Volume 3 — TEXTILE FABRICS

INTRODUCTION

Our earliest intelligence respecting textile fabrics of old Spain derives almost exclusively from Moorish sources, and shows, together with the silence of Saint Isidore, that until the subjugation of the Visigoths, the occupants of the Peninsula attached no great importance to this industry. Under the Moors, the south and east of Spain grew rapidly famous for the manufacture of all kinds of textile stuffs, and in particular those of silk. The origin of these silks, or of the most luxurious and artistic of them, may be traced to Almería. According to Al-Makkari, what made this Andalusian capital superior to all other cities of the world was her “various manufactures of silks and other dress materials, such as the dibaj, a silken fabric of many colours, surpassing, both in quality and durability, all other products made elsewhere, and also the tiraz, a costly stuff whereon are inscribed the names of sultans, princes, and other personages, and for making which there used to be no fewer than eight hundred looms. Inferior fabrics were the holol (a kind of striped silk), and brocades woven upon a thousand looms, while as many more were employed continually in making the scarlet stuffs called iskalaton. Another thousand produced the robes called al jorjani (or ‘the Georgian’), and yet another thousand the Isbahani robes, from Isfahan, and yet another thousand the robes of Atabi. The making of damask for gay-coloured curtains and turbans for the women kept busy as many persons as the articles above-mentioned.”

Edrisi, a chronicler of the twelfth century, says of the same capital that she was the principal city belonging to the Moors in the time of the Moravides. In fact, she was then a great and prosperous industrial centre, possessing, together with other kinds of looms, eight hundred which produced the fabrics known as holla, debady, siglaton, espahani, and djordjani, curtains with a flowered decoration, cloths of a smaller size, and the stuffs which were denominated attabi and mi djar.

A similar notice is contained in the Chronicle of Rassis the Moor. Referring to the end of the tenth century, this author wrote that “Almería is the key of profit and of all prosperity. Within her walls dwell cunning weavers who produce in quantities magnificent silken cloths inwoven with gold thread.” Other important centres of this trade and craft were Málaga, Baeza, Alicante, Seville, and Granada. Rassis wrote of Málaga: “She has a fertile territory, wherein is made the finest sirgo in the world. From here they trade in it with every part of Spain. Here too is made the finest of all linens, and that which the women best esteem.” Of Baeza he wrote: “She manufactures excellent and famous silken cloths of the kind which are called tapetes”; and of Alicante, “This city lies in the Sierra de Benalcatil, which in its turn is situated in the midst of other ranges containing prosperous towns where silken cloths of finest quality were made in other days; and the weavers of these cloths were skilled exceedingly.”

Málaga is described by the Cordovese historian Ash Shakandi (thirteenth century) as “famous for its manufactures of silks of every colour and design, some of them so costly that a suit is sold for thousands; such are the brocades of beautiful pattern, inwoven with the names of caliphs, emirs and other wealthy personages…. As at Málaga and Almería, there are at Murcia several manufactories of silken cloth called al washiu thalathat, or ‘the variegated.’ This town is also celebrated for the carpets called tantili, which are exported to all countries of the east and west, as well as for a sort of bright-coloured mat with which the Murcians cover the walls of their houses.”

The ancient Illiberia or Illiberis, believed to have been situated not far from where is nowadays Granada, is described in Rassis' chronicle as “a city great and flourishing by reason of the quantity of silk that she exports to every part of Spain. She lies at sixty thousand paces distance from, and on the southward side of Cordova, and six thousand paces from, and to the north of the Frozen Sierra” (i.e. the Sierra Nevada).

Another chronicle—that of El Nubiense, who visited Spain towards the twelfth century—states that in the kingdom of Jaen alone were six hundred towns which produced and carried on a trade in silk.

