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201-500: The Mesta ( Spanish : Honrado Concejo de la Mesta , lit. 'Honorable Council of the Mesta ') was a powerful association protecting livestock owners and their animals in the Crown of Castile that was incorporated in the 13th century and was dissolved in 1836. Although best known for its organisation of the annual migration of transhumant sheep, particularly those of
402-495: A 1 ⁄ 6 -shekel per day freight rate for a 60-gur vessel. A type of guild was known in Roman times. Known as collegium , collegia or corpus , these were organised groups of merchants who specialised in a particular craft and whose membership of the group was voluntary. One such example is the corpus naviculariorum , a collegium of merchant mariners based at Rome's La Ostia port . The Roman guilds failed to survive
603-642: A 'tramping' allowance for those needing to travel to find work. As the guild system of the City of London declined during the 17th century, the Livery Companies transformed into mutual assistance fraternities along such lines. European guilds imposed long standardized periods of apprenticeship , and made it difficult for those lacking the capital to set up for themselves or without the approval of their peers to gain access to materials or knowledge, or to sell into certain markets, an area that equally dominated
804-421: A 2-shekel wage for each 60- gur (300- bushel ) vessel constructed in an employment contract between a shipbuilder and a ship-owner. Law 275 stipulated a ferry rate of 3- gerah per day on a charterparty between a ship charterer and a shipmaster . Law 276 stipulated a 2 1 ⁄ 2 -gerah per day freight rate on a contract of affreightment between a charterer and shipmaster, while Law 277 stipulated
1005-613: A Spanish-based creole language called Chavacano developed in the southern Philippines. However, it is not mutually intelligible with Spanish. The number of Chavacano-speakers was estimated at 1.2 million in 1996. The local languages of the Philippines also retain significant Spanish influence, with many words derived from Mexican Spanish , owing to the administration of the islands by Spain through New Spain until 1821, until direct governance from Madrid afterwards to 1898. Guild A guild ( / ɡ ɪ l d / GILD )
1206-603: A considerable number of words from Arabic , as well as a minor influence from the Germanic Gothic language through the period of Visigoth rule in Iberia. In addition, many more words were borrowed from Latin through the influence of written language and the liturgical language of the Church. The loanwords were taken from both Classical Latin and Renaissance Latin , the form of Latin in use at that time. According to
1407-423: A corporation without a charter, such adulterine guilds, as they were called, were not always disfranchised upon that account, but obliged to fine annually to the king for permission to exercise their usurped privileges. Karl Marx in his Communist Manifesto also criticized the guild system for its rigid gradation of social rank and what he saw as the relation of oppressor and oppressed entailed by this system. It
1608-427: A decline in women's labor in south German cities from the 16th-18th centuries to both economic and cultural factors; as trades became more specialized, women's domestic responsibilities hindered them from entering the workforce. German guilds started to further regulate women's participation at this time, limiting the privileges of wives, widows, and daughters. It also forbade masters from hiring women. Crowston notes that
1809-522: A dramatic change in the pronunciation of its sibilant consonants , known in Spanish as the reajuste de las sibilantes , which resulted in the distinctive velar [x] pronunciation of the letter ⟨j⟩ and—in a large part of Spain—the characteristic interdental [θ] ("th-sound") for the letter ⟨z⟩ (and for ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩ or ⟨i⟩ ). See History of Spanish (Modern development of
2010-482: A first language by Spaniards and educated Filipinos ( Ilustrados ). Despite a public education system set up by the colonial government, by the end of Spanish rule in 1898, only about 10% of the population had knowledge of Spanish, mostly those of Spanish descent or elite standing. Spanish continued to be official and used in Philippine literature and press during the early years of American administration after
2211-516: A journeyman and entitled him to travel to other towns and countries to learn the art from other masters. These journeys could span large parts of Europe and were an unofficial way of communicating new methods and techniques, though by no means all journeymen made such travels — they were most common in Germany and Italy, and in other countries journeymen from small cities would often visit the capital. After this journey and several years of experience,
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#17327659939312412-401: A journeyman could be received as master craftsman, though in some guilds this step could be made straight from apprentice. This would typically require the approval of all masters of a guild, a donation of money and other goods (often omitted for sons of existing members), and the production of a so-called " masterpiece ", which would illustrate the abilities of the aspiring master craftsman; this
2613-473: A lesser extent, the southwest of Spain enjoy abundant rainfall, but the central Meseta has low rainfall, and many areas could hardly support dry arable farming in mediaeval times. Dependence solely on cereal cultivation risked periodic starvation, and livestock rearing was important in the mediaeval agricultural economy of Spain's Christian kingdoms. Old Castile was the main cereal growing area, and it supplied its own grain needs in most years, but other parts of
2814-430: A lifetime progression of apprentice to craftsman , and then from journeyman eventually to widely recognized master and grandmaster began to emerge. In order to become a master, a journeyman would have to go on a three-year voyage called journeyman years . The practice of the journeyman years still exists in Germany and France. As production became more specialized, trade guilds were divided and subdivided, eliciting
3015-478: A long history in the territory of the current-day United States dating back to the 16th century. In the wake of the 1848 Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty , hundreds of thousands of Spanish speakers became a minoritized community in the United States. The 20th century saw further massive growth of Spanish speakers in areas where they had been hitherto scarce. According to the 2020 census, over 60 million people of
3216-466: A man who was not a member, she usually lost that right. The historian Alice Clark published a study in 1919 on women's participation in guilds during the Medieval period. She argued that the guild system empowered women to participate in family businesses. This viewpoint, among others of Clark's, has been criticized by fellow historians, and has sparked debate in scholarly circles. Clark's analysis of
3417-517: A month or less, reaching their winter pastures in October, and they usually began their returned north in April and May. The preparations for the journey south began in mid-September, when each owner's cabaña, which was branded with his marks, was placed in the hands of an experienced mayoral, who had to be experienced both in managing sheep and choosing good grazing. Larger cabañas were kept together on
3618-496: A negative effect on Spain's political development for centuries, a view that ignores the active and passive resistance to this legislation. An alternative view is that the right of posesión was a form of rent control that guaranteed shepherd access to the pastures at stable prices. The Habsburg monarchs were inconsistent in granting exemptions from the Mesta's privileges, including posesión, in return for payment. However, in 1633, after
3819-505: A network of cottagers who spun and wove in their own premises on his account, provided with their raw materials, perhaps even their looms, by the capitalist who took a share of the profits. Such a dispersed system could not so easily be controlled where there was a vigorous local market for the raw materials: wool was easily available in sheep-rearing regions, whereas silk was not. In Florence, Italy , there were seven to twelve "greater guilds" and fourteen "lesser guilds". The most important of
4020-508: A primarily Hassaniya Arabic -speaking territory, Spanish was officially spoken as the language of the colonial administration during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Today, Spanish is present in the partially-recognized Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic as its secondary official language, and in the Sahrawi refugee camps in Tindouf ( Algeria ), where the Spanish language is still taught as
4221-409: A rebaño, but this practice ceased in the 18th century as smaller owners gradually ceased to engage in transhumance or were forced out by the difficulties of securing grazing. In the early centuries of the Mesta's existence, owners of flocks were obliged to defend their stock against possible attacks by Muslim raiders or armed robbers, either in person or by making a payment, but this requirement ceased in
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#17327659939314422-462: A restriction of the right of posesión in 1761, and then its complete abolition in 1786. Cereal growing inevitably competed with sheep rearing, and the movement of flocks from the Old Castile to Andalucía created conflict between shepherds and the farmers cultivating crops along migration routes, as well as those local owners of sheep in areas of winter pasture. During the 13th and 14th centuries,
4623-509: A schooling period during which he was first called an apprenticeship . After this period he could rise to the level of journeyman . Apprentices would typically not learn more than the most basic techniques until they were trusted by their peers to keep the guild's or company's secrets. Like journey , the distance that could be travelled in a day, the title 'journeyman' derives from the French words for 'day' ( jour and journée ) from which came
4824-617: A second language features characteristics involving the variability of the vowel system. While far from its heyday during the Spanish protectorate in Morocco , the Spanish language has some presence in northern Morocco , stemming for example from the availability of certain Spanish-language media. According to a 2012 survey by Morocco's Royal Institute for Strategic Studies (IRES), penetration of Spanish in Morocco reaches 4.6% of
5025-531: A second language, largely by Cuban educators. The number of Spanish speakers is unknown. Spanish is also an official language of the African Union . Spanish was an official language of the Philippines from the beginning of Spanish administration in 1565 to a constitutional change in 1973. During Spanish colonization , it was the language of government, trade, and education, and was spoken as
5226-420: A set of self-employed skilled craftsmen with ownership and control over the materials and tools they needed to produce their goods. Some argue that guilds operated more like cartels than they were like trade unions (Olson 1982). However, the journeymen organizations, which were at the time illegal, may have been influential. The exclusive privilege of a guild to produce certain goods or provide certain services
