SPANISH SILK

see captionIIFRAGMENT OF THE BURIAL MANTLE OF FERDINAND THE THIRD(Royal Armoury, Madrid)

IIFRAGMENT OF THE BURIAL MANTLE OF FERDINAND THE THIRD(Royal Armoury, Madrid)

The object represented in Plate ii. is describedin the Catalogue of the Royal Armoury at Madrid asA fragment of the royal mantle in which was buried the king and saint, Ferdinand the Third of Castile(a.d.1217–1252). Gestoso, in the course of his researches into the history of old Seville, has found that in the year 1579 Philip the Second caused an examination to be made at that city of the remains, enshrined in her cathedral, of Saint Ferdinand. The body was found “with a ring with a blue stone on a finger of the right hand, and wearing sword and spurs.” In 1677 Charles the Second sent for the ring in question, and eleven years later a fresh examination was made, when the mummy of the saint was stated to be wrapped in “clothing of a stuff the nature of which cannot now be recognised, but which is chequered all over with the royal arms of Castile, and with lions.” A third examination was made in 1729, when the “holy body of Señor San Fernando” was reported to be “covered, the greater part, with a royal mantle, of a stuff which could not be recognised for its decay: only it was seen to be embroidered with castles and lions.”

Probably, therefore, this fragment was taken to Madrid at the same time as the ring—that is, in the year 1677. It has an irregular shape, andmeasures eighteen inches long by thirteen and a half in breadth. The material is a woven mixture of silk and gold thread, and the decoration consists of castles and lions in gold and red respectively, upon a ground of carmine and dirty white. Count Valencia de Don Juan points out that this strip belonged to the lower end of the mantle, since it includes a portion of the border, formed by a series of horizontal stripes, blue, yellow, red, and gold. The character of the whole fragment is decidedly Mohammedan, and indicates a Mudejar fabric, made at Seville in the thirteenth century.

I find that in theBook of Chessof Alfonso the Learned (an illuminated Spanish manuscript executed in the thirteenth century, and now preserved at the Escorial), Alfonso himself is represented (Plateiii.) as wearing a mantle with this very pattern of lions and castles contained in squares. Therefore it seems extremely probable, either that this device was not uncommon on the robes of Spanish kings, or else that at some time the body of San Fernando was enveloped in a mantle belonging to, and which perhaps had been inherited by, his son.

see captionIIIKING ALFONSO THE LEARNED(From “The Book of Chess”; MS. in the Escorial Library)

IIIKING ALFONSO THE LEARNED(From “The Book of Chess”; MS. in the Escorial Library)

The clothing of the Infante Don Felipe and of Doña Leonor, his wife, consists of the prince'scloak, which is nearly intact, a piece of hisaljuba, his cap, and a strip of silken cloth inwoven with gold. The latter fragment is thought to have belonged to the robe of the Infanta.

These objects, discovered in 1848, in the tomb of Don Felipe and Doña Leonor, at Villalcazar de Sirga, near Palencia, are now in the National Museum. The cloak or mantle is richly wrought in silk and gold, and bears the wordBlessing, woven in Cufic characters upon the ground. Thealjubais also of silk and gold, showing a delicate combination of blue and yellow, and the style and workmanship of all these fragments are unmistakably Mohammedan.

Therefore, in textile crafts, the Spanish Moors supplied the wants and the caprices both of themselves and of their enemies the Christians.

The relationship between certain under-garments of the two peoples is evident from the very titles of those garments. Thus, the Spanishjoquejoorsoquejo, a scarf for winding round a woman's body, is obviously derived, or merely corrupted, from the Arabicjocob; the Spanisharredeorarrelde, a kind of cloak, from the Arabicarrida, and the Spanish shirt or tunic for ordinary wear, called thecasot,quesote, orquizote(whichwas sometimes white and sometimes coloured) from the Arabical-kuesnat. TheChronicle of Juan the Second(a.d.1410) tells of a mountain covered with Moorish troops, “and all of them had redquesotes.”

see captionIVSPANISH VELVET(Red upon Gold Ground. About A.D. 1500)

IVSPANISH VELVET(Red upon Gold Ground. About A.D. 1500)

Among the cities of Moorish Spain, Almería and Granada were undoubtedly those which produced the handsomest stuffs—Almería from comparatively early in the days of Muslim domination, Granada from a somewhat later time.[8]Notices are extant of Christian princes who directly ordered these materials from Granada;e.g.in 1392 Don Juan the First caused to be purchased there, as a present to his daughter on her marriage, “una cambra de saya orlada ab son dozer e cobertor de color vermella, blaua, ó vert, ù otro que fuera de buena vista” (Archives of the Crown of Aragon). The manufacture of velvet was probably introduced into Aragon in the reign of Pedro the Fourth. Excellent silks and cloth of gold were also made at Málaga, Seville, Toledo, and Valencia. Indeed,no better source exists for studying the character of this important industry in older Spain than the Ordinances of the cities I have just enumerated.[9]We learn from these municipal provisions, most of which were framed or ratified in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, that the mingling of fine with base material was forbidden in the strictest terms, and that the styles and classes of even the luxurious and elaborate stuffs, which bore an infinite variety of devices, were very numerous. Thus, there were satins, taffetas,azeytunis, double and single velvets (Platesiv. andvii.), brocades, and silken serges; as well as fabrics interwoven with gold and silver thread, including thegorgoranes,restaños,sargas, andjergas de filigrana de plata. The Ordinances of Toledo mention the following fabrics as manufactured in that city in the reigns of Ferdinand and Isabella, and of Charles the Fifth:—

“Stuffs of gold and silver made in the same manner as satin.

“Satins woven with gold.

“Satins brocaded with silk and gold, or silverflowers.

“Silver serges with double filigree.

“Silver and gold materials, which are made likegorgoranor serge.

“Silver and gold stuffs which are made like taffetas, or in silver with silk flowers.

“Embroidered stuffs.

“Embroidered stuffs called silver serge, orberguilla.

“Lama, cloth of silver, shaded with watering in silver.

“Plain silk-stuffs woven with silver or gold, and calledrestaño.

“Silk-stuffs woven with gold or silver, and calledrelampagos.

“Serges woven with gold and silver for church vestments.

“Plain filigree serges.

“Velilloof silver.

“Satin woven with gold and silver.

“Brocades of different kinds.

“Church vestments.

“Silverprimaveras.

“Serges for church vestments.”

It was usual for ladies of the Christian-Spanisharistocracy to trim their clothes, in Moorish fashion, with strings of larger pearls or ofaljofar-work—a custom which continued until the extinction of the House of Austria. The Alburquerque inventory includes “amarlotaof crimson satin, trimmed with pearls and withaljofar, as to the hem, the sleeves, and the hood; with twelve buttons ofaljofar-pearls in the front thereof, that on a time were thirteen; but one is missingwhich was ground up for the said Duchess when she was sick, and six buttons on each sleeve, and the same where each sleeve meets the shoulder.”

Early in the seventeenth century, Pinheiro da Veiga mentions the same fashion at Valladolid:—“At the sale of the Marchioness of Mondejar, I saw twelve of hersayaswith long trains to them, and satin bodices, all of embroidered silk, and some withaljofar-work, besides a number of all kinds ofdiabluras.”