The foregoing extracts show that under the Spanish Moors the manufacture of textile fabrics attained in mediæval times a very great importance. It is also certain that during the same period the textile fabrics in use among the Christian Spaniards were strongly and continually influenced, and even to a large extent produced, by Spanish Moors, while, as the Moorish cities fell into the power of the enemy, the Christian rulers encouraged their newly-sworn Mohammedan lieges to prosecute this industry with unabated zeal. A privilege is extant which was granted by Jayme the Conqueror in the year 1273, to a Moor named Ali and his sons Mohammed and Bocaron, empowering these artificers to manufacture silk and cloth of gold at Jativa, in the kingdom of Valencia. The fabrics produced by Mussulman weavers such as these, found ready purchase with the wealthier classes of the Christian Spaniards. The dress and other materials thus elaborated possessed a great variety of names, whose meaning cannot always be determined at the present day. Among the fabrics most in vogue were those denominated samit (also xamed or examitum), ciclaton, tabis or atabi, zarzahan, fustian or fustan, cendal or sendat, camelote (also chamelote or xamellot), drap imperial, and bougran (also bouckram, buckram), stated by Dr Bock to be derived from Bokhara, and which was of a quality far superior to the buckram of more modern times. These Saracenic or semi-Saracenic stuffs were manufactured from an early period, but modern experts are not agreed as to their character. Miquel y Badía and some other authorities believe that samit was a costly material which was sometimes coloured green, and shot with gold or silver thread. Others believe it to have been a kind of velvet. In either case it is known to have been used for shrouding the bodies of the wealthy. Ciclaton was a strong though flexible material used for robes and also for wall-hangings. Tabis or atabi was a kind of taffeta, and probably consisted, as a general rule, of silk, though sometimes it was mixed with cotton. Chamelot was an oriental fabric of rich silk, coloured white, black, or grey. It is mentioned, together with velvets, taffetas, and cendal or sendat (another silken stuff) in a law passed by the Cortes of Monzón in 1375, and which is quoted in Capmany's Memorias.[1] Fustian is thought to have been first produced in Egypt. It was woven of thread or cotton, and was largely used in England from at least as early as the twelfth century. From about the same time buckram was also popular in northern countries.

Early in the fourteenth century a number of other costly stuffs began to be made in various quarters of the civilized world, including Spain. Among these fabrics were zatonin or zatony (perhaps the same as zetani, aceituni, or aceytoni—that is, satin), several kinds of drap d'aur or cloth of gold, several kinds of velvet, sarga or serge, and camocas, which is stated by Miquel y Badía to have been a strong material used for lining curtains, coats of mail, etc. The same writer observes that the stuff called by the name zatonin and its variations is the same as the Castilian raso and the Catalan setí or satí, a favourite though expensive and luxurious fabric in the fourteenth and succeeding centuries. Under the name aceytoni it is mentioned in a work in the Catalan language titled Croniques d'Espanya, by Pedro Miguel Carbonell, in which we read that at the coronation of Don Martin of Aragon this monarch's consort, Doña María, was “dressed in white cloth of gold and a long mantle … and rode upon a white horse covered with trappings of white aceytoni.”

Miquel y Badía has discovered the names of other fabrics which are known from documentary evidence to have been used in older Spain, and which were called aducar, alama, tela de nacar, primavera or primavert, almexia, picote, and velillo. It is probable that alama and tela de nacar had silver interwoven with their texture. The primavera or “spring fabric” was so named from the flowers which adorned it. Almexía is mentioned in the Chronicle of the Cid. It was a costly and elaborate stuff, and is believed by Miquel to have taken its title from the city of Almería. Picote was a kind of satin manufactured in the island of Majorca, and velillo a thin, delicate fabric decorated with flowers and with silver thread.

The devices on all these stuffs were very varied. Prominent types among them were the pallia rotata, containing circles which are commonly combined with other ornament, the pallia aquilinata, in which the dominant motive was the eagle, and the pallia leonata, in which it was the lion. Other beasts, birds, and monsters were also figured with great frequency, such as griffins, peacocks, swans, crows, bulls, tigers, or dogs; but the emblem most in favour, especially throughout the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth centuries, was the eagle, owing to the numerous and illustrious qualities attributed to it, such as majesty, victory, valour, and good omen. These creatures, too, were frequently represented face to face or back to back, in pairs; nor were they so disposed in textile fabrics only, but on ivory, wood, or silver caskets, and on numerous other objects, as well as on the painted friezes of a place of worship.[2]

The colours of these fabrics also varied very greatly. That which was most admired was probably red, crimson, or carmine, used by preference as a ground, with the pattern inwoven or super-woven in gold, silver, or otherwise. Velvets, too, were not invariably in monochrome, but would contain two or three colours such as purple, crimson, blue, or yellow, besides gold and silver. Miquel y Badía mentions a magnificent velvet pluvial in gold and three colours, belonging to a church in Cataluña. The following observations are by the same authority, who himself possesses a valuable collection of early textile fabrics, many of which are Spanish. “The same prevailing colours are found in the Mudejar textile fabrics as in those of the Spanish Moors—the same ground of red inclining to carmine, of dark blue, or of bluish green, with a pattern in yellow, green, blue, or red, according to the colour which combines with it. I have seen copies of Mudejar stuffs in which there is no white, because this was wanting in the fragments which the copying artist had before him. And it is a fact that from some cause, which we cannot now determine, white silk is that which disappears soonest from among the textile fabrics of the Spanish Moors and Mudejares, so that by far the greater part of them contain no white at all, or only traces of it.”