5427-411: A sharp downturn in wool sales and the related tax revenue, the rules of posesión were renewed, and pastures converted to arable were ordered to be restored to pasturage. It has been suggested that a weak monarchy and strong local resistance reduced the effect of this measure, but a survey of sheep owners in the province of Soria indicates that far more of them included rights of posesión in their wills in
5628-591: A significant number of women members. John, Duke of Berry documents payments to female musicians from Le Puy, Lyons, and Paris. In Rouen women had participated as full-fledged masters in 7 of the city's 112 guilds since the 13th century. There were still many restrictions. Medieval Parisian guilds did not offer women independent control of their work. Women did have problems with entering healers' guilds, as opposed to their relative freedom in trade or craft guilds. Their status in healers' guilds were often challenged. The idea that medicine should only be practiced by men
5829-572: A town's place in global commerce — this led to modern trademarks . In many German and Italian cities, the more powerful guilds often had considerable political influence, and sometimes attempted to control the city authorities. In the 14th century, this led to numerous bloody uprisings, during which the guilds dissolved town councils and detained patricians in an attempt to increase their influence. In fourteenth-century north-east Germany, people of Wendish , i.e. Slavic , origin were not allowed to join some guilds. According to Wilhelm Raabe, "down into
6030-478: A year, always held in Madrid. Although great nobles and major monasteries are frequently recorded as Mesta member, these large owners were not typical of the industry. The limited available evidence from the 16th century suggests there were between 3,000 and 4,000 owners, that two-thirds of the sheep migrating annually were held in flocks of less than 100 sheep and that very few flocks exceeded 1,000 sheep. Although by
6231-416: Is cognate to the root word of satisfacer ("to satisfy"), and hecho ("made") is similarly cognate to the root word of satisfecho ("satisfied"). Compare the examples in the following table: Some consonant clusters of Latin also produced characteristically different results in these languages, as shown in the examples in the following table: In the 15th and 16th centuries, Spanish underwent
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6432-436: Is Latin in origin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. Alongside English and French , it is also one of the most taught foreign languages throughout the world. Spanish is well represented in the humanities and social sciences . Spanish is also the third most used language on the internet by number of users after English and Chinese and the second most used language by number of websites after English. Spanish
6633-674: Is a global language with about 500 million native speakers, mainly in the Americas and Spain , and about 600 million when including second language speakers. Spanish is the official language of 20 countries , as well as one of the six official languages of the United Nations . Spanish is the world's second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese ; the world's fourth-most spoken language overall after English , Mandarin Chinese, and Hindustani ( Hindi - Urdu ); and
6834-415: Is an association of artisans and merchants who oversee the practice of their craft/trade in a particular territory. The earliest types of guild formed as organizations of tradespeople belonging to a professional association . They sometimes depended on grants of letters patent from a monarch or other ruler to enforce the flow of trade to their self-employed members, and to retain ownership of tools and
7035-399: Is estimated that about 486 million people speak Spanish as a native language , making it the second most spoken language by number of native speakers . An additional 75 million speak Spanish as a second or foreign language , making it the fourth most spoken language in the world overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi with a total number of 538 million speakers. Spanish is also
7236-761: Is heavily influenced by Venezuelan Spanish. In addition to sharing most of its borders with Spanish-speaking countries, the creation of Mercosur in the early 1990s induced a favorable situation for the promotion of Spanish language teaching in Brazil . In 2005, the National Congress of Brazil approved a bill, signed into law by the President , making it mandatory for schools to offer Spanish as an alternative foreign language course in both public and private secondary schools in Brazil. In September 2016 this law
7437-580: Is more probable that Moroccan rams were imported, to crossbreed with the native stock. The captures by Castile of Toledo in 1085 and of Zaragoza by the Kingdom of Aragon in 1118 greatly increased the sizes of these Christian kingdoms and, particularly for Aragon, their populations. However, the increase in Castile's population was not commensurate with its increased size. Much of the Muslim population of
7638-534: Is no clear evidence for large scale sheep transhumance of sheep flocks before the late mediaeval period. In the early mediaeval period, as the Christian Kingdom of Castile and León expanded from their original northern territories, relatively well-watered and with good soils, to the interior plains of the Meseta Central, where scarce rainfall and poor soils made cereal agriculture difficult. In
7839-844: Is spoken by very small communities in Angola due to Cuban influence from the Cold War and in South Sudan among South Sudanese natives that relocated to Cuba during the Sudanese wars and returned for their country's independence. Spanish is also spoken in the integral territories of Spain in Africa, namely the cities of Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands , located in the Atlantic Ocean some 100 km (62 mi) off
8040-813: Is the de facto national language of the country, Spanish is often used in public services and notices at the federal and state levels. Spanish is also used in administration in the state of New Mexico . The language has a strong influence in major metropolitan areas such as those of Los Angeles , Miami , San Antonio , New York , San Francisco , Dallas , Tucson and Phoenix of the Arizona Sun Corridor , as well as more recently, Chicago , Las Vegas , Boston , Denver , Houston , Indianapolis , Philadelphia , Cleveland , Salt Lake City , Atlanta , Nashville , Orlando , Tampa , Raleigh and Baltimore-Washington, D.C. due to 20th- and 21st-century immigration. Although Spanish has no official recognition in
8241-488: Is the official Spanish language of the State. ... The other Spanish languages shall also be official in their respective Autonomous Communities... The Royal Spanish Academy ( Real Academia Española ), on the other hand, currently uses the term español in its publications. However, from 1713 to 1923, it called the language castellano . The Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (a language guide published by
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8442-542: Is used as an official language by many international organizations , including the United Nations , European Union , Organization of American States , Union of South American Nations , Community of Latin American and Caribbean States , African Union , among others. In Spain and some other parts of the Spanish-speaking world, Spanish is called not only español but also castellano (Castilian),
8643-523: Is usually assumed to be derived from castillo ('castle'). In the Middle Ages , the language spoken in Castile was generically referred to as Romance and later also as Lengua vulgar . Later in the period, it gained geographical specification as Romance castellano ( romanz castellano , romanz de Castiella ), lenguaje de Castiella , and ultimately simply as castellano (noun). Different etymologies have been suggested for
8844-603: The Emirate of Granada , and they may have brought new breeds of sheep and the practice of long-distance transhumance, including the use of Berber and Arabic terms, into Spain. However, there is no definite evidence that the Marinids did bring their flocks to Spain and they arrived as a fighting force, conducting frequent raids against the Castilians, and were hardly in a position to protect any flocks they might have brought. It
9045-445: The Kingdom of Castile relied on Old Castile in years of shortage. The archaeological record shows that keeping pigs, sheep and goats was widespread, but numbers were limited by the lack of food in the dry summers and cold winters, and cattle were only kept in better watered areas. Small flocks of sheep and goats could be moved to summer hill pastures near settlements, but large numbers of all animals were slaughtered in late autumn. There
9246-544: The Merino breed, the flocks and herds of all species of livestock in Castile and their owners were under the oversight of the Mesta, including both the transhumant and the sedentary ones. The transhumant sheep were generally owned in Old Castile and León , where they had their summer pastures, and they migrated to and from winter pastures of Extremadura and Andalusia according to the season. The royal protection for
9447-568: The Spanish as a First Foreign Language (SAFFL) initiative in March 2005. Spanish has historically had a significant presence on the Dutch Caribbean islands of Aruba , Bonaire and Curaçao ( ABC Islands ) throughout the centuries and in present times. The majority of the populations of each island (especially Aruba) speaking Spanish at varying although often high degrees of fluency. The local language Papiamentu (Papiamento on Aruba)
9648-508: The Spanish–American War but was eventually replaced by English as the primary language of administration and education by the 1920s. Nevertheless, despite a significant decrease in influence and speakers, Spanish remained an official language of the Philippines upon independence in 1946, alongside English and Filipino , a standardized version of Tagalog . Spanish was briefly removed from official status in 1973 but reimplemented under
9849-720: The Worshipful Company of Tax Advisers , have been formed far more recently. Membership in a livery company is expected for individuals participating in the governance of The City , as the Lord Mayor and the Remembrancer . The guild system reached a mature state in Germany c. 1300 and held on in German cities into the 19th century, with some special privileges for certain occupations remaining today. In
10050-459: The cañada system, and there are groups of people who occasionally drive sheep across the modern city as a reminder of their ancient rights and cultures, although these days sheep are generally transported by rail. Although the earliest surviving charter granting royal protection and grazing and other privileges to the Mesta was issued by Alfonso X of Castile in 1273, it claimed to replace four separate older documents, and it did not so much create
10251-757: The collapse of the Roman Empire . A collegium was any association or corporation that acted as a legal entity . In 1816, an archeological excavation in Minya, Egypt produced a Nerva–Antonine dynasty -era (second-century AD) clay tablet from the ruins of the Temple of Antinous in Antinoöpolis , Aegyptus that prescribed the rules and membership dues of a burial society collegium established in Lanuvium , Italia in approximately 133 AD. Following
