagers complained that the wine of Talavera was both too expensive and of poor quality. And the government of Medina del Campo (Valladolid) in 1600 attempted to force its villages to buy large quantities of surplus grain, which was in poor condition and consequently difficult to sell on the open market. ⁽⁷⁾ Another example of overbearing and discriminatory treatment is the city of Trujillo (Cáceres), which presided over a system marred by gross inequities. For example, Trujillo kept all swine out of its own dehesa boyal, 'because they root around and cause so much damage'; yet the city insisted that its  vecinos' hogs had the right to pasture in the  dehesas boyales of its towns (Vassberg 1978: 55). [166] The hostility of Castilian villagers towards the municipal governments ruling over them is reflected in the works of Lope de Vega and other Golden Age dramatists (Salomon 1965: 97).

The villagers chafed under the discriminatory organization and system of tribute imposed by the cities and villas. Often they regarded their lot as insupportable, and they looked to emancipation as the solution. The villazgo gave them autonomy and the right to an independent territory (término), and the right to have their own courts and jails, along with other privileges of the villa. The Castilian monarchs were generally willing to grant their emancipation: not only because this generated additional funds for the royal treasury, but also because it helped the crown limit the pretensions of the most powerful cities (Vassberg 1980: 486). In some areas there was a torrent of  villazagos . According to Planchuelo Portalés, for example (1954: 131-2), by the end of the sixteenth century virtually all of the towns in the Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real) had purchased their villa status. One of these towns was Puebla del Príncipe, which negotiated an asiento (contract) with the crown on 15 March 1589 for its villazgo. According to the terms of this agreement, the town was to pay the royal treasury 6,000 mrs per vecino in exchange for its independence. That was a bargain rate: ten years earlier Poveda de la Sierra (Guadalajara) had been obliged to pay over 16,000 mrs per vecino. The crown sold  villazagos not only to villages in the jurisdiction of larger municipalities, but also to the towns of the military orders. And Philip II obtained from Pope Gregory XIII (1572-85) the right to dismember ecclesiastical properties, including jurisdictions. After that it was not long before the crown was selling towns their exemption from the jurisdiction of bishoprics. In 1575, for example,  Monte agudo purchased from the crown its freedom from the bishop of Cuenca for 7,000 ducados. The bishop protested mightily, but it was to no avail. However, because the crown was primarily interested in raising funds, rather than in freeing the villages, the municipalities (and other entities) that did not wish to lose their subject villages could pay the royal treasury for the privilege of maintaining their jurisdiction intact. For example, when one of the subject villages of the city of Trujillo (Cáceres) purchased a villazgo in 1538, the city at first attempted to get the exemption annulled. When that did not work, the city contracted to pay the emperor Charles V 6,000 ducados for a royal promise not to sell any more such exemptions from the city's jurisdiction. But the financial exigencies [167] of Philip II caused him to disregard his father's pledge, and Trujillo continued to lose its towns through  villazagos (Vassberg 1978: 48-9). Nevertheless, despite clear proof that such royal assurances were not likely to be kept, in 1589 the nearby city of Cáceres was willing to try to maintain its jurisdiction intact by taking an asiento for 15,000 ducados, in exchange for a crown promise not to free any of its subject villages. ⁽⁸⁾

The  villazagos spawned countless lawsuits between the newly independent towns and their former masters, who were understandably resentful over their diminished authority. The Archives of the Audiencias (Supreme Tribunals) of Granada and Valladolid are full of such suits, over pastures, firewood, boundaries, taxation, law enforcement, and other concerns. Many of these suits dragged on almost interminably. For example, one Suit between the city of Trujillo and its former villages lasted from 1552 until at least 1631, and that was but one of many suits that plagued the city. ⁽⁹⁾ A similar situation existed throughout Castile: wherever there were newly independent towns, there were bound to be squabbles between them and the older municipalities. The resulting litigation was both irksome and expensive. But some municipalities found a solution. In the 1560s, for example, Medina del Campo (Valladolid) gained royal permission to repurchase its authority over three former villages that had bought  villazagos . The major reason for returning the new villas to its jurisdiction, according to Medina, was to avoid the disputes which these towns continually brought up about boundaries and common rights (Rodriguez y Fernández 1903-4: 568-70).

There were socioeconomic factors behind most of the problems between the new villas and their former masters. The new towns were nearly always short of land, and required additional territory to permit demographic growth. The need for more land was crucial, for the newly independent towns had a higher birth rate than the older municipalities. This was because they had a more youthful population -- many younger sons of the older towns had emigrated to new places to try to improve their economic position. Thus, the population of the newly created municipalities was typically young, vigorous, prolific, and hungry for opportunities to expand. They were often in the vanguard of change in the rural world of sixteenth century Castile. Because they owned relatively few livestock, they had few scruples about plowing pasture, whether it was legal or not, and whether within or beyond the new town's boundaries. These young, [168] aggressive inhabitants of new villas were responsible for many unauthorized plowings of common pastures,  montes , and  baldíos. And that was the cause of many a lawsuit with the older municipalities, which tended to be more pastoral, and more dependent upon the common grazing areas. Furthermore, the old towns were jealous of the new, and sought to maintain their traditional control over the  baldíos and  montes. Both sides appealed to the crown, offering to pay for royal recognition of their rights. But in the sixteenth century the Castilian crown tended to favor arable agriculture over pastoralism, and to uphold individual rights over the old communal traditions. Thus, the  villazagos were almost inevitably accompanied by new plowings, and by the erosion of the old communitarian structures (Vassberg 1980: 486-7).

