THE V\'ESTERN MEDITERRANEAN KINGDOMS 1200-1500house of Anjou was seen as compliant towards the interest
of the greater barons. 'Centralisation' could thus occur in the
bureaucracy far away in the capital at Naples, but it would
not involve any serious challenge to baronial power in the
localities.^31
Another important source of revenue was the taxation
not of humans but of sheep. Once again, it would be a
mistake to assume that this policy was completely novel; as
far back as King William the Bad in the late twelfth century
the kings of Sicily had legislated concerning the sheep of
the Apulian plains. From 1443 onwards the kings of Naples
brought the system under ever greater control. Sheep were
especially lucrative now, since the population decline after
the Black Death had liberated much land for grazing, and
demand for pastoral products was also holding firm. The
Mena was an organisation in some respects similar to the
Castilian ;\1esta which made arrangements for the winter and
summer pasturing of transhumant sheep and cattle, and
collected taxes for the crown based on the number of head;
the great distinction between Mena and iHesta was that the
former was much more firmly under royal, the latter under
noble, control. In the 1440s the JV1ena was producing about
50,000 ducats per annum for the crown, by 1450 twice that.
The increase in revenue reflects a prodigious increase in the
registered animal population of the kingdom, from 424,642
sheep and 9,169 cattle in 1444/5 to 1,019,821 sheep and
16,490 cattle in 1449/50.~:'
Finally, Alfonso recognised, from his stance in Naples,
the useful economic role of the Jews; back home in Aragon-
Catalonia as well he does not appear to have shared his
father's enthusiasm for strong-arm tactics against the remain-
ing Jews. To say that he had one eye on the economy in
- A valuable survey of institutional developments is E. Sakcllariou, 'In-
stitutional and social continuities in the Kingdom of Naples between
1443 and 1528', in David Abulafia, efl., The Frenrh deswnt into REnais-
sance Italy, 1494-95. Antemlents and effrrls (Aldershot. 1995), pp. 327-
53. - Ryder, Kingdom of Naples, pp. 359-63; .J.A. Marino, Pastoral economir.~
in the Kingdom of Naples (Baltimore, Md .. 1988), pp. 20-4; Sakellariou,
'Kingdom of Naples'; A. Grohmann, !_e.fiNe del reg;no di Napoli in etri
aragonese (Naples, 1969); also M.A. Visceglia, Territorio jrudo P jH!Ir'rP
locale. Terra d'Otmnto ira i!Iedioevo nl etrl modem a (;\;aples, 1988). for
other agrarian developments.