It is stated by Ibn-Said, Al-Makkari, Al-Kattib, and Ibn-Khaldun, that the Moors of Granada occasionally adopted Christian clothing, and we know that the Sultan Mohammed, a contemporary of Alfonso the Learned of Castile, was assassinated by Abrahim and Abomet, the sons of Osmin, because he was so clothed, and because he hadfurther violated the precepts of the Koran by eating at Alfonso's table.[10]But as a rule the costume of the Spanish Moors was almost wholly that of orientals. Where they were tolerated in a city under Christian rule, a certain dress was sometimes forced upon them by their subjugators, as by theOrdenamiento(a.d.1408) of Doña Catalina, issued on behalf of her son, Juan the Second, and which prescribed for the Moorish men acapuzof yellow cloth with a mark upon it in the form of a blue half-moon measuring an inch from point to point, and which was to be worn on the right shoulder. The garments of the women were to be similarly marked, on pain of fifty lashes administered publicly, together with the forfeiture of all such clothes as lacked this necessary and humiliating token.

But where the Spanish Moors were in possession of the soil, their clothes were similar in most respects to those of eastern peoples. Detailed notices of these costumes are furnished us by Ibn-Said and other writers. Fray Pedro de Alcalá explains in hisVocabularythat, among theGranadinos, the use of one garment in particular was limited to royalty, or nobles of high rank. This was thelibas(or, in the Granadino dialect,libis), shaped like roomy breeches, and greatly resembling thezaragüellesworn until this hour by the peasants of the Huerta of Valencia. Ibn-Said, quoted by Al-Makkari (see Gayangos,History of the Mohammedan Dynasties in Spain, Vol. I., p. 116) says that the dress of the Moors of Andalusia was not identical with that of the Asiatic Mussulman. The former, he declares, would often discard the turban; especially those who lived towards the eastern frontier. In the western region the turban continued to be generally worn by the upper classes and by the leading State officials. Thus, at Cordova and Seville everycadiandalfaquiwould wear a turban, while at Valencia and Murcia even the nobles went without it, and among the lower classes it had fallen into absolute disuse. Neither officers nor soldiers of the army wore the turban.

We learn from Casiri (Bibl. Arabico-Hispana, II., p. 258) that theimama[11]was the only form ofhead-dress used by thecheiks,cadis, andulemasof Granada. At this capital red was the distinctive colour of the sovereigns of the Alahmar dynasty, who took their very title from this circumstance, the Arabic wordalahmarmeaning “red.” The distinctive colour of the Nasrite sultans was purple, which was replaced by black in time of mourning. In this last fashion the sultans were probably influenced by the Christian usage, for Ibn-Khaldun remarks that black was not a colour approved of by the orientals, who considered it to be related with the spirits of evil. However this may be, the manuscriptHistory of the House of Cordovaquoted by Eguilaz Yanguas, says that when Boabdil el Chico entered that city as a prisoner, “the captive monarch was dressed in black velvet, in token of his adverse fortune and defeat. He rode a richly caparisoned charger, whose coat was black and glossy.”

The Moors regarded green or white as pleasant and well-omened colours, symbolic of the angels and of all good fortune. Perhaps this preference was suggested to them by the cool oasis in the desert. Nevertheless, when Ibn-Hud became ruler of Andalusia, his shields and banners were black, as well as his costume. Black, too, was thecolour adopted by the Abbaside Sultans, to whom Ibn-Hud was subject. Under the Beni-Nasr and Beni-Alahmar, this gloomy hue was changed, as we have seen, to purple or to scarlet, though black continued to be used in sign of mourning.

see captionVTHE TUNIC OF BOABDIL EL CHICO(National Museum of Artillery, Madrid)

VTHE TUNIC OF BOABDIL EL CHICO(National Museum of Artillery, Madrid)

The chronicle says that Abu-Said, “the Red,” who was assassinated at Tablada, under the walls of Seville, by Pedro the Cruel, was clothed in scarlet at the time of that atrocious deed. Boabdil was also clothed in red at the battle of Lucena. TheHistory of the House of Cordova, from which I have already quoted, says: “Il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à clous dorés, doublée de velourscramoisi, d'un morion teint degrenatet doré…. Sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et de velours cramoisi” (Platev.). Eguilaz quotes a further passage from Hurtado de Mendoza, to prove that red continued to be the official colour of the Moorish rulers of Granada; for when the Moriscos had risen in the Alpujarra, and met together to invest their leaders, Aben-Abu and Aben-Humeya, with the insignia of royalty, they clothed the former in a red costume and the latter in purple, “passing about his neck and shoulders a red token in the form of a scarf.”[12]

As I remarked in speaking of thetiraz, theclothing of the Moorish kings of Spain was of the richest quality obtainable, massively wrought, embroidered in colours and in gold, and bearing “sometimes a prince's name, sometimes his device or motto, or even a portrait of himself embroidered on the right breast of hiscabanor robe, thus following the fashion of the monarchs of Assyria and Persia.”

Footnotes:[1]“Perco con los draps d'or é d'argent, é de seda axi brocats d'or é d'argent con altres é velluts, xamelots, tafetanes, é sendats se usen molt de vestir en lo dit Principat d'alguna generalitat ne dret no y sia posat, mes solament vi liners per liura per la entrada.”[2]“We have seen many instances of such opposed animals and birds on the metal-work and carving of the thirteenth century, and there is no doubt that the design is much older than Mohammedan times, and goes back to the productions of the old artists of Mesopotamia and Persia. We read in Quintus Curtius of robes worn by Persian satraps, adorned with birds beak to beak—aurei accipitres veluti rostri in se irruerunt pallam adornabant. Plautus mentions Alexandrian carpets ornamented with beasts:Alexandrina belluata conchyliata tapetia. There is indeed reason to believe that the notion of such pairs of birds or beasts may have originated with the weavers of ancient Persia, and have been borrowed from them by the engravers of metal-work; for the advantage of such double figures would be specially obvious to a weaver. The symmetrical repetition of the figure of the bird or animal, reversed, saved both labour and elaboration of the loom. The old weavers, not yet masters of mechanical improvements, were obliged to work their warp up and down by means of strings, and the larger the design the more numerous became these strings and the more complicated the loom. Hence, to be able to repeat the pattern in reverse was a considerable economy of labour, and could be effected very simply on a loom constructed to workà pointe et à reverse. Examples of such repetitions of patterns, especially of symmetrical pairs of animals within circles, are common in Byzantine and Sassanian woven work, and the Saracens followed these models.”—Stanley Lane-Poole,The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, p. 288.[3]Elogio de la Reina Católica, p. 374.[4]These are defined by the Count of Clonard as “a kind of clog (chapín) with a cork sole, and which was introduced by the Moors under the nameal-kork.”[5]Specifically,tartariwas a costly fabric, heavily embroidered. Ducange considers that it came, or came originally, from Tartary. We read of it twice in theChronicle of the Cid, and again, in theChronicle of Ferdinand the Fourth:—“tiraron los paños de marhega que tenia vestidos por su padre é vistiéronle unos paños nobles de tartari.”[6]Quoted by Fernandez y Gonzalez,Mudejares de Castilla, p. 231, from the originals in the Archiepiscopal Library of Toledo.[7]“An interesting parallel to the royal silk factory, or Dār-et-tirāz of Kay-Kubād, and to that of the Fātimy Khalif at Tinnīs, is found in the similar institution at Palermo, which owed its foundation to the Kelby Amīrs who ruled Sicily as vassals of the Fātimis in the ninth and tenth centuries, though it maintained its special character and excellence of work under the Norman kings. The factory was in the palace, and the weavers were Mohammedans, as indeed is obvious from a glance at the famous silk cloth preserved at Vienna, and called the “Mantle of Nürnberg,” where a long Arabic inscription testifies to the hands that made it, by order of King Roger, in the year of the Hijra 528, ora.d.1133.”—Stanley Lane-Poole,The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, p. 289.[8]The Alburquerque inventory mentions, in 1560, “two Almería sheets, one with green and purple edging, and the other with white and red”; also “twoshortholland shirts for sleeping in at night.” Commenting on the wordshort, Señor de la Torre de Trassierra aptly recalls the thrifty proverb of the Spaniards,—“A shirt which reaches below the navel is so much linen wasted.”[9]See particularlyLas Ordenanzas de los tejedores de seda de Sevilla(officially proclaimed on March 2nd, 1502), and alsoLas Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal, é imperial cuidad de Toledo. (Tit.cxxxv: “silk-weavers.”)[10]On the other hand, Rosmithal recorded in his narrative of a tour of Spain that Henry the Second of Castile affected the costume of the Mohammedans.[11]This was a large form of turban. In the well-known painting in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, the head-dress is theaharimoralmaizar.[12]Eguilaz Yanguas,Les Peintures de l'Alhambra.