The cost of purchasing the villazgo was often a severe financial drain. In fact, in many new towns the difficulty of meeting payments encouraged new plowings (a source of new revenue) and even led to the abridgement of common rights. Melchor Soria y Vera (1633: 38-43) and Miguel Caxa de Leruela (1631: 109) observed this in the early 1600s, and Noel Salomon (1964: 149-50) found in the Relaciones several examples of the curtailment of communal privileges as the result of aggressive land-seeking by new towns. Sometimes the plowings and anticommunalism were the result of illegal actions by residents of the new towns, but the crown frequently specifically authorized such procedures, to make it easier for the town governments to make their payments to the royal treasury. For example, in its asiento (1589) for the villazgo of Puebla del Príncipe (Ciudad Real), the crown not only gave its permission for the new villa to levy a special tax (sisa) on foodstuffs, but also for it to plow the local  dehesas boyales, and to sell grazing rights in the local common pastures for a period of ten years. During the same year similar privileges were extended also in asientos to Alcuéscar (Cáceres) and to Cáceres. There were also many towns that secured the royal permission to rent or plow their commons after the villazgo was already an established fact. In some of these cases the towns insisted that they needed funds to pay the royal treasury, but in others the justification was that increased population made it necessary to augment the area under cultivation. For instance, Horche (Guadalajara), which got its villazgo in 1537, received repeated subsequent royal authorizations to expand its arable at the expense of the local  montes (García Fernández 1953: 196-204). Montánchez (Cáceres) noted in 1592 [169] that the  villazagos in that part of Extremadura were accompanied by the destruction of the  monte. And Adobezo (Soria) and Manchuela (Jaén) got the crown's permission in the late 1500s to plow in the baldíos . As Antonio Higueras Arnal observed (1961: 119-20), Charles V and Philip II were so pressed for money that they were willing to sell almost anything. Unfortunately, in some places the combination of changes in land use and new taxes brought on by the villazagos had unfavorable economic repercussions. For instance, in 1586 the council of Torres de Albánchez (Jaén) wrote that the number of local livestock had diminished to only about 3,000 head, down from a previous 12,000, as a consequence of the excessively heavy taxes levied to pay for the town's villazgo, and other difficulties related to its status as a newly independent villa. ⁽¹⁰⁾
 

The crown also experimented, rather briefly and with little success, with selling privileges of enclosure (acotamientos, or cerramientos). In 1563 the corregidores and other royal officials were instructed to make investigations in various parts of Castile to determine whether landowners would be willing to pay for the privilege of denying access to their lands to any animals except their own - in other words, of abrogating the derrota de mieses on those particular lands. The royal investigators reported that most landowners seemed very much in favor of the idea, and in the late 1560s and the 1570s the crown sold a number of enclosure permits. The enclosed areas were called cotos redondos (or merely cotos), términos redondos, cerramientos, or merely  dehesas . The crown discovered that although it was easy enough to sell enclosure permits, the revenue to be gained from them was disappointingly small. Furthermore, the enclosures incited strong resistance from the Cortes, and from other powerful interests. In 1566 the Cortes elicited from Philip II a promise not to grant any more enclosure permits. The monarch by no means kept his promise, but after that he did not sell many more licenses to enclose. However, the crown did continue to sell permits to establish hunting reserves. These, which constituted a different type of enclosure, were purchased by large landowners who wished to curtail the traditional communal hunting rights on their lands. The Cortes protested, and in 1566 the monarch promised not to set up any more hunting reserves. Notwithstanding this pledge, however, Philip continued to [170] sell permits to restrict hunting rights, and when taken to task by the Cortes, he insisted lamely that his permits had been issued in a form that could harm no one. But the Cortes thought otherwise. A Cortes petition of 1571 asserted that the holders of hunting reserves not only kept outsiders from hunting on their lands, but also denied them the right to pasture there, on the pretext that the herders would do some hunting in their spare moments. In other words: in practice, the restricted hunting areas became enclosed pastures, which were out of the reach of other livestock owners. The Cortes urged the king to revoke all existing licenses for hunting preserves. Philip did not agree to this, but he again solemnly promised that he would refrain from selling any more hunting-reserve permits in the future. The new promise was worth no more than the first, of course, because when Philip needed money, principles were likely to be forgotten. Nevertheless, because of the strong Castilian tradition of common hunting rights, the crown thenceforth exercised considerable restraint in abridging those rights. ⁽¹¹⁾