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#173276599393110452-537: The trade secrets — the guilds' power faded. After the French Revolution they gradually fell in most European nations over the course of the 19th century, as the guild system was disbanded and replaced by laws that promoted free trade. As a consequence of the decline of guilds, many former handicraft workers were forced to seek employment in the emerging manufacturing industries, using not closely guarded techniques formerly protected by guilds, but rather
10653-469: The 14th and 15th centuries, most of such communities had become dependent, first on monasteries, later on lay lords and finally on neighbouring cities and large towns whose councils were controlled by oligarchies. The early part of this process social and economic differentiation in the 11th to 13th centuries coincided with, and probably promoted, the rise of large-scale transhumance. In the 10th and 11th centuries, several large Benedictine monasteries founded in
10854-482: The 15th century, Hamburg had 100 guilds, Cologne 80, and Lübeck 70. The latest guilds to develop in Western Europe were the gremios of Spain: e.g., Valencia (1332) or Toledo (1426). Not all city economies were controlled by guilds; some cities were "free." Where guilds were in control, they shaped labor, production and trade; they had strong controls over instructional capital, and the modern concepts of
11055-467: The 16th century, and more steeply in the early 17th century to a low point of some 1.6 million sheep in 1603 to 1633, climbing slowly for the rest of the century then more rapidly from the start of the 18th century to a maximum of around 5 million transhumant sheep a year for 1790 to 1795, before a catastrophic decline following the French invasion of 1808 and the Peninsular War . In 1832, in one of
11256-438: The 16th century. On arrival in the winter pastures, the shepherds inspected whether the pasture lands they had previously leased were adequate. Despite being granted, in theory at least, free access to southern pastures by royal charter, from the middle of the 16th century few stockholders came south without first arranging suitable pasturage, otherwise they had to pay excessive rents for any remaining low-quality grazing, often in
11457-450: The 16th to 18th centuries, which discuss the customary practices governing this migration. However, from the 16th century, if not earlier, the pastoral transhumant cycle, involving the dates of the two migrations, the length of daily marches and frequency of rests, and the times for lambing and shearing, was designed to ensure the best conditions for the feeding, growth and reproduction of Merino sheep. The availability of fresh grass throughout
11658-501: The 17th century, regarding these rights as part of their patrimony, than did so in the 16th century, and that such rights were exchanged between such owners. Although posesión gave rise to frequent legal disputes, these demonstrate an increase in the practice as much as opposition to it. The first two Spanish Bourbon kings, under the influence of the doctrines of mercantilism current in France, renewed Mesta privileges in 1726 and extended
11859-417: The 1828 account. Some mayorales were guilty of fraud, agreeing to unreasonably high pasture rents with landowners and receiving a share of the excess. However, it was only by the institution of mayoralia , associations of owners which rented grazing and employed shepherds collectively, that owners could secure access to grazing lands. Despite Mesta regulations, the mayoralia competed with one another for
12060-415: The 18th century, the shortage of pasture made it essential for the sheep owners to have grazing leases in advance, to avoid arbitrary price rises by landowners. They therefore relied on having a salaried Mayoral or chief shepherd with sufficient power and experience to negotiate pasture leases for all the sheep in his flock, termed his cabaña : their role in earlier years may have been less prominent than in
12261-541: The 18th century, there were fewer small owners and several owners held flocks of more than 20,000 sheep, the Mesta remained largely an organisation of owners of small to moderately-sized flocks, and never simply a combination of large owners. However, it is also clear that, in the Mesta's final century of existence, many of the owners of small flocks had to abandon the annual migration, unless they were employed by large owners as shepherds, because their small flocks were no longer allowed to be grouped into larger units, as had been
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#173276599393112462-404: The 2021–2022 school year alone. The local business process outsourcing industry has also helped boost the language's economic prospects. Today, while the actual number of proficient Spanish speakers is around 400,000, or under 0.5% of the population, a new generation of Spanish speakers in the Philippines has likewise emerged, though speaker estimates vary widely. Aside from standard Spanish,
12663-595: The 20th century, Spanish was introduced to Equatorial Guinea and the Western Sahara , and to areas of the United States that had not been part of the Spanish Empire, such as Spanish Harlem in New York City . For details on borrowed words and other external influences upon Spanish, see Influences on the Spanish language . Spanish is the primary language in 20 countries worldwide. As of 2023, it
12864-510: The 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo , a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile , in the 13th century. Spanish colonialism in the early modern period spurred the introduction of the language to overseas locations, most notably to the Americas. As a Romance language, Spanish is a descendant of Latin. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary
13065-572: The Aragónese conquest of the Ebro valley in the first quarter of the 12th century, sheep wintering in the valley were granted rights by the king to summer pasture in the foothills of the Pyrenees . Until the 10th century, much of the land in Old Castile and León was in the collective ownership of peasants carrying on mixed subsistence farming including small-scale, local livestock activity. However, by
13266-619: The Castilian urban stockholders increased from the last decades of the 12th century, they increased the numbers of the sheep they were able to support by exploiting these new pastures. The main north–south cañadas, or Cañadas Reales , were those designated by royal charter, although their precise routes may have changed over time, as they were only marked and given a defined width when crossing cultivated land, not when crossing open or untilled land. Both near their north and south termini, numerous minor local cañadas joined into or branched off from
13467-604: The Cañadas Reales. Klein describes three principal groups of cañadas reales wholly within the kingdom of Castile-León, namely the western, or Leonesa , the central, or Segoviana , and the eastern, or Manchega groups, running through the cities of León, Segovia and Cuenca respectively. Walker splits the Segovian group, adding a fourth group passing through Soria. The Leonese cañadas terminated in Extremadura and in
13668-688: The Duero valley began medium-range transhumance and gained royal privileges of pasturage on the slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama . The Castilian expansion of the 12th century was based substantially on the civic militias of Old Castile, but in the 13th century the forces of the military orders based in the south of New Castile were more important. The orders, particularly those of Santiago and Calatrava were granted extensive rights to land in this territory. The military orders settled few peasant cultivators in their lands, although peasants grew some grain close to
13869-654: The Equatoguinean education system and is the primary language used in government and business. Whereas it is not the mother tongue of virtually any of its speakers, the vast majority of the population is proficient in Spanish. The Instituto Cervantes estimates that 87.7% of the population is fluent in Spanish. The proportion of proficient Spanish speakers in Equatorial Guinea exceeds the proportion of proficient speakers in other West and Central African nations of their respective colonial languages. Spanish
14070-572: The European guilds was tied to the emergent money economy, and to urbanization . Before this time it was not possible to run a money-driven organization, as commodity money was the normal way of doing business. The guild was at the center of European handicraft organization into the 16th century. In France, a resurgence of the guilds in the second half of the 17th century is symptomatic of Louis XIV and Jean Baptiste Colbert 's administration's concerns to impose unity, control production, and reap
14271-499: The Guadalquivir valley, and it is possible that this transhumance had crossed political boundaries between Christian and Muslim states the before local Christian reconquest. The third possible cause relates to transhumance organised by the towns of Castile and León. Southern towns, such as Toledo after its 1085 reconquest, sent their flocks to over-winter in the Guadalquivir valley, accompanied by an armed guard. In addition, there
14472-705: The Iberian Peninsula. These languages included Proto-Basque , Iberian , Lusitanian , Celtiberian and Gallaecian . The first documents to show traces of what is today regarded as the precursor of modern Spanish are from the 9th century. Throughout the Middle Ages and into the modern era , the most important influences on the Spanish lexicon came from neighboring Romance languages — Mozarabic ( Andalusi Romance ), Navarro-Aragonese , Leonese , Catalan/Valencian , Portuguese , Galician , Occitan , and later, French and Italian . Spanish also borrowed
14673-514: The Medieval era was an ever-changing, mutable society—especially considering that it spanned hundreds of years and many different cultures. There were multiple accounts of women's participation in guilds in England and the Continent. In a study of London silkwomen of the 15th century by Marian K. Dale, she notes that medieval women could inherit property, belong to guilds, manage estates, and run
14874-477: The Mesta as assume its existence when granting it royal protection from the local taxes and restrictions it was encountering. The charters and privileges of the Mesta resemble those of mediaeval merchant guild , but it was actually a protective association, facilitating the business of the sheep and other livestock owners without engaging directly in their business. It did not own any sheep or pastures, buy and sell wool or control markets, and its close association with
15075-608: The Mesta had suffered severely from the general economic decay of the 17th century, and its weakened Entregadors could no longer successfully oppose these local interests. Spanish language Spanish ( español ) or Castilian ( castellano ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe . Today, it
15276-432: The Mesta included both large and small livestock owners and was controlled by them, however, from the time of Charles V , the organisation ceased to be controlled exclusively by such owners, as royal officials, who were leading nobles and ecclesiastics and not necessarily stock-owners, were appointed to its governing body. Although wool exports began in the 14th century, it was only when the export of high-quality merino wool