Footnotes:

[1]“Perco con los draps d'or é d'argent, é de seda axi brocats d'or é d'argent con altres é velluts, xamelots, tafetanes, é sendats se usen molt de vestir en lo dit Principat d'alguna generalitat ne dret no y sia posat, mes solament vi liners per liura per la entrada.”

[2]“We have seen many instances of such opposed animals and birds on the metal-work and carving of the thirteenth century, and there is no doubt that the design is much older than Mohammedan times, and goes back to the productions of the old artists of Mesopotamia and Persia. We read in Quintus Curtius of robes worn by Persian satraps, adorned with birds beak to beak—aurei accipitres veluti rostri in se irruerunt pallam adornabant. Plautus mentions Alexandrian carpets ornamented with beasts:Alexandrina belluata conchyliata tapetia. There is indeed reason to believe that the notion of such pairs of birds or beasts may have originated with the weavers of ancient Persia, and have been borrowed from them by the engravers of metal-work; for the advantage of such double figures would be specially obvious to a weaver. The symmetrical repetition of the figure of the bird or animal, reversed, saved both labour and elaboration of the loom. The old weavers, not yet masters of mechanical improvements, were obliged to work their warp up and down by means of strings, and the larger the design the more numerous became these strings and the more complicated the loom. Hence, to be able to repeat the pattern in reverse was a considerable economy of labour, and could be effected very simply on a loom constructed to workà pointe et à reverse. Examples of such repetitions of patterns, especially of symmetrical pairs of animals within circles, are common in Byzantine and Sassanian woven work, and the Saracens followed these models.”—Stanley Lane-Poole,The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, p. 288.

[3]Elogio de la Reina Católica, p. 374.

[4]These are defined by the Count of Clonard as “a kind of clog (chapín) with a cork sole, and which was introduced by the Moors under the nameal-kork.”

[5]Specifically,tartariwas a costly fabric, heavily embroidered. Ducange considers that it came, or came originally, from Tartary. We read of it twice in theChronicle of the Cid, and again, in theChronicle of Ferdinand the Fourth:—“tiraron los paños de marhega que tenia vestidos por su padre é vistiéronle unos paños nobles de tartari.”

[6]Quoted by Fernandez y Gonzalez,Mudejares de Castilla, p. 231, from the originals in the Archiepiscopal Library of Toledo.

[7]“An interesting parallel to the royal silk factory, or Dār-et-tirāz of Kay-Kubād, and to that of the Fātimy Khalif at Tinnīs, is found in the similar institution at Palermo, which owed its foundation to the Kelby Amīrs who ruled Sicily as vassals of the Fātimis in the ninth and tenth centuries, though it maintained its special character and excellence of work under the Norman kings. The factory was in the palace, and the weavers were Mohammedans, as indeed is obvious from a glance at the famous silk cloth preserved at Vienna, and called the “Mantle of Nürnberg,” where a long Arabic inscription testifies to the hands that made it, by order of King Roger, in the year of the Hijra 528, ora.d.1133.”—Stanley Lane-Poole,The Art of the Saracens in Egypt, p. 289.

[8]The Alburquerque inventory mentions, in 1560, “two Almería sheets, one with green and purple edging, and the other with white and red”; also “twoshortholland shirts for sleeping in at night.” Commenting on the wordshort, Señor de la Torre de Trassierra aptly recalls the thrifty proverb of the Spaniards,—“A shirt which reaches below the navel is so much linen wasted.”

[9]See particularlyLas Ordenanzas de los tejedores de seda de Sevilla(officially proclaimed on March 2nd, 1502), and alsoLas Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal, é imperial cuidad de Toledo. (Tit.cxxxv: “silk-weavers.”)

[10]On the other hand, Rosmithal recorded in his narrative of a tour of Spain that Henry the Second of Castile affected the costume of the Mohammedans.

[11]This was a large form of turban. In the well-known painting in the Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, the head-dress is theaharimoralmaizar.

[12]Eguilaz Yanguas,Les Peintures de l'Alhambra.

A very fair idea of the magnitude of the craft and trade of Spanish silk in bygone epochs may be formed by tracing chronologically the production and treatment of the raw material in various parts of the Peninsula. During the centuries of Moorish rule, Spain's principal silk-producing centre was the kingdom of Granada, which then embraced a large extent of coast, together with Málaga and other thriving ports. In proof of this, and in his interesting memorial on the silk factories of Seville,[13]Ulloa quotes old Spanish ordinances of the weavers, stating that quantities of this substance were exportedfrom “tierra de Moros” for use by Christian craftsmen, and also theChronology of the Kings of Granada, concluded by Al-Khattib in the year 1364. A fragment of this chronicle is preserved at the Escorial, and states, in the well-known version of Casiri, that the silk produced at Granada was both abundant and of excellent quality, surpassing even the Assyrian.

The growing of mulberry trees and rearing of silkworms was also busily pursued in the kingdom of Aragon, which formerly included Cataluña, Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Hence, though somewhat gradually, it seems to have spread to Seville. In the ordinances of this town relating to her weavers of silks and velvets, and which are dated 1492, it is stated that heroficiales de texer sedaswere so few that, as a stimulus to augment their number, all who wished might join them in the practice of this craft without examination. Between that year and 1502 they evidently multiplied, since subjects of examination of no easy character are formulated in the ordinances of this later date, examined and confirmed by Ferdinand and Isabella. Nevertheless, it is impossible to credit the assertion of some authors that by the year 1519 Seville possessedno less than sixteen thousand looms, affording occupation to one hundred and fifty thousand persons. As Ulloa suggests, it is far more reasonable to suppose that her silk trade grew in proportion as the Spaniards continued to discover, and to open up to commerce, new regions of America; and that it reached the maximum of its development in the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. The same writer attributes its decline and downfall to the “piracies and insults” of Spain's foreign enemies and rivals.