As indicated in chapter 1, the derrota de mieses was regarded as one of the irrevocable rights of the Castilian peasant, and as such, it was normally defended by the monarchs. The municipalities also usually upheld the derrota, but there were instances where they did not do so. In 1491, for example, Ferdinand and Isabella had to overturn an ordinance of the city of Avila which had permitted any vecino of that city to enclose up to half ayugada of public land (Novísima recopilación, libro VII, título XXV, ley III). And during the sixteenth century, which saw a rising current of economic individualism, many other municipalities took it upon themselves to allow the abrogation of the derrota de mieses. Arjona (Jaén) did so in 1537 in an ordinance that noted that it was 'unjust' for animals to be allowed access to a landowner's stubble fields without his consent. And around 1548 the city of Loja (Granada) adopted an ordinance allowing its labradores to enclose up to three fanegas of land, for the exclusive use of their oxen and hogs. The reader will remember from chapter I that many towns allowed a partial abridgement of the derrota, permitting landowners to maintain the unshared use of their fields until a specified date after the end of harvest. Another type of municipally authorized enclosure had to do with the flocks of the Mesta. As the stockowners' association weakened in the second half of the sixteenth century, the towns were encouraged to rescind some of the pasture privileges the organization had formerly enjoyed. Some examples of this were cited [171] above, in chapter 3. There were several towns that denied Mesta animals the right to the derrota de mieses. Lopera (Jaén) and Santa Cruz de Mudela (Ciudad Real) did so in the 1590s. The Mesta naturally attempted to maintain its prerogatives, but in decisions of 1597 and 1598 the Audiencia of Granada ruled that Santa Cruz de Mudela could exclude the Mesta flocks from the stubble fields of the area for six days after the gathering of the sheaves. ⁽¹²⁾

The 'enclosures' heretofore described were theoretical, rather than real. But sixteenth-century Castile also had many real enclosures (cercas, or campos cercados), formed by walling certain plots that were especially vulnerable to damage by livestock. In the previous chapter we learned that the municipal ordinances in some places required the physical enclosure of garden plots and vineyards. Walled cultivated plots were most likely to be an important part of the landscape in places with a predominantly pastoral economy. In the Tierra of Segovia (a sheep-growing area), for example, the ordinances of 1514 required the construction of a wall (tapia, vallado, or valladar) of a certain specification around each garden plot. And the ordinances declared that the possessor of an unwalled plot could not require damages of the owner of any animals that harmed his crops. Naturally, that rule provided a great incentive for building walls, and in the Tierra of Segovia it was typical for each village and town to be encircled by a zone of intensively cultivated walled plots. But even in areas such as this, the percentage of arable land that was actually enclosed by walls was minuscule. Consequently, that type of enclosure does not seem to have been the cause of any major problems (García Sanz 1977: 32-3).

There were a great many problems, however, with individual landowners who arrogated themselves the right to declare their lands to be 'enclosed', and not subject to the derrota de mieses. Some of these were wealthy nobles eager to increase their power; others were peasant or other non-noble landowners who wished to establish full rights of property ownership for themselves. The evidence that I have seen suggests that wealthy landowners - whether noble or non-noble - were the most likely to take the risk of defying local tradition about the derrota. The more modest property owners might have wished to do so, but were more easily cowed by municipal authority. In any case, in all parts of Castile there were individuals who tried to deny derrota rights to their fields. For example, around 1540 a couple of wealthy  vecinos of Seville (one was a physician, and the other a city [172] official) invested in some farm land in the village of La Rinconada, just north of Seville. These new landowners immediately attempted to reserve for themselves, or for their renters, the right of stubble grazing. But this flew in the face of local custom, and when the two city men began molesting and even fining the villagers who tried to pasture their animals on their fields, the council of La Rinconada took them to court. And in 1546 the Audiencia of Granada ruled in favor of the villagers, upholding the custom of the derrota de mieses. ⁽¹³⁾

Unfortunately, as the century wore on, many municipal governments fell under the domination of wealthy individuals who had purchased permanent council seats from the crown. In many places this enabled those powerful individuals to enclose their lands without fear of reprisal from local officials (Gómez Mendoza 1967: 504-5). In the early 1600s Caxa de Leruela lamented that the enclosures had already substantially diminished the amount of common pasture in Castile, and, as a consequence, had seriously reduced the stockowning capability of the poor. Caxa even went so far as to suggest that the enclosures posed a danger to the survival of the livestock industry (1631: 126, 139-40). This was a gross exaggeration, to be sure, but the enclosures were undoubtedly a serious problem in many areas.

The enclosures were merely one manifestation of a general erosion of the ancient communal customs in Castile during the sixteenth century. As was mentioned earlier in this chapter, demographic pressure and the new export markets spurred a great expansion of the area under cultivation. Much of this growth was made possible by encroaching into the public domain -- into the  montes,  baldíos,  dehesas, ejidos, and other commons. All of this was a sign of agricultural development, but it was based upon illegal activities. The laws of the realm had not adjusted quickly enough to permit the changes in the system that were necessary for rapid economic growth. However, many of the usurpations of the public domain were later legalized by the municipalities or by the crown.
 