15477-537: The Mesta is related to the growth of transhumance after the Castilian conquest of the Taifa of Toledo . Three groups were granted royal charters including the rights to winter pasturage in the Tagus valley. The first were monasteries that owned summer pastures in the Sierra de Guadarrama , followed by the religious military orders which had acquired lands after the conquest of Toledo, in the area renamed New Castile . Later,
15678-419: The Mesta were the alcaldes de quadrilla (also called alcaldes de mesta, two elected by each quadrilla, who were entrusted with the general administration of the laws relating to its members. There were also financial and legal officials who represented members in arranging leases and in disputes with third-parties. The assemblies of the Mesta were open to anyone who paid its membership dues, which were based in
15879-638: The Mesta's flocks and herds was signified by the term Cabaña Real ( Spanish : Cabaña Real de Ganados , lit. 'royal flock or herd of livestock' that applied to these protected animals. The kings of Castile conceded many other privileges to the Mesta. The cañadas (traditional rights-of-way for sheep or sheep-walks) were legally protected in perpetuity from being built on, cultivated or blocked, and they still are protected public domain in our days. The most important cañadas were called cañadas reales , 'royal cañadas ', because they were established by royal decrees. The origin of
16080-452: The Mesta's rights and tax privileges were issued seven times in the 14th century. However the frequency with which legislation was restated under relatively strong monarchs, and the absence of confirmatory legislation under weak ones, particularly for much of the 15th century, showed how extensive was resistance to the Mesta's privileges, as it required the Crown's support to enforce obedience to
16281-489: The Mesta, and lost the prestige of being royal officials. Flocks migrating south required stops for rest, feeding and watering om route and were vulnerable to excessive charges there, and to excessive rents charged at their destinations by owners of winter pastures. The shepherds had little alternative to paying or risking heavy livestock losses. The military orders also opposed the attempts of northern pastoralists to use winter grazing in their territories. The strong monarchy of
16482-456: The Mesta. Each of the four quadrillas selected a representative annually, to proceed to Extremadura and Andalucía before the annual migration and arrange the terms of grazing leases for the coming winter season. Each member was only assigned sufficient land for his flocks, and each landowner was to be treated equally. The aim was to prevent competition between Mesta members or joint action by the landowning lessors to raise rents. The 1492 ordinance
16683-617: The Muslim-controlled areas, water management, irrigation, and the introduction of drought resistant and more productive crop varieties overcame the water shortages, but these techniques were not adopted in the Christian territories until they had conquered areas where they were used. It has been claimed that, during the medieval Reconquest , the frontier lands between Christian and Muslim areas were sparsely populated, largely uncultivated and used mainly for animal grazing, and that
16884-540: The Old Spanish sibilants) for details. The Gramática de la lengua castellana , written in Salamanca in 1492 by Elio Antonio de Nebrija , was the first grammar written for a modern European language. According to a popular anecdote, when Nebrija presented it to Queen Isabella I , she asked him what was the use of such a work, and he answered that language is the instrument of empire. In his introduction to
17085-589: The Royal Spanish Academy) states that, although the Royal Spanish Academy prefers to use the term español in its publications when referring to the Spanish language, both terms— español and castellano —are regarded as synonymous and equally valid. The term castellano is related to Castile ( Castilla or archaically Castiella ), the kingdom where the language was originally spoken. The name Castile , in turn,
17286-471: The Spanish government gave it a status and extensive presence unmatched by any guild. Sheep numbers in Castile and León had increased greatly in the 12th and early 13th centuries, outgrowing the available local grazing and encouraging transhumance to more distant pastures. This transhumance was a frequent cause of dispute between the shepherds and local inhabitants, and the Cortes of 1252 enacted laws regulating
17487-502: The U.S. population were of Hispanic or Hispanic American by origin. In turn, 41.8 million people in the United States aged five or older speak Spanish at home, or about 13% of the population. Spanish predominates in the unincorporated territory of Puerto Rico , where it is also an official language along with English. Spanish is by far the most common second language in the country, with over 50 million total speakers if non-native or second-language speakers are included. While English
17688-400: The acquisition of craft skills required experience-based learning, he argues that this process necessitated many years in apprenticeship. The extent to which guilds were able to monopolize markets is also debated. Guilds were often heavily concerned with product quality. The regulations they established on their own members' work, as well as targeting non-guild members for illicit practice,
17889-457: The administration of Ferdinand Marcos two months later. It remained an official language until the ratification of the present constitution in 1987, in which it was re-designated as a voluntary and optional auxiliary language. Additionally, the constitution, in its Article XIV, stipulates that the Government shall provide the people of the Philippines with a Spanish-language translation of
18090-667: The ancient sheepwalks that have been described from Spain are generally relatively short and frequently run from uplands east to the Mediterranean coast, rather than from north to south. Sheep were generally only part of the mixed farming of cereals and livestock in León and Old Castile before the 12th century, less important than pigs and rarely moved outside their local area. The cañadas in León and Old Castile may have developed from an increased range of transhumance that first occurred within those provinces, and which were extended south as
18291-541: The apparent exceptions of stonecutters and perhaps glassmakers, mostly the people that had local skills. Gregory of Tours tells a miraculous tale of a builder whose art and techniques suddenly left him, but were restored by an apparition of the Virgin Mary in a dream. Michel Rouche remarks that the story speaks for the importance of practically transmitted journeymanship. In France , guilds were called corps de métiers . According to Viktor Ivanovich Rutenburg, "Within
18492-439: The armourers were divided into helmet-makers, escutcheon-makers, harness-makers, harness-polishers, etc. In Catalan towns, especially at Barcelona , guilds or gremis were a basic agent in the society: a shoemakers' guild is recorded in 1208. In England, specifically in the City of London Corporation , more than 110 guilds, referred to as livery companies , survive today, with the oldest 869 years old. Other groups, such as
18693-607: The banks of the Tagus and Guadiana rivers, those of Segovia and Soria, which were the major routes, ended in Andalucía and the Manchegan ones in La Mancha and eastern Murcia . Some authors divide these groups into nine or ten quite separate routes, but Klein noted the possibility of sheep moving between different branches of the western and central groups. There are very few records of numbers of sheep migrating annually before
18894-521: The benefits of transparent structure in the shape of efficient taxation. The guilds were identified with organizations enjoying certain privileges ( letters patent ), usually issued by the king or state and overseen by local town business authorities (some kind of chamber of commerce ). These were the predecessors of the modern patent and trademark system. The guilds also maintained funds in order to support infirm or elderly members, as well as widows and orphans of guild members, funeral benefits, and
19095-662: The best grazing, and the most affluent groups monopolised this to the exclusion of poorer ones. Most of the Merino flocks from the late 15th century on had their home pastures in León, Old Castile and north-eastern La Mancha, an area divided between the four quadrillas of León, Segovia, Soria and Cuenca, each of which dealt with a section of the annual transhumance. Flocks from León and Old Castile traveled between 550 and 750 kilometres to their winter pastures, while those from New Castile and La Mancha rarely travelled more than 250 kilometres. All these usually completed their migration south in
19296-522: The binding oaths sworn among the members to support one another in adversity, kill specific enemies, and back one another in feuds or in business ventures. The occasion for these oaths were drunken banquets held on December 26. In 858, West Francian Bishop Hincmar sought vainly to Christianise the guilds. In the Early Middle Ages , most of the Roman craft organisations , originally formed as religious confraternities , had disappeared, with
19497-495: The case in earlier centuries. There is little information on the annual migrations in the first century of the Mesta's charter, although as northern flocks were supplying the meat markets of Toledo then, this suggests that producing wool was not yet their predominant purpose. There is also nothing about how the migrations were carried out in practice in the Mesta ordinances of 1492 or its code of 1511, and only occasional documentary evidence about this from legal proceedings dating from
19698-684: The classic hispanus or hispanicus took the suffix -one from Vulgar Latin , as happened with other words such as bretón (Breton) or sajón (Saxon). Like the other Romance languages , the Spanish language evolved from Vulgar Latin , which was brought to the Iberian Peninsula by the Romans during the Second Punic War , beginning in 210 BC. Several pre-Roman languages (also called Paleohispanic languages )—some distantly related to Latin as Indo-European languages , and some that are not related at all—were previously spoken in
19899-500: The consonant written b (a bilabial with plosive and fricative allophones). In modern Spanish, there is no difference between the pronunciation of orthographic b and v . Typical of Spanish (as also of neighboring Gascon extending as far north as the Gironde estuary , and found in a small area of Calabria ), attributed by some scholars to a Basque substratum was the mutation of Latin initial f into h- whenever it
20100-404: The country's constitution. In recent years changing attitudes among non-Spanish speaking Filipinos have helped spur a revival of the language, and starting in 2009 Spanish was reintroduced as part of the basic education curriculum in a number of public high schools, becoming the largest foreign language program offered by the public school system, with over 7,000 students studying the language in
20301-466: The decline thesis has been reaffirmed in the German context by Wiesner and Ogilvie, but that it does not work in looking at the matter from a larger scope, as her expertise is in French history. There were exclusively female guilds that came out of the woodwork in the 17th century, primarily Paris , Rouen , and Cologne . In 1675, Parisian seamstresses requested the guild as their trade was organized and profitable enough to support incorporation. Some of