The price of Seville silks was also raised and the trade injuriously affected, by the imposition, at the close of the reign of Philip the Second, of the onerousmillonestax, as well as of the minor dues denominatedalcavalasandcientos; while finally, when Philip the Third was on the throne, the expulsion of the Moriscos precipitated the utter ruin of this industry.

see captionVITHE “BANNER OF SAINT FERDINAND”(Seville Cathedral)

VITHE “BANNER OF SAINT FERDINAND”(Seville Cathedral)

The Spanish government proved quite incapable of grappling with these wrongs and difficulties. There were, however, numerous attempts to legislate in the direction of reform. Measures forbidding the introduction of silk proceeding from abroad received the royal signature in 1500, 1514, 1525, 1532, and 1552. A petition to the same effect,framed by the procurators of the Cortes, was presented to the king in 1618, urging that no skein or twisted silk proceeding from the Portuguese Indies, China, or Persia should be imported into Spain in view of the damage thus inflicted on the silk-producing regions of Granada, Murcia, and Valencia. At the same time the petitioners suggested that if it should be found impracticable to suppress such importation altogether, the foreign silk should be required to be in the form of stuffs already woven.

Matters grew steadily worse all through the reign of Philip the Fourth. The principal cause of this additional decline lay in the constant depreciation of the national currency, which kept at an intolerable pitch of dearness the price of home-grown silk, and enabled foreign traders to undersell the Spaniard. This will be better understood if we consider that the composition of the copper and silver coinage was often tampered with by Crown and Parliament in such a way as to allow the foreigner to rid the country of nearly all her gold and silver, leaving in exchange only the baser metal. At intervals of a few years, proclamations were issued altering the values of the coinage in the most capricious and disastrous terms, and Ulloa mentions as still in circulation in the eighteenthcentury,ochavosof Philip the Third which bore inscribed the value of twelvemaravedisin Roman numerals, and also (owing to the restamping of the coins by order of the Crown), the second and successive value of eightmaravedis, marked in ordinary numerals. In fact, so grave were these abuses, that the arbitrary value imposed upon the coins in question grew to be six times that of the actual value of the metal.

At the close of the seventeenth century, when Charles the Second was on the throne, a couple of well-meant and not completely ineffectual attempts were made to bring about a fresh revival in the growth of Spanish silk. On November 18th, 1683, the silk-makers of Toledo, Seville, Granada, and Valencia were summoned to a council at Madrid, and the dispositions they then agreed upon received the royal signature and became law on January 30th of the following year, the pragmatic which embodied them being issued to the public ten days later. It was commanded by this document that all the silk produced at the above-named towns should be examined and approved by theveedoresormayorales, and bear the official stamp which guaranteed their quality. The effect of these ordinances wasfurther strengthened by a Crowncedulaof July 15th, 1692, confirming other dispositions dated 1635; and later still, in June of 1699, a law was passed prohibiting the exportation of all home-made silks to other countries.

The accession of the Bourbon kings heralded a further slight improvement. Philip the Fifth had barely mounted the throne when the Junta de Comercio was revived by his command, and drafted various laws for bettering this and other industries. Royal decrees of June 20th and September 17th, 1718, renewed in June of 1728 and in April and August of 1734, forbade the introduction of silk and certain other stuffs from China and the rest of Asia—a measure which was made more strict as time went on, the prohibition being extended to linens and cottons produced and printed in Africa or Asia or imitated in Europe. In the meantime anothercedula, signed at the Escorial on November 10th, 1726, had ordered that every Spanish citizen of either sex should dress exclusively in silks or cloths of Spanish manufacture.

These laws, though founded on mistaken principles, undoubtedly restored the national silk trade for a while. In 1713 the silk looms of Seville had increased to four hundred and five, and by 1732—inwhich year the Court resided at that capital—to a thousand; but on the return of the royal family to Madrid, and the declaration of war against England in 1739, the number dropped to a hundred and forty. In 1743 an effort was made to remedy this by exempting Seville silks from payment of thealcabalasandcientos, and further support was rendered in 1749 by Ferdinand the Sixth, who lowered to eightymaravedisper pound weight the tax on Spanish silks exported from the kingdom, and issued, in 1752, 1753, and 1756, additional decrees intended to encourage and protect this industry. In 1748 the same ruler established the celebrated silk factories of Talavera de la Reina, sparing no pains to bring their products to a level with the best in Europe, and choosing as director of the works a thoroughly proficient Frenchman named Jean Roulière, a native of Nîmes, who was assisted by a carefully selected staff of experts, also principally foreigners.

About the end of the century Laborde described this enterprise as follows:—“The manufactures of silks, gildings, and galloons are highly useful and important…. There has also been raised at Cervera, a village two leagues from Talavera, another large edifice, in which are twelve millsfor twisting the silk, four large windles for winding it, and six machines for doubling it. This complicated machinery is put in motion by four oxen, and the various processes of twisting, winding, and doubling seven thousand and seventy-two threads of silk are thus performed at once.

“This establishment was rapidly augmented under the direction of Roulière and the other French mechanics who succeeded him in its superintendence. So successful were their labours that, in a short time, stuffs were fabricated in Spain not unworthy of competition with those of France, the demand for which was found to diminish. In 1762, Roulière being obliged to withdraw from this manufactory, the care of it was committed to a company to the exclusion of almost all the French who had previously assisted in its establishment. The consequences of this change were soon discovered; the manufacture declined, the stuffs deteriorated, and the consumption diminished; the artisans were discharged from the loom, and everything threatened the total subversion of the establishment, when the king interposed, and again extended to it his care and protection, It has since been yielded to the incorporated society of the Gremios at Madrid, buthas never recovered its former splendour and prosperity.

“Taffetas, satins, silk cloths, and serges are fabricated here, as are silk ribbons, plain and figured velvets, stuffs of silk and silver, stuffs of silk and gold, galloons, gold and silver fringes, and silk stockings. The factory employs three hundred and sixty-six looms, and affords occupation to two thousand persons. There are annually consumed in it about a hundred thousand pounds of silk, four thousand marks of silver, and seventy marks of gold.

“Some of the stuffs issuing from the manufactory are beautiful and good, but they want the gloss and lustre of the French stuffs; and as they are dearer than those, with all the contingent expense of commission and transportation, they are far from being able to maintain a competition with them. The stockings are of the vilest quality, being thin, shaggy, and ill-dressed. The greater part of these articles are exported to the Spanish colonies.”

Further efforts to improve the quality of Spanish silk were made by Charles the Third, in whose reign the silk looms of Seville increased to four hundred and sixty-two for weaving larger pieces,sixty-two for silver and gold galloons, three hundred and fifty-four for finely-worked ribbons, twenty-three for small pieces of gold and silver stuffs, eight for fringes andcintas de rizo, sixty-three for stockings, sixty-five forredecillas, three for caps, and one thousand three hundred and ninety-one for ordinary ribbon. At the same time, according to Ulloa, one hundred thousand pounds of silk required to be annually brought to Seville to supply these factories.