The sixteenth-century enclosures were not nearly so important in disrupting the communal system as was a royal revenue-raising scheme based upon the sale of the tierras baldías. This project was conceived during the first years of the reign of Philip II. It began [173] tentatively, in 1557 and 1558, when several municipalities asked the crown to sell them the tierras baldías in their jurisdiction that had been illegally plowed. The towns wanted to purchase the lands to legalize their continued cultivation. During the I56os the crown learned through trial and error how to exploit the tierras baldías to the maximum. The Royal treasury sent out land commissioners (jueces de tierras) to sell the  baldíos to those who were occupying (or usurping) them. Initially, the crown was willing to issue a bill of sale for a fraction of the actual market value of the property. But it was not long before the policymakers of the treasury decided to adopt a stricter attitude, in an effort to increase receipts. In 1569 it was announced that if the landholders failed to offer a 'just' price for their lands, the property would be sold to someone else. And eventually the crown devised a type of public auction to ensure that the  baldíos would be sold at the highest possible price. However, it was the general policy to give preference to municipalities over individuals in those cases where the municipalities could be considered as landholders. For example, a town was given first option to buy the lands it had been using as community property, or it could even buy all the tierras baldías within its jurisdiction, even if the individuals using those lands protested. ⁽¹⁴⁾

The crown never adopted a consistent policy regarding exactly what type of  baldíos (remember the vague definition of this term) could be sold. It often repeated the principle that only plowed lands were to be sold -- the unplowed  baldíos would be reserved in perpetuity for public pasture. But in practice, the uncultivated tierras baldías were also sold. In fact, many bills of sale specifically authorized baldío buyers to clear, plow, and plant previously uncultivated land. The land commissioners were ordered to sell as baldíos any property for which the occupants could show no good title. This included lands claimed by the municipalities, for many municipal lands had been originally usurped from the tierras baldías. Consequently, many baldío sales were to the towns. But the vast majority were small sales, to the individual peasants who were occupying the land. There were also sales of large blocks of  baldíos to members of the nobility, or to wealthy burghers, but because those individuals had usually claimed the land even before buying it, the baldío sales were rarely directly responsible for dispossessing peasants of their lands. During the regime of Philip II there were baldío sales in almost every part of Castile, but there were three regions where the sales produced the [174] greatest revenues: Andalucía; the great cereal-growing plains of Zamora and Valladolid; and the three central provinces of Madrid, Toledo, and Guadalajara. Those three areas were the wealthiest parts of Castile at the time: Andalucía because of the stimulation of the overseas markets; the cereal-growing area because of its grain and the fairs of Medina del Campo (Valladolid); and the central provinces because of the growing importance of Madrid as a political and commercial center. The baldío sales reached a peak in the 1580s. After that they fell off sharply, partly because the most easily exploitable baldíos had already been sold, and partly because of the success of resistance to the sales program, particularly by the Cortes. Nevertheless, receipts from baldío sales ranked as a major source of income for Philip II's treasury throughout his reign (Vassberg 1975).

It is difficult to assess the impact of the baldío sales on the economy and society of Castile, because of the absence of studies showing the effect on local agricultural communities, but we can make certain tentative judgements based on the limited information currently available. We know that the  baldíos had been crucially involved in the sixteenth-century expansion of the Castilian agricultural economy. The  baldíos were favored over other lands because they were often available free for the taking. In the boom period of the Castilian economy, those who held  baldíos were eager to gain legal ownership to them. And in many cases, the immediate effect of the sales must have been salutary. Legal ownership would have encouraged better care of the soil, and it would have permitted the taking of mortgages to finance improvements and to provide ready cash during financial emergencies. But it seems that most of the long-term consequences of the sales were harmful. Many of the  baldíos were lands of marginal quality, and yields dropped sharply after a few years of cultivation. After that, any indebtedness on those lands might have made continued use economically futile. And most baldíos were bought on the installment plan, with the purchaser offering as security not only the land that was being bought, but all of his other lands as well. It seems that many baldío buyers simply could not bear the burden of land and mortgage payments on top of the normal obligations of taxation, tithes, and seigneurial levies. They defaulted on their payments, and lost their land. The impact on the local economy was shattering, because in many villages nearly every vecino had purchased some  baldíos . And in many places a large proportion of the arable land was involved (Vassberg 1975). In the [175] Tierra of Coca (Segovia), for example, García Sanz tells us (1977: 144) that nearly 28 percent of the cultivated land was sold as baldíos . And remember, the buyers of these lands had to mortgage the rest of their lands as well. They might not have lost them all, but the strain would certainly have been great. We have testimony that in Villanueva de los Caballeros (Valladolid), where the  baldíos were sold in the late 1580s, there was widespread defaulting on the installment payments during a period of poor crops which followed. As a consequence, many landowners fled the village, abandoning their property to their creditors. ⁽¹⁵⁾

Some of the lands lost by these unfortunate baldío buyers returned to a wild state, but others found their way into the estates of wealthy burghers and nobles. The buyers themselves, having lost their means for an independent economic existence, must have joined the unhappy ranks of the landless rural laborers or become wandering beggars. The Cortes had fought the baldío sales practically from their inception, warning Philip that the effect would be disastrous. But the monarch continued the sales, nevertheless, because he needed the additional funds they brought in. By 1598 (the year of the death of Philip II) it was obvious that the Castilian rural economy was in full decline. In a memorial of that year, the Cortes (Actas: XV, 748-55) blamed the ruin of Castilian agriculture on the sale of the  baldíos . This verdict was shared by the arbitrista Barbón y Castañeda, who wrote (1628: fol. 9):

Anyone familiar with Old Castile before the sale of the  baldíos would have seen a large and rich population, with labradores from the poorest hamlets of the kingdom having fortunes of eight and nine thousand ducados, and some having more. But men like that are no longer to be found -- not even in the larger towns and cities.