In Spain these handsome stuffs were used by all the wealthier classes, and some idea of their prevalence and popularity may be formed from the voluminous mass of sumptuary laws which deal with them at almost every stage of Spanish history. Thus, an edict of Jayme the First of Aragon established, in the year 1234, that neither the monarch nor any of his subjects were to decorate their clothes with gold and silver, or fasten their cloaks with gold or silver clasps. The Ordenamiento of Alfonso the Tenth, subscribed at Seville, February 27th, 1256, provides that no woman is to carry aljofar-work, trim her dress with gold or silver, or wear a toca decorated with those metals, but only a plain white one, the price of which is not to exceed three maravedis. It is also provided by this edict that on the celebration of a wedding, the cost of the bridal clothes must not exceed sixty maravedis, nor may the number of guests who sit down to the marriage banquet exceed five women and five men, besides the witnesses of the ceremony and relatives of the bride and bridegroom. This absurd law was so extensively neglected that two years later the Cortes of Valladolid took up the matter afresh, and even resolved that the expenses of the king's table, without the cost of his invited guests, were not to exceed a daily total of a hundred and fifty maravedis.

In a.d. 1286 the Council of Cordova decreed that knights and squires, upon the celebration of their marriage, were not to present their brides with more than two dresses, one of these to be of scarlet, without trimming of ermine or grey fur, or decoration of gold, silver, or aljofar. A law of Alfonso the Eleventh, dated May 6th, 1338, proclaimed that the women of the upper classes were not to clothe themselves in any silken fabric decorated with gold thread. Similar restrictions were laid upon the other sex. “No man, whatever be his condition (excepting only Us, the King), shall wear cloth of gold, or silk, or any stuff adorned with gold lace, aljofar, or any other trimming, or with enamel: only his cloak may bear aljofar pearl-work, or fillets without pearls.” Other dispositions signed by the same monarch show that the Spaniards of his time were in the habit of wearing costly cloth adorned with gold and silver, pearls, gold buttons, enamel, and other ornament, while even the squires wore furs and gilded shoes. The ricos-hombres loaded their saddles with gold and with aljofar-work, and their wives were licensed to bear on each of their dresses the same aljofar-work or strings of tiny pearls, to the value of four thousand maravedis.

Provisions of the same tenor are contained in the prolix sumptuary pragmatic of Pedro the Cruel, signed in the year 1351 at Valladolid, as well as in that of Juan the First, a.d. 1385, which ordained, together with other vexatious prohibitions, that “neither man nor woman, whatever be their condition or estate, shall wear cloth of gold or any silk-stuff, gold or silver aljofar, or other precious stones, excepting the Infante and Infantas, who may wear whatever pleases them.”

The extravagance of Isabella the Catholic in dress and personal adornment generally, was illustrated in an earlier chapter of this work. A further instance is recorded by Clemencin. According to this chronicler, in 1476 and 1477, upon her reception at Alcalá of two embassies from France, the queen was dressed in a magnificent robe, which drew upon her a sharp rebuke from her confessor, the virtuous and austere Hernando de Talavera. From this charge Isabella defended herself with more spirit than truthfulness. “Neither myself nor my ladies,” she wrote in her letter of reply, “were dressed in new apparel. All that I wore on this occasion I had already worn in Aragon, and the French themselves had seen me wearing it. I only used one robe at all, and that of silk with three marks of gold, the plainest I could find: in this was all my festival. I say this much in that my clothing was not new; nor did we deem that error could dwell therein.”[3]

Although their own extravagance is past all question, on September 30th, 1499, Ferdinand and his consort issued a proclamation at Granada, in which it was commanded that “no persons shall wear clothing of brocade, or silk, or silk chamelote, or zarzahan, or taffeta, or carry linings of the same upon the trappings of their horses, or upon hoods, or the straps and scabbards of their swords, or bits, or saddles, or alcorques[4] … nor shall they wear embroidered silk-stuffs decorated with gold plates, whether such gold be drawn or hammered, spun to a thread, or interwoven with the fabric.”

These prohibitions, or others of their import, were ratified by Doña Juana at the Cortes of Burgos, and, in 1533, by Charles the Fifth at Valladolid. In 1551 the Emperor again prohibited “all brocaded stuffs, or gold or silver cloth, whether embroidered or enriched with gold or silver thread, or bound with cord or edging of the same;” and a royal edict of January 12th, 1611, forbade the wearing of brocade and every other costly stuff to all except the clergy and the military.

The clergy, indeed, had always been notorious for extravagance, and not a few of all these sumptuary laws are aimed specifically at them. In a.d. 1228 the Council of Valladolid prohibited the use by priests of sleeved robes, or gilded saddles, bits, spurs, or poitrels. In 1267 the Synod of León repeated these prohibitions, further insisting that the garments of the clergy, besides being sleeveless, were not to be red or green, and were to have a moderate length (“non muy largas, non muy cortas”), and that their cloaks were not to fasten with a clasp or cord; these regulations to be rigidly adhered to en sennal de honestidat—“as a sign of honesty.”