20502-507: The early 16th century. In the 16th century, the numbers of migrating sheep recorded annually ranged from 1.7 to 3.5 million, averaging around 2.5 million Merino sheep, but the numbers began to decline in the late 16th and particularly in the early 17th century, a time of warfare in the Low Countries. Klein places the start of the Mesta's decadence in the third quarter of the 16th century. During that period, only Merino sheep migrated, but
20703-488: The economic marginalization of women in the 17th c., and has highlighted that domestic life did not organize women's economic activities. The research has documented women's extensive participation in market relations, craft production, and paid labor in the early modern period. Clare Crowston posits that women gained more control of their own work. In the 16th and 17th centuries, rather than losing control, female linen drapers and hemp merchants established independent guilds. In
20904-529: The eighteenth century no German guild accepted a Wend." In the Russian Empire , from the reform of Peter the Great (beginning of the 17th century ) until 1917 , these were corporations of wealthy merchants, with their own rights. They therefore constituted an Order which was divided, according to property, into three classes: merchant of the first Guild, of the second Guild, and of the third Guild and
21105-430: The end of eleventh century were plough oxen, milk cows and pigs as well as sheep There is no evidence for large flocks of sheep before the early 1100s, and no clear evidence for any large scale transhumance of sheep flocks before the late Mediaeval period. The long-distance transhumance described from southern France, Italy and Spain was connected with the commercial exploitation of sheep, mainly for wool, and its taxation by
21306-419: The end of that century they were virtually powerless against the courts and exempted towns, although the office remained in existence for another century. By the start of the 18th century, local officials had taken over control of their towns’ grazing grounds, and had enclosing them on the basis that they were so covered with undergrowth as to be useless as pasturage, whether or mot this was accurate. By this time,
21507-407: The end of the 15th century, largely because the frequency of encroachments on pasturelands and the numbers of unjustified tolls swamped the courts with far more cases than they could deal with adequately. Itinerant judicial officials, each termed an Entregador , were tasked with keeping open the cañadas and their watering and resting stations, resisting encroachments on public pastures and protecting
21708-407: The entire economy but because they benefited the owners, who used political power to protect them. Ogilvie (2011) says they regulated trade for their own benefit, were monopolies, distorted markets, fixed prices, and restricted entrance into the guild. Ogilvie (2008) argues that their long apprenticeships were unnecessary to acquire skills, and their conservatism reduced the rate of innovation and made
21909-464: The explanation he preferred. An alternative, also based on the Latin mixta is that it refers to the common ownership of the Mesta's animals by multiple parties. However, the animals were individually owned, not common property, and generally different owners' flocks were kept separate. Secondly, it might be related to the amistad or amity, which Klein regarded as unconvincing. Finally, Klein mentions
22110-503: The family business if widowed. The Livre des métiers de Paris (Book of Trades of Paris) was compiled by Étienne Boileau , the Grand Provost of Paris under King Louis IX . It documents that 5 out of 110 Parisian guilds were female monopolies, and that only a few guilds systematically excluded women. Boileau notes that some professions were also open to women: surgeons, glass-blowers, chain-mail forgers. Entertainment guilds also had
22311-404: The final years of the Mesta's existence, it was responsible for 1.1 million transhumant merino sheep, 2.0 million other fine wool sheep that were not transhumant and 4.9 million other sheep that were not transhumant and which produced only low-grade wool. The most complete account of the organisation of the migrations, given by a shepherd, was recorded in 1828, in the organisation's last decade. By
22512-631: The following table: Spanish is marked by palatalization of the Latin double consonants ( geminates ) nn and ll (thus Latin annum > Spanish año , and Latin anellum > Spanish anillo ). The consonant written u or v in Latin and pronounced [w] in Classical Latin had probably " fortified " to a bilabial fricative /β/ in Vulgar Latin. In early Spanish (but not in Catalan or Portuguese) it merged with
22713-466: The former British colony of Belize (known until 1973 as British Honduras ) where English is the sole official language, according to the 2022 census, 54% of the total population are able to speak the language. Due to its proximity to Spanish-speaking countries and small existing native Spanish speaking minority, Trinidad and Tobago has implemented Spanish language teaching into its education system. The Trinidadian and Tobagonian government launched
22914-629: The governing body of a town. For example, London's Guildhall became the seat of the Court of Common Council of the City of London Corporation, the world's oldest continuously elected local government, whose members to this day must be Freemen of the city. The Freedom of the City , effective from the Middle Ages until 1835, gave the right to trade, and was only bestowed upon members of a Guild or Livery. Early egalitarian communities called "guilds" were denounced by Catholic clergy for their "conjurations" —
23115-604: The grammar, dated 18 August 1492, Nebrija wrote that "... language was always the companion of empire." From the 16th century onwards, the language was taken to the Spanish-discovered America and the Spanish East Indies via Spanish colonization of America . Miguel de Cervantes , author of Don Quixote , is such a well-known reference in the world that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). In
23316-513: The greater guilds and the lesser artisanal guilds, which depended on piecework . "In Florence, they were openly distinguished: the Arti maggiori and the Arti minori —already there was a popolo grasso and a popolo magro ". Fiercer struggles were those between essentially conservative guilds and the merchant class, which increasingly came to control the means of production and the capital that could be ventured in expansive schemes, often under
23517-472: The greater guilds was that for judges and notaries, who handled the legal business of all the other guilds and often served as an arbitrator of disputes. Other greater guilds include the wool, silk, and the money changers' guilds. They prided themselves on a reputation for very high-quality work, which was rewarded with premium prices. The guilds fined members who deviated from standards. Other greater guilds included those of doctors, druggists, and furriers. Among
23718-678: The guild framework was the emergence of universities at Bologna (established in 1088), Oxford (at least since 1096) and Paris ( c. 1150 ); they originated as guilds of students (as at Bologna) or of masters (as at Paris). Naram-Sin of Akkad ( c. 2254 –2218 BC), grandson of Sargon of Akkad who had unified Sumeria and Assyria into the Akkadian Empire , promulgated common Mesopotamian standards for length, area, volume, weight, time, and shekels , which were used by artisan guilds in each city. Code of Hammurabi Law 234 ( c. 1755–1750 BC ) stipulated
23919-509: The guild itself there was very little division of labour, which tended to operate rather between the guilds. Thus, according to Étienne Boileau 's Book of Handicrafts, by the mid-13th century there were no less than 100 guilds in Paris , a figure which by the 14th century had risen to 350." There were different guilds of metal-workers: the farriers, knife-makers, locksmiths, chain-forgers, nail-makers, often formed separate and distinct corporations;
24120-632: The guild meetings and thus had a means of controlling the handicraft activities. This was important since towns very often depended on a good reputation for export of a narrow range of products, on which not only the guild's, but the town's, reputation depended. Controls on the association of physical locations to well-known exported products, e.g. wine from the Champagne and Bordeaux regions of France , tin-glazed earthenwares from certain cities in Holland , lace from Chantilly , etc., helped to establish
24321-595: The guilds in Cologne had been made up almost entirely of women since the medieval period. Early modern Rouen was an important center of guildswomen's activity. By 1775, there were about 700 female masters, accounting for 10% of all guild masters in the city. A survey that circulated in the late 18th century listed that the Rouen ribbonmakers had 149 masters, mistresses, and widows, indicating its mixed gendered composition. A tax roll of 1775 indicated that their total membership
24522-626: The guilds in France. In 1803 the Napoleonic Code banned any coalition of workmen whatsoever. Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations (Book I, Chapter X, paragraph 72): It is to prevent this reduction of price, and consequently of wages and profit, by restraining that free competition which would most certainly occasion it, that all corporations, and the greater part of corporation laws, have been established. (...) and when any particular class of artificers or traders thought proper to act as
24723-451: The guilds of dyers, cotton-weavers, and guilds in the leather industry. They did enjoy full rights in some wood-working guilds, the guilds of coopers and turners. Women also seemed to have extensively engaged in the fish trade, both within and outside of the guild. The butcher and cattle-trade guilds also listed women among their ranks. In practically all of these guilds, a widow was allowed to continue her husband's business. If she remarried to
24924-439: The guilds' concerns. These are defining characteristics of mercantilism in economics, which dominated most European thinking about political economy until the rise of classical economics . The guild system survived the emergence of early capitalists , which began to divide guild members into "haves" and dependent "have-nots". The civil struggles that characterize the 14th-century towns and cities were struggles in part between
25125-420: The hills, often hungry and weak after the long journey north. The annual migration was made possible by using cañadas a system of long-distance pathways used by migrating flocks which occur in those Mediterranean countries that practice transhumance. In Spain, some of the paths that run north–south are known to have existed from the early Middle Ages, although claims of Roman or pre-Roman origin are doubtful, as
25326-439: The hills. The rebaños were divided between a number of pens built for shelter and for lambing, which took place in the winter pastures. Any old and infertile rams and diseased and weak ewes were culled soon after arrival to protect the quality of the wool, and of weak lambs were culled shortly after birth. The lambs were ready to travel north in the following spring, and the flocks left the southern plains from mid-April. Their wool
25527-684: The language from the Kingdom of Castile , contrasting it with other languages spoken in Spain such as Galician , Basque , Asturian , Catalan/Valencian , Aragonese , Occitan and other minor languages. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 uses the term castellano to define the official language of the whole of Spain, in contrast to las demás lenguas españolas (lit. "the other Spanish languages "). Article III reads as follows: El castellano es la lengua española oficial del Estado. ... Las demás lenguas españolas serán también oficiales en las respectivas Comunidades Autónomas... Castilian