Both the sale of  baldíos and the enclosure movement reflected the expansion of individual ownership at the expense of the old communitarian traditions. The erosion of collective ownership enfeebled the social cohesiveness of the village communities as the councils of vecinos lost much of their power to supervise local agrarian exploitation. Underlying all of this was the shift in emphasis from pastoralism to arable agriculture. The movement was seemingly irreversible, and it was certainly not limited to Castile. There was a similar decline of communalism in neighboring France and Italy, but it seems that in those countries it came later (Bloch 1966: 150-96; Nieto 1964: 801-25). The Castilian institutions of collective ownership were by [176] no means completely extinguished during the sixteenth century. Many communal practices survived, and even withstood the central government's disamortizations of the nineteenth century. But as medieval institutions were replaced by modern ones, rural collectivism was increasingly an anachronism. In Castile, as in the rest of the West, the individualization of land ownership was an inseparable aspect of the rise of capitalism, modernization, and industrialization (Vassberg 1980; García Sanz 1977: 269-70).
 

In the early medieval period the Iberian peninsula was divided into two distinct agricultural economies. The Christian north had an agrarian system in which cereal crops were dominant; whereas the Islamic south had a more typically Mediterranean agriculture, with cereal grains much less important, and vineyards, olive trees, and irrigation far more important in the landscape. Thomas Glick (1979: 5 1-109) has given us a splendid description of the diffusion of the two systems, and of the dynamics of the moving frontier separating the two. Glick shows that as the frontier moved south, Christian Spaniards adopted many Islamic crops and technologies (for example, they generally maintained the Islamic irrigation system intact), but they also introduced elements of their northern system, such as an expanded cereal cultivation and an aggressive transhumant herding.

The clash between Christian and Moslem agriculture did not end when Granada fell to Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. Although most of the elite of Moslem society soon emigrated to northern Africa, the Islamic peasantry remained in the kingdom of Granada, and continued their traditional life style. When the government began a policy of forced conversion to Christianity, the First Rebellion of the Alpujarras broke out (1499-1500), but it was quickly crushed. After that, all the Moors remaining in Spain were officially Christians, but in practice they remained Moslem. Throughout the first half of the sixteenth century an uneasy peace existed between the Morisco 'New Christian' population and the Old Christians from the north, who had moved in with the Reconquest. The Moriscos were protected by the marquises of Mondéjar, who held the captaincy-general of Granada, and for nearly two generations the [177] government refrained from interfering with the traditional Islamic way of life (Elliott 1977: 44-5, 232-7).

Chapters 4 and 5 provided some details about the Christian colonization of the kingdom of Granada. There were numerous incidents growing out of the juxtaposition of the Christian and the Islamic agrarian systems. For example, between 1512 and 1519 there were problems between the Morisco agriculturalists and certain Old Christian livestock owners in Motril (Granada). The Moriscos were troubled by the Christians' large herds (some numbering over 6oo head) of hogs, who repeatedly damaged their irrigated sugar cane fields, orchards, and vineyards. The Moslem tradition, of course, had not included hogs, and the Morisco labradores were totally unprepared to deal with such large numbers of the beasts. For seven or eight years the porcine depredations went unpunished, because the hog owners had powerful friends. But in 1519 the council of Motril put an end to this inequitable situation by passing an ordinance restricting hog pasture rights in the irrigated fields of Motril to a town hog herd (porcada), in which each vecino of the place had the right to contribute no more than ten animals. There were many difficulties between Christians and Moriscos over conflicting interpretations of pasture rights. Oftentimes these disputes arose over the Christian custom of the derrota de mieses, which the Moors did not always accept. This was true of the Morisco villages of the La Axarquia district of the province of Málaga. The inhabitants of Comares, Cútar, Benamargosa, Machar Alhayate, and Borge declared that local custom had always permitted landowners to maintain exclusive rights to their fields, even after harvest. There was trouble in the mid-1530s when the Christian colonists of nearby Río Gordo insisted that their cattle had the right, according to the rule of the derrota, to pasture on the stubble fields of the Morisco villages. In confrontations such as this, the Christians were nearly always victorious, for they had the government on their side, and the legal system was prejudiced in favor of Castilian, rather than Moorish, ways. ⁽¹⁶⁾

Nevertheless, the Moriscos remained generally acquiescent until the second half of the sixteenth century, when their position grew progressively worse. In the 1550s a power struggle at the court undermined the power of the Mondéjar family, who had defended them in the kingdom of Granada. At the same time, the Morisco economy was severely crippled, first by a ban on the export of silk fabric in the 1550s, then by a drastic increase in taxes on the silk industry after [178] 1561. And in the mid-1560s the Inquisition began to press charges against crypto-Moslems. All of these factors awakened a deep feeling of resentment in the Morisco population, and it exploded into violent rebellion in 1568, when the government began to enforce a longstanding prohibition on the use of the Arabic language and the traditional Morisco dress. This Second Rebellion of the Alpujarras (1568-70) was crushed militarily, and after that the Granada Moriscos (estimated to number between 60,000 and 150,000) were forcibly dispersed throughout Castile, where it was hoped that they would become assimilated into Christian society (Garzón 1972; Garrad 1956; Elliott 1977: 44-5, 232-7).

