The fact that the same resource — in this case land — is required for the productive activities of different social groups inevitably leads to problems of management and conflict. In the case of transumanza, such tensions emerged from the outset in the relationship between shepherds and farmers, or more precisely between locati and massari .

At the end of the fifteenth century, when the fundamental rules of transhumance were established, the situation appeared relatively calm and easy to administer: shepherds moved from mountainous areas, where cultivation possibilities were limited, toward an Apulia that was still sparsely populated and characterized by land difficult to farm. In such a context, it is understandable that no significant conflicts initially arose.

Over time, however, the situation changed profoundly. Demographic growth and increasing demand for land triggered ever more frequent tensions. Given the enormous economic importance of transhumance, the Generalità dei locati , firmly controlled by Abruzzese interests and protected by the royal Crown, exercised a dominant role in the Tavoliere of Apulia. Local massari resented the idea of having to submit, in their own land, to the directives of outsiders coming from distant regions.

As previously mentioned, the lands of the Tavoliere were divided into poste , allocated to the locati for the period between 29 September and 8 May of the following year. During the remainder of the year, these lands were granted to local massari for grazing their own livestock, provided that the pasture was not damaged and that its intended use was not altered. In such a context, it is easy to imagine how the massari — or more often the large landowners behind them — tended to behave as effective masters of the land whenever the Crown’s attention shifted away from transhumance affairs.

The records of the tribunale doganale di Foggia document numerous disputes brought by locati who, upon reaching their assigned posta, found it occupied by local livestock or damaged because, in violation of regulations, large animals had been introduced and had ruined the grass cover. Another recurring issue concerned poste surrounded by private lands, where the right of way was sometimes denied, thus preventing access to the posta itself.

Alongside these cases, outright usurpations were also recorded, in which land boundaries were arbitrarily shifted or fields were planted without authorization.

Similar situations occurred along the tratturi connecting Abruzzo to Apulia. The distance from the headquarters of the Dogana di Foggia clearly encouraged abuses. These vast grassy corridors, used for transhumance only a couple of times per year, attracted the ambitions of barons and their massari, who frequently advanced property boundaries and appropriated lands that were in fact state-owned. The same barons, deprived by the establishment of the Dogana of revenues previously derived from transit tolls, often attempted to impose new forms of taxation, sometimes compelling shepherds to sign declarations stating that such contributions were “voluntary.” The Crown intervened decisively to nullify these acts, reaffirming that locati could be taxed exclusively by the sovereign.