25728-549: The language's hegemony in an intensely centralising Spanish state were established from the 18th century onward. Other European territories in which it is also widely spoken include Gibraltar and Andorra . Spanish is also spoken by immigrant communities in other European countries, such as the United Kingdom , France , Italy , and Germany . Spanish is an official language of the European Union . Today,
25929-418: The late 15th and 16th centuries, which supported the export of merino wool, was better able to protect the members of the Mesta and the emergence of the right of posesión in the 16th century, attempted to control these charges and rents and guarantee shepherds access to the pastures at fixed prices, although there was increasing pressure for new arable farmland to be brought into use in the 18th century. Under
26130-520: The late 17th century and onward, there was evidence of growing economic opportunities for women. Seamstresses in Paris and Rouen and flower sellers in Paris acquired their own guilds in 1675. In Dijon , the number of female artisans recorded in tax rolls rose substantially between the years of 1643 and 1750. In 18th c. Nantes , there was a significant growth in women's access to guilds, with no restrictions on their rights. Historian Merry Wiesner attributed
26331-541: The later Habsburg monarchs, there was increasing resistance to the passage of transhumant flocks. This led to the decline in smaller owners being involved in transhumance and the dominance of the Mesta by those with very large flocks, who had the money to pay for grazing along migration routes and the political influence to enforce their rights. The towns en route either tried to dissuade or divert transhumant flocks from their territory, or to extract as much as they could by leasing their pastures for flocks on their way to and from
26532-427: The law of posesión to Aragon. Their action was more successful than the 1633 renewal, as appeals in pasture disputes were moved to a court more favourable to the Mesta. In contrast to his predecessors, Charles III and his reforming ministers regarded posesión as a mediaeval survival that had outlived its usefulness and considered that its continuation inhibited a necessary growth in cereal cultivation. This led, firstly to
26733-491: The laws protecting its members. There is ample evidence from this period of disputes over unauthorised tolls and encroachment on the cañadas, and ploughing of pastures which might only be used for a few months a year. In theory, the Mesta had the right of pasturage and transit over all land except that in use for growing cereals, vineyards, orchards, hay meadows producing winter feed for cattle and land reserved for deer, but these mediaeval privileges had ceased to exist in reality by
26934-403: The length of transhumance journeys and the number of sheep that could be fed through the winter. The Mesta's original charter of 1273 was supplemented in 1276 and renewed in 1347 and 1371. Its internal organisation was originally governed by regulations of 1379, which have been lost. However, ordinances of 1492, supplemented by a code of 1511, regulated its operations for most of its existence. It
27135-409: The lesser guilds, were those for bakers, saddle makers, ironworkers and other artisans. They had a sizable membership, but lacked the political and social standing necessary to influence city affairs. The guild was made up by experienced and confirmed experts in their field of handicraft. They were called master craftsmen . Before a new employee could rise to the level of mastery, he had to go through
27336-531: The local states, and was not connected with subsistence farming. Sheep were relatively unimportant in the Islamic Caliphate of Córdoba and there is no known record of long-distance transhumance before its fall in the 1030s. The Marinids, a Zenata Berber group which held extensive sheep flocks in Morocco, intervened in Andalusia several times in the late 13th and early 14th centuries in support of
27537-694: The majority of the Spanish speakers live in Hispanic America . Nationally, Spanish is the official language—either de facto or de jure —of Argentina , Bolivia (co-official with 36 indigenous languages), Chile , Colombia , Costa Rica , Cuba , Dominican Republic , Ecuador , El Salvador , Guatemala , Honduras , Mexico (co-official with 63 indigenous languages), Nicaragua , Panama , Paraguay (co-official with Guaraní ), Peru (co-official with Quechua , Aymara , and "the other indigenous languages"), Puerto Rico (co-official with English), Uruguay , and Venezuela . Spanish language has
27738-534: The march, but divided into smaller units termed rebaños of about 1,000 sheep managed a shepherd with several assistants and sheepdogs. The shepherds were normally engaged for a year ending in June when the flocks were returned to their home pastures, and usually paid mainly in kind, with grain, a proportion of lambs born and cheese produced, but not in wool, and with a cash fee for each 100 sheep herded. In earlier centuries, smaller flocks called hatos were grouped to form
27939-620: The members of the Royal Council, and the leaders of each of the four quadrillas. The office of president was so powerful that, when the reformer Pedro Rodríguez, Count of Campomanes was appointed to this post in 1779 to eliminate the organisation's abuses, he went far towards dismantling the Mesta's organisation by promoting agriculture in the Sierra Morena , one of its principal winter pasturelands, despite opposition from Mesta members. The most important administrative officials of
28140-424: The middle English word journei . Journeymen were able to work for other masters, unlike apprentices, and generally paid by the day and were thus day labourers. After being employed by a master for several years, and after producing a qualifying piece of work, the apprentice was granted the rank of journeyman and was given documents (letters or certificates from his master and/or the guild itself) which certified him as
28341-513: The military orders, and later by secular flocks, among the first being those from Burgos in the last decades of the 12th century. By the late 12th century, the military Orders were regularly driving flocks of sheep from New Castile into the previously Muslim areas of La Mancha and western Murcia, and even into areas still under Muslim control before the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa . The kings of Castile from Alfonso VIII to Ferdinand III protected
28542-436: The most controversial of the Mesta's privileges was the right of posesión , which established the Mesta's perpetual title to tenancy for all pasturess leased by its members. Its origin lay in the Mesta's code for its own internal administration, dated 1492. One clause attempted to prevent competition among the sheep owners for winter pasturage through an arrangement for the joint bargaining for pasture leases by lessees acting for
28743-498: The most outspoken critics of the guild system were Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith , and all over Europe a tendency to oppose government control over trades in favour of laissez-faire free market systems grew rapidly and made its way into the political and legal systems. Many people who participated in the French Revolution saw guilds as a last remnant of feudalism . The d'Allarde Law of 2 March 1791 suppressed
28944-512: The name mechta , used by Algerian nomads for their winter sheep encampments, as a possibility. There were very few references to Castilian mestas in the second half of the 13th and early 14th centuries, and these may apply to the guardian escorts of the transhumant sheep rather than any assembly of sheep owners. The Arabic meshta for a winter gathering of sheep may have been transferred to the meetings of animal owners held at that time, and later, to local sheep-owners' associations in Andalucía and to
29145-521: The national body, both composed of such owners. The word mestengo , (now spelled ' mesteño ') referred to animals of uncertain ownership, literally belonging to the mesta , deriving from the name of that body. In New Spain in colonial North America, feral horses came to be known as mesteños , from which is derived the English word mustang , used for the free-roaming horses of the modern Western United States. The north coast, northwest and, to
29346-504: The northern boundaries of Muslim states retreated. The expansion of the cañadas southward has been related to three causes, which may have all played their part, but here is no evidence of large scale transhumance in Extremadura, Andalucía and La Mancha when they were under Muslim rule, so the impetus must have come from the Christian north. From the reconquest of Toledo in 1085 to that of Andalucía, stock raising, particularly of sheep,
29547-734: The northwest of the African mainland. The Spanish spoken in the Canary Islands traces its origins back to the Castilian conquest in the 15th century , and, in addition to a resemblance to Western Andalusian speech patterns, it also features strong influence from the Spanish varieties spoken in the Americas, which in turn have also been influenced historically by Canarian Spanish. The Spanish spoken in North Africa by native bilingual speakers of Arabic or Berber who also speak Spanish as
29748-401: The number and amounts of tolls that could be levied upon the flocks moving through a district. It also allowed them to use streams and customary sheepwalks (cañadas) and prevented the enclosure of previously open pasturage, foreshadowing the privileges granted to the Mesta. During the Cortes of Burgos in 1269, the king imposed the servicio de los ganados , a tax on migratory flocks and herds, and
29949-414: The number of sheep each owned, and no minimum ownership was required. However, it was estimated that only around one-tenth of its membership attended these assemblies. Although every member present had a single vote, nobles and substantial owners had the greatest influence and were often able to direct proceedings. Initially, the Mesta held three assemblies a year, but from 1500 this was reduced to two, one in
30150-676: The other hand, Ogilvie agrees, guilds created "social capital" of shared norms, common information, mutual sanctions, and collective political action. This social capital benefited guild members, even as it arguably hurt outsiders. The guild system became a target of much criticism towards the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century. Critics argued that they hindered free trade and technological innovation , technology transfer and business development . According to several accounts of this time, guilds became increasingly involved in simple territorial struggles against each other and against free practitioners of their arts. Two of
30351-493: The other hand, most trade and craft guilds were male-dominated and frequently limited women's rights if they were members, or did not allow membership at all. The most common way women obtained guild membership was through marriage. Usually only the widows and daughters of known masters were allowed in. Even if a woman entered a guild, she was excluded from guild offices. While this was the overarching practice, there were guilds and professions that did allow women's participation, and
