Chapter XIV: In the Industries

INTELLECTUAL GREATNESS OF MOORS AND JEWS INDUCED BY THEIR MATERIAL
PROSPERITY--REMARKABLE DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE--NEW DISCOVERIES
IN EVERY INDUSTRY--MINING A SPECIALTY--THE MAGNET. MARINER'S
COMPASS MECHANICAL APPARATUS. SPREAD OF COMMERCE LEADS TO GENERAL
AWAKENING OF EUROPE THAT ENDS MIDDLE AGES.

Hark! Again the doleful knell is tolling. With greater speed and in larger numbers the people are hurrying to the public square. The procession of priests, chanting hymns of victory and imprecatory prayers, is starting towards the auto-da-fe. The victims supplicate for death more piteously than before. Hark! Again, and with greater alarm, the agonized voice of civilization calls unto us: Haste ye, the furnaces are heated! The pyres are prepared! The massive gates of the gloomy inquisition dungeons are open. The instruments of torture are ready for the cruel work of death. Haste ye, the moments are few, gather whatever knowledge there still remains to be collected concerning the wondrous achievements of the Jew and Moor, as speedily as you can; tarry, and flame and sword and rack and expulsion will hurl all knowledge of it into oblivion forever!

Let us heed the warning and briefly state what yet remains to be told. You have 'ere this surmised what we are about to prove, the imperishable monuments which the Moors and Jews have erected to their name and fame in the arts and sciences, in literature and philosophy bear witness, not only to their great intellectual wealth, but also to vast material possessions. Wherever learning is zealously fostered there wealth exists, and where wealth abounds, there agriculture and commerce and industry must have had prior existence.

Thus it was in Moorish Spain. Never before, nor ever since, did Spain enjoy a prosperity equal to that which blessed her lands, when Moorish and Jewish skill and diligence and enterprise made her, in glaring contrast with the rest of Europe, the granary and the industrial and the commercial center of the world. We have not yet forgotten how, when in the introductory chapters of this volume, we thought ourselves back some eight or ten centuries in the world's history, and hastened across the wild Atlantic to learn of the condition of Europe and her people, how spell-bound we stood, as we suddenly beheld wonders and beauties in Spain, scarcely equalled to-day in all Europe. And when we reflected upon the present condition of Spain, among the poorest of all European countries, its people proverbially indolent and ignorant, we had to assure ourselves, again and again, that it was Spain, indeed, which suddenly disclosed to us these unexpected, and still unequalled, proofs of industry and learning and cultured taste. Nor have we yet forgotten, when gliding upon the majestic Guadalquivir along fertile valleys, and luxuriant fields and graceful groves, and fragrant parks, and glittering palaces, and busy factories, and restless mines, we passed out of Spain, and visited the other countries of Europe how dreary and wretched and appalling the scenes were which met our gaze everywhere. Scarcely a city anywhere. Nothing that could, even with the broadest stretch of leniency, be designated as agriculture. Everywhere pathless deserts and howling wastes, and death-exhaling swamps. Wretched, windowless and chimneyless and floorless hovels sheltered man and beast under the same roof. Everywhere men with squalid beards, and women with hair unkempt and matted with filth, and both clothed in garments of untanned skin, that were kept on the body till they dropped in pieces of themselves, a loathsome mass of vermin, stench and rags. Everywhere beans and vetches and roots and bark of trees and horseflesh furnished largely the means of supporting life. Nowhere even a trace or semblance of industry. Everywhere the word commerce an unintelligible term. Such was the condition of the rest of Europe when Spain was basking in the sunshine of a most wonderful state of prosperity under the skill and enterprise of the Jew and the Moor.