We also know that at this time (thirteenth century) the shirts of many of the wealthier Spaniards were woven of finest linen imported from the East, embroidered and picked out with gold and silver thread, and that the clergy were at least the equals of the laity in their craze for costly clothing. In a.d. 1273, an inventory was made of the effects belonging to Don Gonzalo Palomeque, on his election to the bishopric of Cuenca. It mentions almadraques and Murcian tapetes, carpitas viadas from Tlemcen, fine Murcian blankets (alhamares), silk xamedes, Murcian matting for covering walls and daïses (“para paret et para estrado”), and stuffs from Syria. Another inventory, that of Don Gonzalo Gudiel, archbishop of Toledo, is dated a.d. 1280, and mentions, as included with his property, quantities of oriental fabrics which are designated by the general name tartaricas.[5] Among them were “unus pannus operatus ad aves de auro et campus de serica viridi, item unus alius pannus tartaricus cum campo de seta alba et vite aurea, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta rubea cum pinis aureis, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta viridi.”[6]

A number of mediæval textile fabrics, some in fragments, some intact, have been preserved in Spanish private collections or museums. It is, however, seldom easy to determine whether they were made in this Peninsula, or whether in Sicily, Byzantium, Venice, or the East. Among the most remarkable of all these interesting specimens are, a strip which was extracted from the mausoleum of a Spanish bishop, Don Bernardo Calbó, a native of Vich in Cataluña, and which is now in the museum of that town; other fragments in the same collection, including one of holosericum or pure silk, which was formerly in the neighbouring church of San Juan de las Abadesas, and is commonly known as the pallium or altar front “of the witches” (owing to certain beasts or monsters figuring in the design), a Moorish tiraz, now in the Academy of History at Madrid, the celebrated Moorish “banner of the battle of Las Navas,” now in the Monastery of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas at Burgos, the banner (also Moorish) of the battle of the River Salado, the chasubles “of the Constable” and of Chiriana, preserved respectively at Burgos and at Caravaca, a fragment, preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, of the shroud of Ferdinand the Third, and the Moorish clothing of the son of the same King Ferdinand, the Infante Don Felipe, and of Felipe's second wife, Doña Leonor Ruiz de Castro.

The strip of woven material found in the sepulchre of Bishop Calbó, who is said to have accompanied Don Jayme the Conqueror in the conquest of Valencia (a.d. 1238), is described by Miquel y Badía as belonging to the class denominated pallia rotata—that is, with circles forming part of their design,—and dates most probably from the twelfth century; but it is impossible to say whether it was manufactured in the East, or whether at Valencia or some other Spanish town. The same remark applies to other fragments which are also, as I stated, in the Vich Museum. The one discovered in the tomb of Bishop Calbó contains, coloured in green, grey, and black upon a carmine ground, a decorative scheme of circles, flowers, and gryphons or other monsters in pairs, affrontés, and also, within the circles, the figure of a man grappling with two lions, tigers, dogs, or other beasts, and who is believed to represent Samson or Daniel—more probably the latter. Miquel y Badía points out that in this fragment the figure of the man recalls Egyptian art, suggested by his curious head-dress, and by the crossing of his clothes upon his breast.

Another textile fragment in the same collection is coloured black, red, and grey upon a yellowish ground. It is decorated with long-tailed birds resembling peacocks, and with sphinxes which fill the circles or medallions. A third fragment, also in the Vich Museum, belongs to the type of pallia cum aquilis et bestiolis. The design consists of a double-headed eagle with half-extended wings, holding in the claws of either foot some kind of quadruped—perhaps a bull. The colour of the ground resembles carmine, and on it the design is wrought in greenish black—that may have been originally green—relieved at intervals with yellow.

The “witches'” pallium in the same collection is decorated with the series of extraordinary beasts or monsters that have won for it this title with the vulgar, depicted in yellow, white, black, and dark green upon a red ground. Miquel believes this fabric to proceed from Byzantium, and to date from not much earlier than the eleventh century. The devices are disposed in two rows, the lower containing peacocks affrontés, and the upper a series of fantastic monsters, each of which possesses a head, two bodies, and four feet—the head being semi-human, semi-bestial, the double body that of a bird, and the claws those of a lion or some other formidable quadruped.