30552-560: The passage of the Lex Julia in 45 BC, and its reaffirmation during the reign of Caesar Augustus (27 BC–14 AD), collegia required the approval of the Roman Senate or the emperor in order to be authorized as legal bodies . Ruins at Lambaesis date the formation of burial societies among Roman soldiers and mariners to the reign of Septimius Severus (193–211) in 198 AD. In September 2011, archeological investigations done at
30753-435: The period is that things change during the early modern period, specifically the 17th century, and become more stifling for women in guilds. She also posits that domestic life drove women out of guild participation. Many historians have done research into the dwindling women's participation in guilds. Studies have provided a contradictory picture. Recent historical research is usually posed in rebuttal to Alice Clark's study on
30954-524: The periodic movement of this frontier zone encouraged transhumance . However, the Christian advance into the Duero valley was undertaken by peasant mixed-farmers, who densely settled it, combining cereal crops with small livestock holdings. Only when the Reconquest progressed beyond Old Castile and entered areas of poor soils where it was difficult to grow cereals or to maintain high livestock densities did
31155-424: The poor quality of the land and the limited availability of grazing favour sheep transhumance over sedentary mixed farming. Transhumance existed in other Mediterranean countries with climates and grazing that favoured transhumance which were similar to central Spain, but which were not unsettled as Spain was during the Reconquest. In the Christian lands north of the Sierra de Guadarrama , the usual livestock until
31356-533: The population. Many northern Moroccans have rudimentary knowledge of Spanish, with Spanish being particularly significant in areas adjacent to Ceuta and Melilla. Spanish also has a presence in the education system of the country (through either selected education centers implementing Spain's education system, primarily located in the North, or the availability of Spanish as foreign language subject in secondary education). In Western Sahara , formerly Spanish Sahara ,
31557-631: The proportion of Merinos driven south in any year depended on the spring rainfall in the northern pastures and the fluctuating price of pasture in the south. After the Eighty Years' War , transhumant numbers rose again, but to a lower level than in the 16th century. This was not because of a decline in overall numbers of Merino sheep, but a reduction in long-range transhumance and a parallel increase in flocks pastured in their home areas. Non- migratory Merino flocks of southern cities such as Córdoba also expanded and competed with transhumant flocks. Perhaps
31758-408: The quality of the wig, making it too thin to style. Guild officers pointed out that if the consumer discovers the bad quality, the guild would be blamed, and the consumer would search elsewhere to purchase goods. Women's participation within medieval guilds was complex and varied. On one hand, guild membership allowed women to participate in the economy that provided social privilege and community. On
31959-512: The recognition of the Mesta in 1273 allowed Alfonso to derive a greater portion of the resources of the sheep-herding industry more efficiently. Klein noted three possible origins for the word mesta . Firstly, it might be related to annual assemblies to dispose of strays that were called mezclados , as they were mixed with a strange flock or herd, the name ultimately deriving from the Latin Latin : mixta , lit. 'mixed',
32160-557: The responsibilities of some trades toward the public. Modern antitrust law could be said to derive in some ways from the original statutes by which the guilds were abolished in Europe. The economic consequences of guilds have led to heated debates among economic historians. On the one side, scholars say that since merchant guilds persisted over long periods they must have been efficient institutions (since inefficient institutions die out). Others say they persisted not because they benefited
32361-413: The rights of the monasteries and military orders to move their sheep to graze in the south of their kingdom, but Alfonso X realised that granting similar transhumant rights to the cities and towns of Old Castile and León would create a significant new source of income. The conquest of the Guadalquivir valley in the 13th century permitted flocks from the Duero and Tagus basins to over-winter there, extending
32562-472: The rules of guilds of their own. German social historians trace the Zunftrevolution , the urban revolution of guildmembers against a controlling urban patriciate, sometimes reading into them, however, perceived foretastes of the class struggles of the 19th century. In the countryside, where guild rules did not operate, there was freedom for the entrepreneur with capital to organize cottage industry ,
32763-477: The shepherds. Initially one such official patrolled each of the four main cañada systems, but their numbers were increased to six in the late 15th century, then later reduced to only three in 1650. They were initially appointed by the Crown to protect the interests of the Mesta and adjudicate in disputes it had with towns and the landowners along the transhumant routes. In 1568, the Entregadors became officers of
32964-535: The site of an artificial harbor in Rome, the Portus , revealed inscriptions in a shipyard constructed during the reign of Trajan (98–117) indicating the existence of a shipbuilders guild. Collegia also included fraternities of priests overseeing sacrifices , practicing augury , keeping religious texts, arranging festivals , and maintaining specific religious cults . There were several types of guilds, including
33165-400: The society poorer. She says their main goal was rent seeking , that is, to shift money to the membership at the expense of the entire economy. Epstein and Prak's book (2008) rejects Ogilvie's conclusions. Specifically, Epstein argues that guilds were cost-sharing rather than rent-seeking institutions. They located and matched masters and likely apprentices through monitored learning. Whereas
33366-558: The south. Although, in theory, the Mesta's legal rights were clear and the association had an impressive apparatus to enforce them, these rights were breached when routes of the cañadas were moved away to fertile pastures or restricted to below their legal width, and illegal dues were imposed. Even where the Mesta's right were restored after lengthy court proceedings, those that had infringed them usually received no financial or other penalty. Both summer and winter pastures used by transhumant sheep were supposed to remain unploughed and unsown, as
33567-530: The southern pasturelands in January or February, and the other in one of the four northern quadrilla centres in September or October. These assemblies dealt with the organisation of the next transhumance and the election of Mesta officials, and proposals were first voted on by each quadrilla, then in a general assembly, where each quadrilla had a single vote. In the 18th century, meetings were often reduced to one
33768-459: The southern territories, renamed New Castile , left for North Africa or the Emirate of Granada , and the increasing use of the heavy plough in the north of the kingdom raised cereal production and discouraged its population from southward migration into areas less suitable for mixed farming. In the 12th and 13th centuries, many sheep-herders in Old Castile and León began transhumance to more distant pastures, within or without those provinces, This
33969-465: The squabbles over jurisdiction that produced the paperwork by which economic historians trace their development: The metalworking guilds of Nuremberg were divided among dozens of independent trades in the boom economy of the 13th century, and there were 101 trades in Paris by 1260. In Ghent , as in Florence , the woolen textile industry developed as a congeries of specialized guilds. The appearance of
34170-491: The standardized methods controlled by corporations . Interest in the medieval guild system was revived during the late 19th century, among far-right circles. Fascism in Italy (among other countries) implemented corporatism , operating at the national rather than city level, to try to imitate the corporatism of the Middle Ages. Guilds are sometimes said to be the precursors of modern cartels . Guilds, however, can also be seen as
34371-680: The supply of materials, but most were regulated by the local government . Guild members found guilty of cheating the public would be fined or banned from the guild. A lasting legacy of traditional guilds are the guildhalls constructed and used as guild meeting-places. Typically the key "privilege" was that only guild members were allowed to sell their goods or practice their skill within the city. There might be controls on minimum or maximum prices, hours of trading, numbers of apprentices, and many other things. Critics argued that these rules reduced free competition , but defenders maintained that they protected professional standards. An important result of
34572-537: The term español (Spanish). According to the Royal Spanish Academy, español derives from the Occitan word espaignol and that, in turn, derives from the Vulgar Latin * hispaniolus ('of Hispania'). Hispania was the Roman name for the entire Iberian Peninsula . There are other hypotheses apart from the one suggested by the Royal Spanish Academy. Spanish philologist Ramón Menéndez Pidal suggested that
34773-444: The theories of Ramón Menéndez Pidal , local sociolects of Vulgar Latin evolved into Spanish, in the north of Iberia, in an area centered in the city of Burgos , and this dialect was later brought to the city of Toledo , where the written standard of Spanish was first developed, in the 13th century. In this formative stage, Spanish developed a strongly differing variant from its close cousin, Leonese , and, according to some authors,
34974-640: The third most used language on the Internet , after English and Chinese. Spanish is the official language of Spain . Upon the emergence of the Castilian Crown as the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula by the end of the Middle Ages, the Romance vernacular associated with this polity became increasingly used in instances of prestige and influence, and the distinction between "Castilian" and "Spanish" started to become blurred. Hard policies imposing
35175-551: The towns, and many Muslim inhabitants left. At the start of the 12th century, the raising of livestock, preferably sheep, centred around pasture rights granted to clerics, initially those around the slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama but later they began "inverse transhumance" to the pastures of the Sierra Morena . It was the flocks of the monasteries that first opened up the cañadas in New Castile, but these were soon followed by
35376-784: The two main categories of merchant guilds and craft guilds but also the frith guild and religious guild. Guilds arose beginning in the High Middle Ages as craftsmen united to protect their common interests. In the German city of Augsburg craft guilds are mentioned in the Towncharter of 1156. The continental system of guilds and merchants arrived in England after the Norman Conquest , with incorporated societies of merchants in each town or city holding exclusive rights of doing business there. In many cases they became