The displacement of the Moriscos from the kingdom of Granada had enormous repercussions for the agricultural economy of the area. The expulsion produced a serious demographic trauma, and the accompanying economic problems prompted the Cortes to plead (in 1570 and 1573) for special tax exemptions from the crown (Actas: iii, 405; IV, 32-87). As indicated in the preceding chapter, the crown attempted to restore the economy of the area by bringing in Christian colonists from the north, apportioning to them the former property of the Moriscos, which had been confiscated by the government after the rebellion. But despite the generous inducements offered to colonists, the repopulation program was disappointing. Some of the new settlers never really settled down to work their assigned lands. Others became discouraged after a season or two and decided to return to their native villages, or perhaps to move on to more attractive lands in the kingdom of Granada. In any case, many settlements that had existed in Morisco days now completely disappeared. The population of the area became more concentrated, because the settlements most likely to be abandoned were small hamlets dependent on larger villages. But the total population of many rural areas dropped to less than half the former level. In the Lecrín River valley, for example, it fell from 1,362  vecinos in 1568 to 646 in 1587 (Villegas 1972: 254-5, 312). And in the area of Andarax, 1,242 Morisco householders were replaced with only 545 new  vecinos from the north (Sáenz 1974 742-5). Along with this population loss came a sharp decline in agricultural production, aggravated by unfavorable weather in the late 1500s. By the beginning of the seventeenth century the collection of tithes had fallen off so much that sixty-four parish priests in the Alpujarras-Lecrín valley-Motril- Salobreña area were forced to request financial aid from the government [179] to alleviate their straitened financial situation (Bosque 1971: 75; Garzón 1974: 74).

The post-1570 economic crisis was due in large measure to the difficulties that the Christian colonists experienced in adjusting to conditions in the kingdom of Granada. Many historians have echoed the myth that these difficulties existed because the colonists came from the verdant and dissimilar mountains of Galicia, Asturias, and León. Even some contemporaries believed that this was true. For instance, the Jesuit Father Pedro de León, who visited the Alpuj arras in 1589, got the impression (cited in Herrera 1971: 440-60) that most of the new colonists in the area were from the distant northwest. But his impression seems to have been wrong: modern scholarship (Villegas 1972: 244; Bosque 1973: 495) has established that most of the colonists were actually from nearby Andalucía, or from New Castile. Only a minority were from Galicia, Asturias, and León. The difficulties of the colonists were real, but they were not so much related to problems of acclimatization as they were to problems of reconciling the Christian agrarian system with the Islamic system left by the Moriscos. The colonists who moved into former Morisco villages found a man-made landscape constructed around an intensive agriculture - almost a garden-type agriculture - in which fruit orchards and tree crops (such as mulberry, for the silk industry) were of fundamental importance. But the Christian settlers found it extremely difficult to adapt to the requirements of the new environment in which they found themselves. They were accustomed to an extensive agriculture in which dryland cereals were the prime ingredient. Consequently, through ignorance or through lack of interest, they allowed much of the old Morisco arboriculture to deteriorate, or even to wither and die, from lack of proper attention. Small wonder, then, that the new settlers soon found themselves on the edge of starvation, whereas their Moslem predecessors had lived rather well.

The contrast between the former Morisco prosperity and the Christian poverty was striking. The Jesuit Father Pedro de León had contact with both populations, and made some interesting judgements about them. He found the Moriscos to have been more enterprising, more generous, and more honest than the Christians who succeeded them. The Jesuit Father (cited Herrera 1971: 440-60) concluded that if the new settlers had not prospered, it was their own fault, because of their laziness, ignorance, and moral laxity. [180] In fact, he suggested that many of the new settlers were not really suitable colonists, because they had been socioeconomic undesirables even in their native villages. The Moriscos had proved that there was ample opportunity in Granada to produce crops and to have a good life, but on the same land where three or four Moriscos had lived well, a single Christian settler lived in misery. A royal cédula in 1595 (cited Sáenz 1974 349) reported: 'Many of the colonists' houses are falling down, and others have been mistreated; and many vineyards, fields, gardens, and orchards have been destroyed and poorly cultivated and fertilized; and many of the irrigation ditches have collapsed and are filthy.' The experience in Granada was not an isolated phenomenon, for it was a commonplace that the Moors were far more efficient agriculturalists than Christians. In 1568 Juan Valverde de Arrieta had written (1777: 333) that 'the land where a thousand Moors had lived, cannot sustain five hundred Christians'.