The Royal Academy of History at Madrid possesses a fragment of the costly fabric known as tiraz, an eastern word (corrupted by the Spaniards into taracea, i.e. embroidery on clothing), which means the bordering for a royal robe. Such bordering, which contained inscriptions, or the sultan's name, or both together, is said to have been first used in Spain by Abderrahman the Second, who ruled from a.d. 825 to 852. “The caliphs of Cordova,” says Riaño, “had a place set apart in their palaces where this stuff was kept: this custom lasted until the eleventh century, when it disappeared, and was re-established in the thirteenth century with the kings of Granada.” Tiraz, in fact, was both produced and stored in special departments of the Sultan's palaces[7]; or so we must infer from the following passage by Ibn-Khaldun. “The places (almedinas) where these stuffs were woven were situated within the palaces of the caliphs, and were known as the ‘pavilions of the tiraz.’ The person at the head of these workshops was called the superintendent of the tiraz: he had charge of both the weavers and the looms, administered the salaries, and looked to the quality of the work. This post was entrusted by the princes to one of the foremost officers of their kingdom, or else to some freedman who thoroughly deserved their confidence.” The same historian adds that the manufacture of tiraz was conducted in Spain in the same manner as in the East under the dynasty of the Ommeyades. It is, however, certain that among the Spanish Moors tiraz was not produced exclusively in royal factories. Al-Makkari states that in the time of the Somadies and the Almoravides there were looms at Nerja (and possibly at Almería) for weaving this luxurious fabric, as well as holas, a fine brocade, heavily embroidered, and adorned with figures representing the caliphs and other personages. In the time of the Almoravides there were at Almería as many as a thousand factories for making holas.

The piece of tiraz which belongs to the Spanish Academy of History measures about a yard and a half in length by eighteen inches wide. Riaño describes it as of wool, embroidered in silks with “seated figures which appear to be a king, a lady, lions, birds, and quadrupeds”; but after carefully examining it I cannot but agree with Miquel y Badía that this fabric is woven throughout of pure silk, without the slightest trace of hand-embroidery. It has two borders containing these inscriptions in Cufic letters: “In the name of God, the clement, the merciful. (May) the blessing of God and happiness (be) for the Caliph Iman Abdallah Hixem, the favoured of God and prince of believers.” This monarch, second of the name, reigned at the end of the tenth century and early in the eleventh, and the tiraz we are noticing was found in a casket on the altar of a church at San Esteban de Gormaz, in the province of Soria. As Riaño suggests, it was very probably a war trophy.

I THE “BANNER OF LAS NAVAS” (Monastery of Santa Maria la Real de las Huelgas, Burgos)

Another most interesting example of Saracenic textile work is the so-called “banner of Las Navas” (Plate i.), which popular tradition affirms to have been captured (a.d. 1212) in the memorable battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, between the Almohades and the Spanish Christians. Most experts now consider that this object is not a military ensign, but a curtain or some other hanging for a tent or doorway. The material is sirgo or silken serge, and both the decoration and the workmanship are purely Moorish. The design is rich and intricate throughout, consisting of scrolls, leaves, stems, and inscriptions from the Koran, disposed with exquisite effect about the principal and central motive, formed by a large eight-pointed star within a circle, and which contains, so as to form the angles of the star, eight repetitions of the words in Arabic, “The Empire.” The dominant colour is carmine, and the fabric terminates in eight farpas or scallops with red and yellow edges, and bearing a series of inscriptions in the African character.

The “pendon of the Rio Salado,” a trophy which seems to have really been a war-flag, belongs to the cathedral of Toledo. It measures at this day about nine feet two inches by seven feet four inches, but is believed to have been originally of a square form, with scalloped edges. The dominant colours are red, green, and gold. The decorative scheme consists of tastefully combined circles and inscriptions in the Cufic character, and the lower end concludes in the following sentences, now rendered incomplete through the loss of nearly two feet of the material:—“ … the wise, the victorious, the assiduous, the generous, the sultan, the caliph, the famous emir of the Muslims and representative of the Lord of the Universe, Abu-Said Otsmin, son of our lord and master … the worshipper of (Allah), the modest, the warlike, the emir of the Mussulmans Nassir-li-Din (defender of the law), Abu Yusuf Yacub, son of Abd-il-Hac. In the Alcázar of Fez (God bless it. Praised be God), in the Moon of Moharran of the year twelve and seven hundred” (712 of the Hegira, or May 9th–June 7th, a.d. 1312).

Tastefully disposed in white Cufic characters, within four rows of circles woven in gold, are the words which sum the Mussulman religion,—“There is no God but God: Mahoma is His Messenger”; and on other parts of the flag are inscribed these sentences:—

“The prophet believes in the purpose for which he was sent by his Lord, and all the faithful believe in God, in His angels, in His writings, and in His messengers. We make no distinction between any of His messengers. And these declare: ‘We hear and do obey. Pardon us, O Lord.’

“…. And unto Thee we shall return. God will not lay on any soul but such a weight as it can bear; for it or against it shall be the deeds it may have done. O Lord, chastise not our forgetfulness or errors. O Lord, lay not upon us the burden Thou hadst laid on those that were before us.