35577-486: The urban elites of Old Castile and León, who used urban grazing in the city's término ( Spanish : término , lit. 'rural area within a city's jurisdiction', including its pasturage on nearby sierras, were granted similar rights. None of these groups, nor the few lay members of the nobility that also received such grants, could base their wealth on crop-growing in the dry and underpopulated lands of New Castile, so relied on raising livestock. Initially,
35778-463: The widespread introduction of the heavy plough in Old Castile led to increased cereal production and led to the abandonment of marginal cultivation, creating more pasture. The emigration of much of the Muslim population from New Castile to Granada and North Africa also led to the abandonment of areas of dry farming there. These changes favoured stock-raising, and there was probably enough land for both pasture and arable farming at first. Laws confirming
35979-596: The world's most widely spoken Romance language. The country with the largest population of native speakers is Mexico . Spanish is part of the Ibero-Romance language group , in which the language is also known as Castilian ( castellano ). The group evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in
36180-414: The year resulted in the increased fineness of their fleeces, and it was realised that transhumance was essential to create wool of a quality that sedentary sheep flocks could not match. This circumstance was used to justify the Mesta's privileges. The Mesta records indicate that, from 1436 to 1549, in excess of 2.5 million sheep took part in the annual migration. This number declined during the remainder of
36381-578: Was a required regulation of the yarn-spinners guild. The guildswomen of the gold-spinners guild were often wives of guildsmen of the gold-smiths. This type of unity between husband and wife was seen in women's guild participation through the medieval and early modern periods; in order to avoid unpleasant litigation or legal situations, the trades of husband and wife often were the same or complementary. Women were not restricted to solely textile guilds in medieval Cologne, and neither did they have total freedom in all textile guilds. They had limited participation in
36582-465: Was an expansion of transhumant travel south from Segovia and Burgos at the end of the 12th century and the start of the 13th century using cañadas opened by the monasteries, possibly into what was still Muslim territory. However, the victory of Los Navas de Tolosa in 1212 opened the pastures of the Guadiana to all Castilian flocks, not just those of the monasteries and military orders. As the influence of
36783-431: Was an internal Mesta measure only, but a significant action taken by Ferdinand and Isabella in January 1501 in support of the Mesta was to create a law of posesión, which granted Mesta members the permanent tenancy of a stated pasture field, either at the rental paid under their earliest lease, or if a flocks occupied such fields for a season unchallenged or undiscovered by the landowner, for no payment. The probable intention
36984-418: Was both of the normal variety, moving from the home farm to summer pastures within the same province, and an inverse movement to winter pastures further away. Two examples of normal transhumance are first, when many Castilian cities and towns were granted royal charters in the 12th century, they gained control over large areas of upland pasturage and granted grazing rights to their citizens. and, second, after
37185-456: Was developed New Castile, at first by over thirty northern monasteries, bishoprics and churches, many with their summer pastures in the Sierra de Guadarrama, and secondly by the military orders, which received royal grants of pasturelands in the Tagus valley. Documents dated from the late 12th century show that the military Orders were regularly driving their sheep from New Castile into the previously Muslim areas of La Mancha, western Murcia and into
37386-581: Was developed in the cities of Toledo , in the 13th to 16th centuries, and Madrid , from the 1570s. The development of the Spanish sound system from that of Vulgar Latin exhibits most of the changes that are typical of Western Romance languages , including lenition of intervocalic consonants (thus Latin vīta > Spanish vida ). The diphthongization of Latin stressed short e and o —which occurred in open syllables in French and Italian, but not at all in Catalan or Portuguese—is found in both open and closed syllables in Spanish, as shown in
37587-403: Was disputed by the landowners of southern Castile, including towns, ecclesiastics, military orders and private individuals, it was upheld by the courts and confirmed in a series of laws passed in 1505. One interpretation, based on the assumption that the privilege of posesión operated strictly in accordance with these laws and could be enforced, was that it retarded the growth of agriculture and had
37788-622: Was distinguished by a heavy Basque influence (see Iberian Romance languages ). This distinctive dialect spread to southern Spain with the advance of the Reconquista , and meanwhile gathered a sizable lexical influence from the Arabic of Al-Andalus , much of it indirectly, through the Romance Mozarabic dialects (some 4,000 Arabic -derived words, make up around 8% of the language today). The written standard for this new language
37989-713: Was followed by a vowel that did not diphthongize. The h- , still preserved in spelling, is now silent in most varieties of the language, although in some Andalusian and Caribbean dialects, it is still aspirated in some words. Because of borrowings from Latin and neighboring Romance languages, there are many f -/ h - doublets in modern Spanish: Fernando and Hernando (both Spanish for "Ferdinand"), ferrero and herrero (both Spanish for "smith"), fierro and hierro (both Spanish for "iron"), and fondo and hondo (both words pertaining to depth in Spanish, though fondo means "bottom", while hondo means "deep"); additionally, hacer ("to make")
38190-558: Was often retained by the guild. The medieval guild was established by charters or letters patent or similar authority by the city or the ruler and normally held a monopoly on trade in its craft within the city in which it operated: handicraft workers were forbidden by law to run any business if they were not members of a guild, and only masters were allowed to be members of a guild. Before these privileges were legislated, these groups of handicraft workers were simply called 'handicraft associations'. The town authorities might be represented in
38391-405: Was organised into four geographical units ( Spanish : quadrillas , lit. 'groups or gangs') ( cuadrillas in modern Spanish) based around the principal pastoral cities of the northern meseta, Soria , Segovia , Cuenca and León , where most of the flocks of Merino sheep had their home pastures. Its governing council consisted a president who was, after 1500, always chosen from
38592-451: Was reconfirmed by a royal decree of 1748. In the 18th century, this uncultivated land came under great pressure as the numbers of transhumant sheep doubled, but rents for pasture were fixed and the land could not be used for crops. During the 17th century, the powers and incomes of the Entregadors were steadily eroded by the courts, and the government granted exemptions from the Entregadors' jurisdiction to towns willing to pay for them and, by
38793-462: Was revoked by Michel Temer after the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff . In many border towns and villages along Paraguay and Uruguay, a mixed language known as Portuñol is spoken. Equatorial Guinea is the only Spanish-speaking country located entirely in Africa, with the language introduced during the Spanish colonial period . Enshrined in the constitution as an official language (alongside French and Portuguese), Spanish features prominently in
38994-441: Was shorn on their way north, and was then washed, and taken to one of the Mesta warehouses, the largest being in Segovia. The wool was later sent the fairs, especially Medina del Campo, or to the northern ports for shipment to Flanders and England. After the shearing, the journey north then resumed at a slower pace, and the last flocks reached their home pastures in May or early June. They would then be moved to their summer pastures in
39195-508: Was similar in spirit and character to the original patent systems that surfaced in England in 1624. These systems played a role in ending the guilds' dominance, as trade secret methods were superseded by modern firms directly revealing their techniques, and counting on the state to enforce their legal monopoly . Some guild traditions still remain in a few handicrafts, in Europe especially among shoemakers and barbers . These are, however, not very important economically except as reminders of
39396-467: Was stimulated in the late 15th century by a sales tax exemption for Mesta members that this trade significantly enriched the members of the Mesta. These were increasingly members of the higher nobility, who owned flocks in excess of 20,000 merino sheep, and smaller owners ceased to be involved in transhumance. The most important wool markets were held in Burgos , Medina del Campo and Segovia, but particularly Burgos. Some Madrid streets are still part of
39597-424: Was supported by some religious and secular authorities at the time. It is believed that the Inquisition and witch hunts throughout the ages contributed to the lack of women in medical guilds. In medieval Cologne there were three guilds that were composed almost entirely of women, the yarn-spinners, gold-spinners, and silk-weavers. Men could join these guilds, but were almost exclusively married to guildswomen. This
39798-453: Was the 18th and 19th centuries that saw the beginning of the low regard in which some people hold the guilds to this day. In part due to their own inability to control unruly corporate behavior, the tide of public opinion turned against the guilds. Because of industrialization and modernization of the trade and industry, and the rise of powerful nation-states that could directly issue patent and copyright protections — often revealing
39999-425: Was to create a standard of work that the consumer could rely on. They were heavily concerned with public perception. In October 1712, the Lyon Wigmaker Guild petitioned the local police magistrates. According to this petition, guildmasters required guild officers to step up policing of statutes forbidding the use of bleached hair or wild goat and lamb hair. The real concern that they had was that bleaching hair destroyed
40200-512: Was to prevent competition for grazing among Mesta members, by guaranteeing the earliest flocks to arrive were given priority for leases. However, the Mesta was able to have an interpretation of the rule of posesión accepted by the courts that was more favourable to its interests, arguing that, as its charter allowed it to represent all sheep owners, it had the right negotiate and allocate all pasturage leases in Castile to prevent disputes or competition between its members. Although this interpretation
40401-467: Was transmissible hereditarily. Ogilvie (2004) argues that guilds negatively affected quality, skills, and innovation. Through what economists now call " rent-seeking " they imposed deadweight losses on the economy. Ogilvie argues they generated limited positive externalities and notes that industry began to flourish only after the guilds faded away. Guilds persisted over the centuries because they redistributed resources to politically powerful merchants. On
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