In the previous two chapters we saw that although certain powerful nobles were able to appropriate some Morisco lands for themselves, the old system of Moorish minifundios in the kingdom of Granada was maintained largely intact after the post-1570 resettlement. Moreover, despite the problems of adaptation experienced by the Christian settlers, there were few abrupt changes in agrarian production, and the same basic (Morisco) crops were continued. Many orchards were abandoned, but the transformation must have been slow, for in the mid-1600s the area was still important as a fruit producer. The gradual retreat of arborescent cultivation was accompanied by an extension of dryland grain cultivation. The post Morisco settlers brought with them certain agricultural forms that were characteristic of the central plateau: for example, the division of the cultivated land of a municipality into compulsory zones (hojas) of cultivation and fallow - a custom that was rare in that part of Spain before 1570. The Christian expansion of cultivation was largely made possible at the expense of the remaining woodlands of the kingdom of Granada. After 1570 the Christians gradually pushed back the ancient oak, live oak, pine, and chestnut forests and replaced them with grain fields, and to a lesser extent with vineyards. This application of the traditional Castilian extensive agriculture involved exploiting hillside slopes at far higher altitudes than those that had been used by the Moslems. Unfortunately, the deforestation and the cultivation of steeper slopes increased the velocity of erosion, producing a movement of topsoil from the mountains to the alluvial [181] deltas on the coast. The erosion was so violent that it destroyed the sites of several towns, and forced others to protect themselves through extensive works. Thus the mountains were denuded, but a new band of light and fertile soils was deposited along the littoral, permitting an increasingly active agricultural life there (Bosque 1971: 61-2, 81-9; Díaz 1963: 77-85; Sermet 1943: 26).

The end of the Reconquest initiated a long period of decadence in sugar cane culture in Spain. The Moslems had introduced the crop into the peninsula, and at one time they cultivated it all along the Costa del Sol, up the east coast as far north as Castellón de la Plana, and even a small area in the lower Guadalquivir. At that point Spain had the most important sugar industry in Europe. But the industry declined rapidly in the 1500s. The fall of the kingdom of Granada and the expulsion of the Moriscos were severe blows, and there was increasing competition from plantations in the Atlantic Islands and in the Antilles. Furthermore, it seems that there was a climatic change, perhaps associated with the near-total deforestation of the Cordillera Penibética, although there is evidence that all of Europe was cooling in the second half of the sixteenth century. In any case, the average annual temperatures dropped several degrees, making sugar cane a marginal crop. Cultivation retrogressed to the point that it was practically restricted to the Vega of Motril (Granada). Whereas in 1492 there had been a dozen sugar mills in Motril alone, by 1592 there were only seven remaining in all of Spain (Bosque 1971: 55-6; Delano 1979: 314).

After the expulsion of the Moriscos, the kingdom of Granada also suffered a decline in its silk industry. But it seems that by 1570 the art of sericulture had been assimilated, to a large degree, by Christian Granadans. Thus, production could be maintained even though the new post-1570 colonists were not experienced in silk growing. And despite the exodus of the Moriscos, in the 1600s there were some three thousand silk looms operating in Granada. The really serious decadence in the industry did not come until the 1700s, and according to Garzón Pareja (1972: 129-32) the most important factor in the ruin of Granadan silk was not the expulsion of the Moriscos, but rather a progressive strangulation by well-intentioned governmental and guild regulations. Furthermore, although the Moriscos were officially expelled from Granada in 1570, there were many who escaped detection and were able to continue to live there. Others were able to remain in the kingdom of Granada because they were [182] slaves of Christians. Domínguez Ortiz (1963: 113-28) reports that there were even cases where Moriscos voluntarily embraced slave status to avoid deportation. There must have been many such deals between Moriscos and sympathetic Christians, who would later manumit their charges, either spontaneously or in exchange for payment. In that way a number of Moriscos were able to remain in their homeland, even after the general expulsion of 1609-14, eventually becoming absorbed into the Spanish population. Their presence, obviously, made it easier for Old Christian Spaniards to adjust to the exigencies of life in Granada, and to learn some of the techniques of the Moorish system.

Many of the Granadan Moriscos expelled in 1570 were sent to rural areas in Castile, where they were expected to work in agriculture. And in some cases they did. But it seems that only a small minority of the Moriscos in Castile were content to remain in agropastoral occupations, and fewer still were active in the typical Castilian field activities. Instead, those who were involved in agriculture found it more profitable to grow fruits and vegetables for urban markets. In Palencia, for instance, in 1591 there were nearly five hundred Moriscos, living together in a certain barrio of the city. The immense majority of these were horticulturalists (hortelanos), probably continuing to practice skills they had learned in Granada (Domínguez 1963: 121). A census taken in í595 showed that the Moriscos in Segovia were also overwhelmingly devoted to market gardening. In fact, the terraced plots still visible in the southeastern part of the city are attributed to them. But the enormous majority of the Moriscos followed non-agricultural occupations, undoubtedly because they saw that that was where the greatest economic opportunities lay. There were more traders than agriculturalists, and nearly twice as many artisans as there were agriculturalists. And as time went on, there was an increasing tendency for the Moriscos to desert the countryside to seek jobs in the cities (Le Flem 1965). The Moriscos' disinclination to take seasonal agricultural jobs prompted the corregidor of Toro (Zamora) to complain that they were of little help in the local grape harvest (Vincent 1970: 232-6). The corregidor of Medina del Campo (Valladolid), writing near the end of the sixteenth century, grumbled that the Moriscos in his district preferred to be muleteers or itinerant merchants rather than agriculturalists, and he recommended that the crown force them into agriculture. And the corregidor of Avila found a similar situation, [183] reporting that many Moriscos had abandoned agropastoral activities to become transporters and peddlers of goods. ⁽¹⁷⁾ The monetary success of the Moriscos in these non-agrarian enterprises excited the resentment and envy of their Christian neighbors, and produced the climate of opinion (Actas: XX, 420) that prompted the crown to order their definitive expulsion from Spain in 1609-14 as an unassimilable minority.
 