“…. O Lord, burden us not too heavily. Blot out our faults, and pardon them to us, and have mercy on us. Thou art our Lord. Grant us victory over the infidel. There came to us a glorious prophet that was born among us.

“On him rests the weight of your faults, and full of goodness and of clemency he longs ardently for you to believe. If you should be forsaken, exclaim, ‘God is sufficient for me. There is no God but He. I trust in Him, because He is Lord of the throne that is on high.’”

Miquel y Badía considers that when it was intact this object must have measured eleven feet square. Attention was first drawn to its merit and antiquity when it was shown at the Exposición Histórico Europea of 1892.

The chasubles of Chirinos (Caravaca) and of the Chapel of the Constable in Burgos cathedral are both considered to be of Spanish-Moorish workmanship. The former is woven of silk of various colours, but without admixture of gold thread, and bears an inscription in Arabic which Amador de los Ríos has interpreted as, “Glory to our Sultan Abul-Hachach.” The same authority deduces that the fabric dates from the fourteenth or the fifteenth century—that is, from the time of the Sultan Abul-Hachach (Yusuf the First) or of his immediate successors.

The chasuble preserved at Burgos is also woven of variegated silk without gold thread, and may originally have been a tiraz, since it bears, in African letters, the inscription, “Glory to our lord the Sultan.” The date is probably the fifteenth or sixteenth century. Fragments of similar material are in the collections of Señores Osma and Miquel y Badía.

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

The object represented in Plate ii. is described in the Catalogue of the Royal Armoury at Madrid as A 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, and measures 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 the Book of Chess of Alfonso the Learned (an illuminated Spanish manuscript executed in the thirteenth century, and now preserved at the Escorial), Alfonso himself is represented (Plate iii.) 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.

III KING 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's cloak, which is nearly intact, a piece of his aljuba, 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 word Blessing, woven in Cufic characters upon the ground. The aljuba is 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 Spanish joquejo or soquejo, a scarf for winding round a woman's body, is obviously derived, or merely corrupted, from the Arabic jocob; the Spanish arrede or arrelde, a kind of cloak, from the Arabic arrida, and the Spanish shirt or tunic for ordinary wear, called the casot, quesote, or quizote (which was sometimes white and sometimes coloured) from the Arabic al-kuesnat. The Chronicle of Juan the Second (a.d. 1410) tells of a mountain covered with Moorish troops, “and all of them had red quesotes.”

IV SPANISH 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 (Plates iv. and vii.), brocades, and silken serges; as well as fabrics interwoven with gold and silver thread, including the gorgoranes, restaños, sargas, and jergas 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 silver flowers.

“Silver serges with double filigree.

“Silver and gold materials, which are made like gorgoran or serge.

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

“Embroidered stuffs.

“Embroidered stuffs called silver serge, or berguilla.

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

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

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

“Serges woven with gold and silver for church vestments.

“Plain filigree serges.

“Velillo of silver.

“Satin woven with gold and silver.

“Brocades of different kinds.

“Church vestments.

“Silver primaveras.

“Serges for church vestments.”

It was usual for ladies of the Christian-Spanish aristocracy to trim their clothes, in Moorish fashion, with strings of larger pearls or of aljofar-work—a custom which continued until the extinction of the House of Austria. The Alburquerque inventory includes “a marlota of crimson satin, trimmed with pearls and with aljofar, as to the hem, the sleeves, and the hood; with twelve buttons of aljofar-pearls in the front thereof, that on a time were thirteen; but one is missing which 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 her sayas with long trains to them, and satin bodices, all of embroidered silk, and some with aljofar-work, besides a number of all kinds of diabluras.”

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 had further 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 the Ordenamiento (a.d. 1408) of Doña Catalina, issued on behalf of her son, Juan the Second, and which prescribed for the Moorish men a capuz of 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 his Vocabulary that, among the Granadinos, the use of one garment in particular was limited to royalty, or nobles of high rank. This was the libas (or, in the Granadino dialect, libis), shaped like roomy breeches, and greatly resembling the zaragüelles worn 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 every cadi and alfaqui would 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 the imama[11] was the only form of head-dress used by the cheiks, cadis, and ulemas of 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 word alahmar meaning “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 manuscript History of the House of Cordova quoted 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 the colour 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.

V THE 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. The History of the House of Cordova, from which I have already quoted, says: “Il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à clous dorés, doublée de velours cramoisi, d'un morion teint de grenat et doré…. Sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et de velours cramoisi” (Plate v.). 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 the tiraz, the clothing 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 his caban or robe, thus following the fashion of the monarchs of Assyria and Persia.”