“In its fortunate days,” wrote Alexander de Laborde, “Seville had many splendid manufactures; it wove silks of every kind, gold and silver tissues, linens, and cottons.[14]A memoir presentedin 1601 by the seventeen companies of arts and trades of this city gives us an idea of the brilliant state of those manufactures: the amount of the silk looms is there stated to be 16,000, and the persons of both sexes employed at them, 130,000. These manufactures had greatly declined even in the last century. We learn from Francisco Martínez de la Mata, in hisDiscursos, published in 1659, according to a memoir presented to the king by analcaldeof the silk manufactures of Seville, that there were no more, at that time, than sixty-five looms, that a great number of persons having no work had quitted the town, that the population had decreased a third, andthat many houses were shut up, uninhabited, and going to ruin. The silk manufactures began to look up again in the eighteenth century, but they are very far below the brilliant state they formerly displayed: in 1779 there were 2318 silk looms in Seville, including those for stockings, slight stuffs, and ribbons.”[15]

Turning our attention from Seville to Granada, we find that the fame of the silks produced in this latter city, or rather kingdom (for silk was raised in great quantities throughout the entire region) extended as far abroad as Constantinople, and that they were used in Greece in the reign of Comnenus. The Muzarabs, who petitioned Alfonso el Batallador to bring an expedition to their rescue and wrest Granada from her Mussulman lords, reported to him in enthusiastic terms the quality and abundance of the silk of that locality, and many a document and chronicle record its vogue among the Spanish Christians of the Middle Ages.

The Alcaicería or silk-market of Granada is referred to by various of the older writers, includingMarineus Siculus, Navagiero, Lalaing, Bertaut de Rouen, and Alvarez de Colmenar. The name itself is stated in Fray Pedro de Alcalá'sVocabularioto be derived from the Arabical-aqqisariya, meaning “an exchange for merchants.” Buildings, or groups of buildings, of this kind existed both in Spain and in Morocco. Early in the eighteenth century a Spanish friar wrote of Fez; “The Moorish portion of this city is the Alcaicería. It stands nearly in the centre of the level part of the town, and near the principal mosque, resembling a town in itself, with solid walls and doors, and chains across it to keep out the horses. It consists of fifteen streets of wealthy shops, stretching without a break, and what is sold in them—whether of linen, silk, or cloth—is of the richest and the noblest quality.”

Very similar are the descriptions relative to the Alcaicería of Granada in the olden time. Bertaut de Rouen wrote of it, and of the adjoining Zacatin; “En retournant devers la porte d'Elvire est leZacatin, qui est une rue paralelle au Canal du Darro, longue et assez estroite, qui vient de la place de la Chancellerie à la place deVivarambla. Dans cette rue sont tous les orfévres, les marchands de soie, de rubans, de vermillon, qui croist assezprés de Grenade, dont on fait là grand trafic. C'est une plante semblable à celle du Safran, dont il y a beaucoup dans ces quartiers-là.

“Dans cette mesme rue duZacatindonne d'un costé l'Alcayzerie, qui est une espèce de Halle couverte à la manière de la Foire Saint Germain, où sont plusieurs boutiques remplies des Marchandises les plus curieuses. Ils disent que cette place, aussi bien que beaucoup d'autres des autres Villes d'Andalousie, se nomme ainsi à cause d'un privilege que donnerent les Cesars aux Arabes de travailler en Soye.”

Alvarez de Colmenar wrote of the same edifice, a few years later than Bertaut; “Vis-à-vis de la Chancellerie on voit une maison fort longue, nommée Alcacéria (sic), partagée en près de deux cent boutiques, où les Marchands ètalent tout sorte de marchandises, particulièrement des étoffes en soie.” On the authority of the same writer, the makers and the dyers of silk-stuffs inhabited another quarter of the town. “Le dernier quartier de la Ville, nommé Antiqueruela, est dans une plaine, peuplé de gens venus d'Antechera, d'où lui vient le nom qu'il porte. Ses habitants sont pour la plupart ouvriers en soie, tisseurs de satin, de tafetas, de damas; teinturiers qui teignent enpourpre, en écarlate, et autres ouvriers semblables.” He adds; “Il s'y fait grand commerce d'étoffe de soie; et la Ville et les environs sont pour cet effet plantés d'un si grand nombre de meuriers, que le seul impôt sur les feuilles de ces arbres vaut annuellement trente mille écus au Roi.”

About the beginning of the nineteenth century Laborde wrote: “The Alcaicería is in the Bivarambla: it is merely an immense edifice, without ornament, covering a considerable extent of ground. The Moors used it as a bazaar, and a good many tradesmen still carry on their business there. It contains about two hundred shops.” It remained, in fact, in much the same condition as when the Moors possessed it, until the year 1843, when a fire, which broke out on the night of July 20th of that year, reduced it almost totally to ashes. To-day the historic silk trade is no more; but the Alcaicería, consisting of a chapel and a street which call to mind the graceful and effective decoration of its predecessor, has been rebuilt with taste and accuracy from the model of the old.

TheOrdenanzasof Granada city, the first edition of which was published in 1552, and the second in 1678, inform us very closely of the silk trade of that region in the times immediately succeedingthe reconquest. Having regard to the fact that the silk was now spun in skeins in an imperfect manner, “with much deceit and trickery,” and that its quality was of the worst (Ordinance ofa.d.1535), nobody was allowed henceforth to spin silk in or about Granada without being qualified through examination by theveedoresor inspectors appointed for this purpose by the corporation. The inspector might charge for this examination a fee of twenty-fivemaravedis, and if the candidate were successful he was permitted to set up his loom forthwith, and engage two lads or girls, not less than twelve years old, to fetch and carry at his wheel, “so that the work may be continued all day long.”

Minute instructions follow as to the method of spinning the silk, wages, the treatment of apprentices, and other detail. Many of these narrow points of city law were troublesome and senseless, and must have tended to destroy the trade. For instance, the earnings of a master-spinner, after paying the lads or girls who worked for him, were limited to a maximum of tworealesand a half per day. Women were allowed to spin upon the following conditions: “Also, seeing that there be some honest women here who have no access toa public wheel, but work within their dwellings only, we (i.e.the city councillors) command that these may spin per thousand of cocoons, or at a daily wage, not to exceed tworealesand a half.” The silk was not to be spun with anescobillaor brush, but with the hand, obedient to the rhyming Spanish proverb which says, or used to say,con escobilla el paño, y la seda con la mano(“brush cloth with a brush, and silk with the hand”).

The laws affecting the dyers of silk contain the following provisions. They were not to dye with pomegranate or sumach, and if the rind of the former fruit were found in their houses, they were liable to a fine of six thousandmaravedisand thirty days' imprisonment. Dyeing with Brazil-wood was also prohibited in the case of silks of finer quality exposed for sale in the Alcaicería. Elaborate directions follow as to the manner of applying the dye. In the case of silks dyed blue or purple, the dyer, before he drew the fabric from the vat, was required to show it to thealaminor inspector of the silk, or else to one of theveedoresnominated by the city councillors. The fines imposed upon the dyers who were found to contravene these regulations were distributed in the following proportion: one-third towards repairingthe ramparts oradarvesof Granada; another third between thealamin, theveedores, and the other officials who discovered and denounced the culprit; and the remaining third between the magistrates and other authorities who tried and sentenced him.

Further, each silk-dyer was to have sixtinajas, or large jars (see Vol. II., pp.120et seq.), kept continually full of dye, well settled, and liable at any hour to be analyzed by theveedores. In dyeing fabrics black, each pound of silk was to be treated with ten ounces of foreign galls of fine quality, two ounces of copperas, and two ounces of gum-arabic.