1. Relación de corregidores (undated, but apparently from the last years of the reign of Philip II), BN, MSS, 9.372, folio 31.

2. Córdoba v. Almodóvar del Río (1536), ACHGR, 3-716-3.

3. Toro v. La Bóveda (1512-42), ACHVA, PC, FA (F), 60.

4. The Arrieta work was later included in many editions published in the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries along with Gabriel de Herrera's Agricultura general, a standard work on agronomy. The edition I used was published in Madrid: Don Antonio de Sancha, 1777, and the Arrieta section was entitled Diálogos de la fertilidad y abundancia de España, y la razón porque se ha ido encareciendo, con el remedio para que vuelva todo a los precios pasados, y la verdadera manera de cavar y arar las tierras.

5. La Justicia de Santa Cruz de Mudela v. el concejo y ciertos vecinos de ella (1545-63), ACHGR, 3-1631-11; Yniesta v. el gobernador del Marquesado de Villena (1516-19), ACHGR, 508-2121-8; Marcos Hernández Galindo y consortes v. Lucas de Peralta (1554-6), ACHGR, 512-2314-10.

6. Averiguación de Palomas (Badajoz) (1575), AGS, EH, 906.

7. Averiguación de Castilbianco (1555), AGS, EH, 251; La Seca v. Medina del Campo (1600-3), ACHVA, PC, FA (F), 53.

8. Averiguación de Puebla del Príncipe (1589), AGS, EH, 366; Averiguación de Monteagudo (1575), AGS, EH, 323; Averiguación de Cáceres (1589), AGS, EH, 240. A full copy of the asiento of Puebla del Príncipe is included in the document cited above.

9. Trujillo v. las villas y lugares de su tierra (1552-1631), ACHGR, 3-958-1. For other examples of suits between old and new towns, see Cazorla v. La Iruela (1562-3), ACHGR, 3-1424-11; Peñafiel v. Quintanilla (1551-6), ACHVA, PC, FA (F), 59; and Salomon, La campagne, pp. 149-50.

10. Averiguación de Puebla del Príncipe (1589), AGS, EH, 366; Averiguaciones de Alcuéscar and Cáceres (I 589), AGS, EH, 240; Averiguación de Montánchez (1592), AGS, EH, 323; Averiguación de Adobezo (1569-70), AGS, EH, 209; for Manchuela, see Actas, XIX, 366; Averiguación de Torres de Albánchez (1586), AGS, EH, 189-2.

11. Examples of the 1563 reports can be found in AGS, DC, 47, pieza 30. For the Cortes action, see Actas, II, 440; III, 366-7; IV, 101, 1 26-44, and 433-4.

12. Averiguación de Arjona (1537), AGS, EH, 223; Algunos criadores y señores de ganados de Loja y. la ciudad de Loja (1580-92), ACHGR, 3-691-7; Lopera v. Mesta (1593), ACHGR, 3-1426-9; Santa Cruz de Mudela v. Mesta (1595-8), ACHGR, 512-2353-II.

13. El Jurado Alonso Osorio y el Doctor Lope Rodríguez de Baeza v. La Rinconada (1543-6), ACHGR, 3-1165-12 and 3-1336-4.

14. The baldío sales are described in my article 'The Sale of Tierras Baldías in Sixteenth-Century Castile', Journal of Modern History, 47, no. 4 (1975), 629-54; and in Gómez Mendoza, 'Ventas de baldíos'. It is also the subject of my book La venta de tierras baldías: el dominio público y la corona en Castilla durante el siglo XVI, trans. David Pradales Ciprés, Julio Gómez Santa Cruz, Gilbert B. Heartfleld, and Gloria Garza-Swan (Madrid: Servicio de Publicaciones, Ministerio de Agricultura, 1983).

15. See papers relating to baldío sales in the Tierra de Zamora (which includes the information about Villanueva de los Caballeros), AGS, EH, 323.

16. Gonzalo de Baena v. Motril (1519), ACHGR, 3-1046-6; Comares y Cútar y Macliar Al Hayate y Borge v. Francisco de Santa Olallay consortes (1553-5), ACHGR, 3-792-6.

17. Relación de corregidores (undated, but apparently from the last years of the reign of Philip II), BN, MSS, 9.372 = Cc. 42, pp. 32-3.