Footnotes:

SPANISH SILK

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 exported from “tierra de Moros” for use by Christian craftsmen, and also the Chronology 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 her oficiales de texer sedas were 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 possessed no 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 onerous millones tax, as well as of the minor dues denominated alcavalas and cientos; while finally, when Philip the Third was on the throne, the expulsion of the Moriscos precipitated the utter ruin of this industry.

VI THE “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 eighteenth century, ochavos of Philip the Third which bore inscribed the value of twelve maravedis in Roman numerals, and also (owing to the restamping of the coins by order of the Crown), the second and successive value of eight maravedis, 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 the veedores or mayorales, and bear the official stamp which guaranteed their quality. The effect of these ordinances was further strengthened by a Crown cedula of 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 another cedula, 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—in which 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 the alcabalas and cientos, and further support was rendered in 1749 by Ferdinand the Sixth, who lowered to eighty maravedis per 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 mills for 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, but has 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 and cintas de rizo, sixty-three for stockings, sixty-five for redecillas, 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 presented in 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 his Discursos, published in 1659, according to a memoir presented to the king by an alcalde of 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, and that 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, including Marineus Siculus, Navagiero, Lalaing, Bertaut de Rouen, and Alvarez de Colmenar. The name itself is stated in Fray Pedro de Alcalá's Vocabulario to be derived from the Arabic al-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 le Zacatin, qui est une rue paralelle au Canal du Darro, longue et assez estroite, qui vient de la place de la Chancellerie à la place de Vivarambla. Dans cette rue sont tous les orfévres, les marchands de soie, de rubans, de vermillon, qui croist assez prés 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 du Zacatin donne 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 en pourpre, 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.

The Ordenanzas of 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 succeeding the 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 of a.d. 1535), nobody was allowed henceforth to spin silk in or about Granada without being qualified through examination by the veedores or inspectors appointed for this purpose by the corporation. The inspector might charge for this examination a fee of twenty-five maravedis, 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 two reales and 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 to a 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 two reales and a half.” The silk was not to be spun with an escobilla or 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 thousand maravedis and 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 the alamin or inspector of the silk, or else to one of the veedores nominated 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 repairing the ramparts or adarves of Granada; another third between the alamin, the veedores, 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 six tinajas, or large jars (see Vol. II., pp. 120 et seq.), kept continually full of dye, well settled, and liable at any hour to be analyzed by the veedores. 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 thousand maravedis and 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 the veedores were 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.

VII VELVET MADE AT GRANADA (Late 15th Century)

Another group of Ordenanzas concerns 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 of four leishes, taffeta of two leishes, and sargas, or silken serge. Other fabrics mentioned in the Ordinances are tocas called “San Juanes,” campuses moriscos (elsewhere “las tocas moriscas que se llaman campuzas”), “las tocas moriscas labradas que se dizen coninos,” quinales and alfardillas, alcaydias, tocas de Reyna, and espumillas. Most of these names are of obscure meaning at the present day; but I find that espumillas were silken crape, while alfardillas are 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 pass their 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 or oficio was 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 a horro or 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 the almotalefe or motalefe to collect silk throughout the alcarias or villages of the surrounding districts, and convey it, on behalf of the owner, to a xeliz or “superintendent of the market,” attached to one or other of the three Alcaicerías of the kingdom of Granada. The xeliz, 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 the motalefe a certificate of the price obtained, together with the corresponding cash, less certain fees deducted for himself and calculated on a reasonable scale. The number of motalefes throughout 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, Lorenzo el 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 two reales to the motalefe who 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 yards long 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 two maravedis the piece. This was to be performed by the veedores, 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 royal cedula dated 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 million pesos, divided into shares of two hundred pesos each; 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 his interest, the Company was to have the first refusal. It further possessed initially in cash a sum exceeding one hundred and twenty thousand pesos—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 making carros 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 six reales per yard, for twenty years. Similarly, all of its merchandise exported to America “in flotas, 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 fifty maravedis for each Castilian pound of sixteen 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, whether as 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 riot among 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 so strict 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 of esparto over 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 three reales vellon each pound of silk. To these were added a duty of tartil of seventeen maravedis per pound and duties of alcabalas and cientos, fixed at eleven reales thirty-two maravedís. There accrued from it a tax of fifteen reales fifteen maravedís for the king, and six reales, or thereabouts, for the ecclesiastical tithe, making together twenty-one reales fifteen maravedís, or about four shillings and sixpence the pound, which at that time sold only for thirty reales, 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 is imported 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 costly cendal (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 at the 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. At this 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 weight of 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 arranged in 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 of hiladillo, 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 description of the same industry by Jean-François Bourgoing, whose observations, evidently secured at first-hand, are worth translating in 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 nine reales and a quartillo, or nearly two livres seven francs per each Valencian pound of silk, which only weighs twelve ounces, and is worth at least fifteen livres when it is in the raw state. When the silk harvest has been scanty, as in the year 1784, it has been known to fetch eighty reales or twenty livres. This year, too, the yield of silk has been so small that 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 eight reales for twisting and three reales for dyeing in green, blue or other common colours; so that this material, ready to use, costs altogether about seventy-one reales the 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 sold by the load of ten arrobas; and the Valencian arroba, which is about equal to twenty-seven French pounds, cost, in 1783, about thirty sols 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 worse becomes 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.