It is evident that nearly all this legislation was of a mischievous character, nor can it cause surprise that certain of the silk-makers of this locality should have been in the habit of committing many kinds of fraud, such as mixing salt or oil with the raw material, in order to increase its weight. Thus, at the same time that the laws themselves were made more numerous and stringent, the more elaborate and various were the shifts invented by the citizens as a means to violate those laws. The inspectors were empowered to enter a shop and examine its contents at any hour.Sometimes, we read, such ingress was denied them, and the door was kept closed, or slammed in their faces. The penalty for this resistance was a fine of two thousandmaravedisand twenty days imprisonment. No silk-spinner was allowed to possess more than two spinning-wheels (Ordinance of November 18th, 1501), or to keep these working after midnight, for we are told that in this way theveedoreswere impeded from paying their official visit in the small hours of the morning, and much “deceit and insult” was the consequence. This Ordinance was confirmed by a royal rescript of 1542.

see captionVIIVELVET MADE AT GRANADA(Late 15th Century)

VIIVELVET MADE AT GRANADA(Late 15th Century)

Another group ofOrdenanzasconcerns the weavers and the silk-merchants of the Alcaicería, determining that no silk was to be imported from the kingdoms of Valencia or Murcia, and that no merchant was to buy the raw material in order to resell it at a profit, but might only trade in the productions of his own factory. Minute instructions are appended for weaving the various stuffs which had a silk foundation, such as several kinds of damask, scarlet velvet[16]many kinds of satin, velvet dyed with Brazil-wood, taffeta offour leishes, taffeta of two leishes, andsargas, or silken serge. Other fabrics mentioned in the Ordinances aretocascalled “San Juanes,”campuses moriscos(elsewhere “las tocas moriscas que se llamancampuzas”), “las tocas moriscas labradas que se dizenconinos,”quinalesandalfardillas,alcaydias,tocas de Reyna, andespumillas. Most of these names are of obscure meaning at the present day; but I find thatespumillaswere silken crape, whilealfardillasare defined in the old dictionary of Fathers Connelly and Higgins as “an ancient kind of silken ribbon, or tape.”

No weaver was allowed to be the owner of more than four looms for making velvet, satin, damask, taffeta, or silken serges. The apprentice to a satin-maker required to be bound for a minimum term of three years, the apprentice to a damask-maker for five years, the apprentice to a taffeta-maker for three years. No weaver was to have more than three apprentices at one time, except in the case of the damask-makers, who might have four. No weaver might dismiss his apprentice without deponing to the cause before the city officers, nor might he accept money, or anything in lieu of money, from an apprentice. Master-weavers were required to passtheir examinations in Granada; no other city would suffice.

We further learn that many of the apprentices were “of evil character,” and damaged velvet stuffs “maliciously, though knowing perfectly how to weave the same.” If any worker at this craft fell sick, the guild oroficiowas to defray the expenses of his cure, including physic “until he be recovered, provided his be not a venereal ailment, or a wound inflicted with a knife.” If he succumbed, the guild was to bury him; and when a master-weaver died, his apprentices were compelled to serve out the rest of their indentures with his widow, or his sons. No slave might learn to weave, even though he should be made ahorroor freedman.

Other ordinances refer to the officers known as Xelizes and Almotalefes of the silk, the privilege of appointing whom had been conferred upon the town-council by Ferdinand and Isabella. It was the business of thealmotalefeormotalefeto collect silk throughout thealcariasor villages of the surrounding districts, and convey it, on behalf of the owner, to axelizor “superintendent of the market,” attached to one or other of the three Alcaicerías of the kingdom of Granada. Thexeliz, in his turn, was required to see that the parcel was put up for sale by public auction and disposed of to the highest bidder, after which he handed to themotalefea certificate of the price obtained, together with the corresponding cash, less certain fees deducted for himself and calculated on a reasonable scale. The number ofmotalefesthroughout this region was evidently large, because in the year 1520 the town-council resolved to appoint as many as “one or two in every town and district.”

Ordinances to the above effect were notified to the city of Almuñecar, and the towns of Motril, Salobreña, and the Alpujarras; from which we must infer that, though subordinated to the capital herself, these places also were silk-producing centres of no slight importance.

Further laws relating to the Xelizes were passed in 1535. On August 13th, the mayor of Granada (described as the “very magnificent” Señor Hernan Darias de Saavedra) summoned before him these officials in order to admonish them respecting certain fresh decisions that had been adopted by the councillors. The said Xelizes were six in all, known severally as Juan Ximenez, Hernando el Comarxi, Juan Infante Zaybona, Juan de Granada, Lorenzoel Mombatan, and Francisco Hernandez Almorox—names which are of interest, as showing that the Morisco element was still of weight among the manufacturers and merchants of Granada. From this time forth, and by the resolution of the town authorities, the Xelizes in question were called upon to lodge a deposit of one thousand ducats as security for the value of the silk entrusted them for sale. Besides this, the silk was to be sold in the Zaguaque—that is, by public auction “as in the time of the Moors,” from two in the afternoon onward. The buyer was required to settle his account before ten in the morning of the day next following his purchase. Failing this, the silk was to be again put up for sale, and the costs of this new operation were charged to the defaulting first purchaser, who was further obliged to pay a daily compensation of tworealesto themotalefewho had brought the silk to market. Xelizes were strictly forbidden to traffic on their own account, and the fines for infringing any of these laws were heavy. If the infraction were repeated once, the fine was doubled; if twice, in addition to the same amount in money, the transgressor was banished for all his lifetime from Granada.

All pieces of stuff which measured ten yardslong and upwards, and which it was desired to sell within the capital or district of Granada, required to be marked with the weaver's stamp. If three pieces were sold together, or sent abroad to other places to be sold, they required to be stamped with the city seal at a fee for stamping of twomaravedisthe piece. This was to be performed by theveedores, who were also to keep a register of all the city looms, and pay them a visit of inspection once at least in every month.

Finally, one of the most ridiculous and noxious of these ordinances forbade the planting of more mulberry-trees in or about Granada; notwithstanding that it was also forbidden to deal in silk imported from Valencia or Murcia, as the merchants were said to mingle these foreign silks with that of Granada herself, to the detriment of the latter.

Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the silk-trade of this capital remained in much the same condition. In 1747 a company was formed at Granada titled the “Compañía Real de Comercio y Fábricas de Granada,” and the formal prospectus of this society, of which document a printed copy is in my possession,was embodied in a royalceduladated in the same year. The preliminary remarks attached to this certificate explain that the people of Granada were now reduced to “the most unhappy state of poverty, insomuch that nowhere is there memory of a greater horde of mendicants.” The principal cause of this distress is stated to be the ruin of the silk-trade, in which disaster may be recognised the consequences of the senseless legislation I have instanced in the foregoing paragraphs. The fifteen thousand looms which once upon a time existed there had dwindled to six hundred, and the production of raw silk, from one million pounds a year to one hundred thousand. The new Company was floated with the professed ambition of restoring Granada to a measure of her old prosperity. The capital was half a millionpesos, divided into shares of two hundredpesoseach; but silk and woven fabrics generally, whose value had been suitably appraised by the authorities, were admissible in payment of a share. The holder of each five shares enjoyed one vote, except in the case of founders, who were privileged, as “instruments of this important establishment,” to vote upon possession of a single share. If a shareholder wished to sell hisinterest, the Company was to have the first refusal. It further possessed initially in cash a sum exceeding one hundred and twenty thousandpesos—sufficient to construct and work three thousand looms in all; and it engaged, in return for certain favours and exemptions under royal warrant, to set up twenty looms for making serges of fine quality, and eight more in each year, for the space of ten years, for makingcarros de oro,medios carros,anascotes finos,christales, “and every other kind of stuff that is not manufactured in this kingdom.”

The favours and exemptions thus solicited were of a very mischievous character; for the political mind of Spain was not yet shrewd enough to grasp the fact that where all competition is removed, quality cannot but decline. The products of the Company were freed from paying taxes for ten, or in the case of stuffs whose price amounted to sixrealesper yard, for twenty years. Similarly, all of its merchandise exported to America “inflotas,galeones,registros, or other craft of those that are permitted,” was freed from all except the royal dues on loading, although if shipped to other parts it was to pay a tax of fiftymaravedisfor each Castilian pound ofsixteen ounces. All the materials and ingredients required by the Company in the preparation of its fabrics were exempted from customs and other dues. The Company enjoyed a preferential right to purchase silk throughout the kingdom of Granada, and such as it abstained from purchasing was to be sold by public auction in the Alcaicerías of Granada and Málaga, that of Almería being henceforth suppressed. The Company was also empowered to introduce silk from Murcia and Valencia, and the determination to crush all private enterprise is clearly expressed by the twenty-second heading of this document, which says; “All manufacturers and traders who do not associate themselves with this body shall pay the full tariff of dues at present established.” The Company was further empowered to compel the inhabitants of this locality to plant new lots of mulberry-trees, “in view of the notorious fact that not the one-hundredth part remains of all that were delivered by the Royal Census to the occupants of the kingdom of Granada at the time of the reconquest.” The Company might further open shops and erect warehouses wherever it chose. Its assets were to enjoy perpetual immunity from seizure by the city council, whetheras a loan or otherwise, and none of its servants might be called upon to serve the Crown in the event of war.

Very shortly after its foundation, this Company united (each bringing half the capital) with another powerful association titled the Commercial Company of Estremadura, with a view to securing a conjoint Crown monopoly or “exclusive privilege” for Portugal, “to the effect that only these two companies may traffic there in silk, and none other of my vassals or the inhabitants of my dominions may do business, whether in pure silk, or silk mixed with silver or with gold, in the kingdom of Portugal aforesaid.”

The privilege was granted in these terms, and bears the royal signature, attached at Aranjuez, June 17th, 1747. Its provisions were to last for ten years, and, in return for their concession, the two Companies engaged for a like term of ten years to set up fifty silk-looms annually at Toledo, “over and above the looms at present working in that city.”

I have not been able to trace, in writing or in print, the subsequent records of the Royal Commercial and Manufacturing Company of Granada, although I have been told that it existed for some time, and that on one occasion there was a riotamong the townsfolk in opposition to its tyranny.[17]In 1776 Swinburne wrote of the same region: “The annual produce of silk in this province, before the year 1726, seldom fell short of two millions six hundred thousand pounds weight, whereas now it does not exceed one hundred thousand.” Judging from this, the Company does not appear to have prospered. In 1775 the same author wrote of other and more fertile silk-producing districts: “The manufacturers of silk are the cause of a population (i.e.in Valencia) that may be reckoned considerable, if compared to that of other provinces of Spain. The produce of this article came this year to one million pounds, but one year with another the average quantity is about nine hundred thousand pounds, worth a doubloon a pound in the country. The crop of silk this last season was very abundant. Government has prohibited the exportation of Valencian raw silk, in order to lay in a stock to keep the artificers constantly employed in bad years; for it has happened in some, that half the workmen have been laid idle for want of materials. As they are not sostrict about Murcian silk, which is of an inferior quality, I am told that some from Valencia is sent out of Spain under that denomination. The great nurseries of mulberry-plants in this plain (the Huerta of Valencia) are produced from seed obtained by rubbing a rope ofespartoover heaps of ripe mulberries, and then burying the rope two inches under ground. As the young plants come up, they are drawn and transplanted. The trees, which are all of the white kind, are afterwards set out in rows in the fields, and pruned every second year; in Murcia, only every third year, and in Granada never. The Granadine silk is esteemed the best of all; and the trees are all of the black sort of mulberry.”

According to Laborde, who wrote some twenty-five years later; “The cultivation of silk was formerly very flourishing in Andalusia; the kingdoms of Granada, Seville, and Jaen produced immense quantities of it, but after the conquest of those countries it was burdened with heavy taxes: silk was made subject to ecclesiastical tithes payable in kind; the royal tenth it paid under the Moors was retained, estimated at threereales velloneach pound of silk. To these were added a duty oftartilof seventeenmaravedisper poundand duties ofalcabalasandcientos, fixed at elevenrealesthirty-twomaravedís. There accrued from it a tax of fifteenrealesfifteenmaravedísfor the king, and sixreales, or thereabouts, for the ecclesiastical tithe, making together twenty-onerealesfifteenmaravedís, or about four shillings and sixpence the pound, which at that time sold only for thirtyreales, or six shillings and three pence English. The speculators were consequently discouraged, most of them relinquished a labour from which they derived so little profit, and this branch of industry entirely failed in the kingdoms of Cordova and Seville, and afterwards in those of Granada and Jaen. For some time it has been looking up in the two latter kingdoms, but it is very far from what it was under the Moors. The mulberries of Granada and Jaen are black; they are suffered to grow without any care or management, are never lopped or dressed, and look as if they were planted by chance.”

Of Murcia he wrote; “This province has the raw materials of other manufactures no less important. In the first place, it has a prodigious quantity of silkworms, which are not turned to advantage; most of the raw silks are sold to the neighbouring provinces, and manufactured silk isimported from foreign looms, though the inhabitants might manufacture their own materials, and make it an article of considerable exportation. The town of Murcia is the only place where they work some small quantity; there they manufacture a few slight silks, chiefly taffetas and velvets, but of an inferior quality; and the whole is confined to a small number of looms. They make a much greater quantity of ribbons, in which twelve hundred looms are employed; but they are badly dyed, and have not a good gloss. The Murcians likewise prepare the raw silk, spin, and twist it; they have even a warden, and a great number of masters in this business, and, in spite of its importance, they carry it on without being subject to any superintendence, everyone doing as he pleases. The consequence is that the silk is badly prepared and spun unequally. The threads are collected without any method, sometimes more, sometimes less, and then twisted unequally. They are of course unfit to make fine stuffs, and the trade of Murcia is therefore declining…. Silk stuffs, satins, velvets, and taffetas are made here, but there is no great manufactory of them. They are wrought at private houses, and are but of a middling quality.”

Toledo silk, including the delicate and costlycendal(see pp. 5, 6) which is mentioned in the sumptuary law, dated 1348, of Alfonso the Eleventh, was largely in demand from early in the Middle Ages till about the sixteenth century. The statements of the older writers as to this neighbourhood are contradictory. According to Damián de Olivares, himself a native of Toledo, this city in the sixteenth century possessed between five thousand five hundred and six thousand looms, consuming annually more than six hundred thousand pounds of raw silk. Other authors estimate the number of her looms at twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand. Writing in our own time, Count Cedillo is responsible for declaring that after the revolt of the Communities, the persons occupied in weaving silk amounted to fifty thousand, all of whom were natives of Toledo and the neighbouring villages; and he adds, perhaps a little rashly, that the velvets, damasks, satins, and taffetas of this locality were “unrivalled, even in comparison with the admirable products of Seville, Cordova, and Granada.”[18]Certainly, the silk stockings of Toledo enjoyed a wide-spread fame, and were used, among other distinguished patrons, by the Duke of Guise and by Philip the Second. They were also exported in quantities to America. Banners, altar-fronts, and vestments for religious worship were also made here in large numbers, and of excellent quality, both in silk alone, and in this substance mixed with gold and silver.