“In the space of ten years the kingdom of Valencia has yielded six million pounds of silk, which makes a yearly average of six hundred thousand pounds; and as the whole of Spain produces a million pounds per annum, we see from this that Valencia alone supplies more than half of the entire quantity. The silks of Valencia are the finest of the whole Peninsula, and fit to be compared with the best of Europe generally, but the spinning is still imperfect, because in Spain there are not, as in France and elsewhere, houses where the women who spin are gathered together under the eye of an inspector to see that all the silk is spun evenly. In the kingdom of Valencia the spinning is distributed among several thousand hands, who introduce six, seven, eight, or even more ends in a thread of silk which should always have the same number; hence the unevennesses in the fabrics which are woven from them, while for the same reason we do not utilize for any delicate work the raw material which we import from Spain. The silk we employ for our costlier fabrics is of the kind which we import from Piedmont and the southern provinces of France. Also, for the last few years we have felt less need of the Valencian silk. The laws prohibiting the exportation of this Spanish silk have stimulated the cultivation of mulberry-trees in Languedoc, where the peasantry, alive to the profit which these trees could render them, have preferred them to other kinds for planting round their property. This is why, in the year 1783, French silk could be bought for a lower price than the Valencian silk purchased in that region, plus the dues levied upon its exportation. I know of a merchant who at this time enjoyed the privilege of exporting for six years a hundred thousand pounds free of all dues, but who throughout the year 1783 was unable to find a purchaser in France. Spain could perhaps remedy the egress of her raw material by further increasing (as, indeed, she daily does) the number of her looms, and by exporting a greater number of her products to her American possessions; but her silk-stuffs will never be perfected until she markets them in foreign countries, where the taste of her customers may tend to better that of her manufacturers.

“The silk raised in the kingdom of Valencia is estimated, during an average year, to be worth six or seven millions of piastres (nineteen to twenty-two millions of livres.) At the time of my visit to this city, she only employed one half this quantity, although her looms of every size amounted to four thousand. The rest, in spite of the prohibitions laid upon its extraction, is smuggled off to foreign countries, escaping, sometimes to France by way of Barcelona, and sometimes to Portugal by way of Seville and Extremadura. Nevertheless, there is probably more silk in Spain to-day than formerly, and measures have been earnestly adopted to encourage the industries which make use of it. For some time past, silk-looms have been scattered over the whole of Cataluña, and in the kingdoms of Granada, Cordova, Seville, etc., producing handkerchiefs, ribbons, and other stuffs in sufficient quantity to supply, or nearly so, the national market: nevertheless this still left a large market for our stocking-factories of Languedoc. The Spanish Government, by the law of 1778, limited itself to excluding these stockings from forming part of the foreign cargoes to the Colonies, but as they continued to be imported into Spain, this law was readily evaded, since it sufficed to stamp the French article with the mark of a Spanish factory. It would have required an excessive vigilance, almost a positive inquisition, to guard against a fraud of this kind, prompted by the avarice of traders. The Spanish Government next sought, by the law of 1785, to put a stop to it by totally excluding our silk stockings, and this measure, together with the establishment of a number of new looms in Spain, has produced an almost absolute stagnation in the market which our factories of Languedoc had formerly enjoyed in the Peninsula. But let me return now to the Valencian factories.

“This city has no one building in which might be performed the whole of the processes through which the silk must pass. Any person who wishes to examine them, must visit several workshops; and this was the course which we adopted, under the guidance of a manufacturer as intelligent as he is amiable, named Don Manuel Foz, a gentleman who has travelled extensively in order to perfect his knowledge of handling silk, and who, among other secrets, has brought from Constantinople the art of watering silken stuffs. As a reward for his activity, he has been appointed Intendente of all the factories of Valencia.

“There are hardly any merchants at Valencia who are not more or less concerned in silk-making: indeed, they look upon this industry as quite a point d'honneur. Some of them supply with silk no more than four or five looms, which work at their expense, while others have under their control as many as several hundred.

“After the silkworm has cleverly built its cell, the first thing to be done is to stifle it before it can pierce the cocoon in search of a new existence. For this purpose the cocoons are thrown into a moderately heated oven; and then, when once the worm is killed, they can be kept without being spun for as long as may be needed.