Laborde wrote of all these manufactures atthe time of their decline; “It is easy to estimate their former importance from the loss they sustained by the introduction of foreign merchandise. The memorial states that the consumption of silk was materially diminished, and computes the loss sustained by thirty-eight thousand artisans, from the interruption of their occupation, at 1,937,727 ducats. Symptoms of decay continued to increase till the middle of the sixteenth century, when every vestige of commerce was effaced.

“Toledo remained in this state of listless despondence till the present archbishop made a noble effort to revive the love of industry, and to open an asylum for the tribes of mendicants, accustomed from infancy to subsist on precarious bounty. The measure adopted by this prelate was to establish in the Alcazar various branches of manufacture, such as linen, ribbons, cloths, serges, woollen stuffs, and silk stuffs of every description. He introduced also another branch of occupation, appropriated solely to the production of sacerdotal ornaments. In 1791 there were a hundred and twelve manufactories in Toledo, ten for lawns and canvas, twelve for ribbons, fifty-five for silk, and seven for sacerdotal ornaments. Atthis period the indigent class employed in them amounted to six hundred people, who were instructed in various processes, and were led insensibly to acquire the useful habits of industry. They were taught to draw, to prepare the materials, and to perform the manufacture; and each was destined to pursue some occupation suitable to his age, his inclination, and his abilities.”

In 1786 Townsend, himself a clergyman, had written of Toledo in far less hopeful terms. “This city, which contained two hundred thousand souls, is now reduced to less than twenty-five thousand. The citizens are fled; the monks remain. Here we find twenty-six parish churches, thirty-eight convents, seventeen hospitals, four colleges, twelve chapels, and nineteen hermitages, the monuments of its former opulence.” Townsend's good taste, unusual for a traveller of that time, was horrified at the profanation of the Alcazar, whose “magnificent apartments are now occupied with spinning-wheels and looms, and instead of princes they are filled with beggars. The good archbishop here feeds seven hundred persons, who are employed in the silk manufactory; but unfortunately, with the best intentions, he has completed the ruin of the city; for by his weightof capital, he has raised the price both of labour and of the raw material, whilst, by carrying a greater quantity of goods to the common market, he has sunk the price of the commodity so much, that the manufacturers, who employed from forty to sixty workmen, now employ only two or three, and many who were in affluence are now reduced to penury.

“These people are so far from earning their own maintenance, that over and above the produce of their labour they require forty thousand ducats a year for their support.”

Alvarez de Colmenar, Ricord, Bourgoing, Laborde, and other writers, Spanish and non-Spanish, of the eighteenth century, inserted full descriptions of the silk trade of Valencia and Barcelona. “On y fait,” wrote Alvarez de Colmenar of the former of these towns, “de très bonnes draperies, fortes, d'un bon et long usage, et propres à résister à la pluie, et grande quantité d'étoffes de soie; delà vient que les meuriers, dont les feuilles servent à nourrir les vers à soie, y font d'un fort gros revenu pour les habitans.” Ricord, in his scarce pamphlet, printed at Valencia in 1793, gives valuable statistics relating to this industry and locality, prefacing his figures arrangedin tabular form by the following remarks: “The silk factories of this province form the principal basis of her commerce. They not only consume all the silk which is raised in the kingdom (of Valencia), and which, in 1791, amounted to 581,688 pounds of fine silk, 93,800 of that of Alducar, and 26,115 ofhiladillo, but they also require to provide themselves from Aragon and other parts of Spain, or even from abroad, seeing that in the year aforesaid more than 37,000 pounds were imported from foreign countries.” The tabular statement appended to these observations tells us that in the region of Valencia the looms for making fine and silken fabrics such as velvets,anascotes, stockings, handkerchiefs, scarves, garters, and ribbons, gave employment to a total of 9,668 workmen, and were distributed among the towns or villages of Valencia, Alcira, San Felipe, Alcoy, Vilanesa, Denia, Ruzafa, Alicante, Peniscola, Beniganim, Pego, Olivo, Liria, Asuevar, Orihuela, Gandia, Elche, Castellon, and Vall de Almonacid. Riaño admits, however, that this manufacture might have prospered even more, if means had been adopted to suppress certain acts committed by the weavers, spinners, and twisters of the silk.

More curious and instructive is the descriptionof the same industry by Jean-François Bourgoing, whose observations, evidently secured at first-hand, are worth translatingin extenso:—

“What attracted us still more than the fine-art works were the stuffs produced at the silk-factories, which constitute the principal glory of Valencia and contribute to her prosperous condition. We followed all the process of this manufacture, from the cultivation of the mulberry-tree to the weaving of the richest fabrics. I will try, therefore, to give a comprehensive account of them.

“Spain, and particularly the kingdom of Valencia, could well export her silk to foreign parts, even after setting apart a quantity sufficient for her factories. Government, however, does not appear to be convinced of this, because it offers constant hindrance to such exportation, or else, when it consents to it, imposes heavy dues. These dues consist of ninerealesand aquartillo, or nearly twolivressevenfrancsper each Valencian pound of silk, which only weighs twelve ounces, and is worth at least fifteenlivreswhen it is in the raw state. When the silk harvest has been scanty, as in the year 1784, it has been known to fetch eightyrealesor twentylivres. This year, too, the yield of silk has been so smallthat the manufacturers of Valencia petitioned Government to allow the introduction, duty-free, of two hundred thousand pounds of it from Italy and France.

“In ordinary years, the pound of (raw) silk costs eightrealesfor twisting and threerealesfor dyeing in green, blue or other common colours; so that this material, ready to use, costs altogether about seventy-onerealesthe pound, or seventeen to eighteen francs of our money.

“Of course this price varies according to circumstances. One of the causes which exercise the greatest influence on this fluctuation is the harvest of the mulberry. These valuable trees are thickly planted over the champaign of Valencia, and all of them are of the white-leaved kind. This distinction, which would be superfluous in France, is by no means so in Spain, where, in several provinces, as, for instance, the kingdom of Granada, the leaves of the black mulberry are used to nourish the silkworms, and yield almost as handsome a silk as those of the white.[19]

“The leaves to these mulberry-trees are soldby the load of tenarrobas; and the Valencianarroba, which is about equal to twenty-seven French pounds, cost, in 1783, about thirtysols tournois.

“The mulberry leaves are gathered once, twice, or, at most, three times in each year; but it is not often that the two last crops are of as fine a quality or as abundant as the first. The greater part of the year is suited for harvesting the leaves, and this harvesting is carried out progressively as the silkworms copulate, steadily increasing in quantity up to the moment when they build their cocoons. As a rule only the leaves are plucked, the branches being spared as far as possible. Thus despoiled of its verdure in the middle of the finest times of year, although surrounded by a dazzling vegetation, the tree looks like a dry log floating on a green expanse of waters, while the mass of naked trunks which seem to be completely sterile, and which grow more numerous as the season advances, combine to render cheerless a prospect otherwise so fertile and so smiling. Still worsebecomes their state when the trees are pruned entirely of their branches—an operation which is performed upon them at least once in every three years.

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