From the very first both directed their attention to agriculture. The fertile valleys and the luxuriant fields, and the vine-clad hills, and the fruitful orchards, and the flowry meads and the sweet-scented pasture lands of Palestine bear eloquent testimony to Jewish skill in agriculture. The advice which the prophet Jeremiah had sent to the Jewish captives of Babylon: "Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens and eat the fruits of them, ... and increase in your captivity and not diminish. Seek the welfare of the city whither you are carried as captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the welfare thereof shall ye prosper and have peace."[34] This excellent advice the Jews applied to themselves, and faithfully followed, wherever they lived in exile, and wherever they were suffered to dwell in peace and promote the country's welfare. The Arab-Moors were no less devoted to this noble pursuit. When their warfare was over they beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning knives. Their motto was: "He who planteth and soweth, and maketh the earth bring forth fruit for man and beast, hath done alms that shall be reckoned to him in heaven." These two races devoted themselves to the cultivation of Spain with their hereditary love for the occupation, and with the skillful application of the experience, which they had gathered in other lands where they had dwelled or where they had established their power. By them agriculture in Spain was carried to a height, which until the invention of machinery was not surpassed in Europe. As early as the tenth century the revenue of agriculture of Moorish Spain alone amounted to nearly $6,000,000, more than the entire revenue of all the rest of Europe at that time. The ruins of their noble works for the irrigation of the soil, their great treaties on irrigation and crops, and improved breeds of cattle, on grafting and gardening, and their code of laws regulating agriculture, which still exist, still attest their skill and industry and put to shame the ignorance and indolence of their Spanish successors. Many plants were introduced in Europe, and successfully cultivated by them, which, after the expulsion of the Jews and Moors, and the discovery of America, Spain lost and neglected, such as rice and sugar cane (_soukhar_), as they called it, saffron and mulberry trees, ginger, myrrh, bananas and dates. The Spanish names of many plants show their origin, and some have traveled even to us, such as the apricot, from "_albaric aque_," the artichoke from "_alca chofa_" cotton from "_al godon_."[35] They gave Xeres and Malaga their celebrated wine, which has maintained its reputation to this day.

[34] Jeremiah xxix: 5-8

[35] "Christians and Moors of Spain," by C. M. Yonge, chapter
x.

The mining industries, too, were zealously fostered by them. Spain was and is a widely metalliferous country. Her hidden treasures were known already to the Phoenicians, Carthagenians and Romans, and were mined by them with great profit. The gold and silver of Solomon's temple come through Hiram of Tyre from Tarshish, which was Southern Spain. But the dark ages had set in and with them Europe's universal sloth. When the Moors entered Spain the ancient mines had been, for the most part, abandoned. They revived this industry, and with a zeal which may best be told by the existence to-day of 5,000 Moorish shafts--distinguished from the former by being square instead of round--in one district (Jaen) alone gold was found in large quantities, and it was one of their leading articles for manufacture and export. They gave us the Arabic word "_carat_" which we still use in speaking of the quality of gold. They opened the inexhaustible vein of mercury which they worked with great profit and with such skill, that it still forms the largest deposit in the world, yielding still one-half of the quicksilver now in use, and being a government monopoly, this one remnant of Moorish and Jewish skill and industry, alone, still produces an annual revenue of $1,250,000. In addition to these, lead, copper, iron, alum, red and yellow ochre were mined in great quantity. Precious stones also were in great abundance--the beryl, ruby, golden marcasite, agates, garnets. Pearls were found on the coast near Barcelona. Building stones, marbles, and jaspers of all colors, were uninterruptedly quarried in the mountains.

The manufacturing industries kept pace in their success with that of mining and agriculture. With the Jews a knowledge of silk culture came into Europe, and with the assistance of Moorish skill it became one of the leading industries and one of the most profitable exports. All Europe, and the greater portions of Asia and Africa, looked to the Jews and Moors of Spain for their fine fabrics of silk and cotton and woolen, for all the wonders of the loom and the skilful and delicate patterns of filigree work in gold and silver. The carpet manufacture of the Moslems reached the excellence which it has maintained to our own day.

They made glass out of a silicious clay and used it for fashioning vessels, and also in glazing those beautiful tiles--for which Valencia is still famous--called _azulejos_, which they employed in embelishing floors and wainscoting. The best leather was made by the Jews and Arab-Moors in Cordova, and hence Spanish leather is still called _Cordovan_, which has given to English shoemakers their name of "Cordwainers." The still celebrated "Morocco" leather--the secret of its manufacture having been carried to Morocco, after their expulsion from Spain,--speaks to this day of Moorish and Jewish skill in this branch of industry. The "Toledo Blade," famous in the past and famous still, the invention of, and the plentiful and lucrative manufacture of cotton and linen paper, that blessed boon to civilization, which alone made the printing press possible and beneficial, the introduction of gunpowder and artillery, of the magnet and the mariner's compass, of mechanical and scientific apparatus and instruments, these and many more still speak in eloquent terms of Moorish and Jewish industry in Spain, and, more eloquently still, they tell the tale of Spanish ingratitude.[36]

[36] For details see Copee's "Conquest of Spain," volume II
chapter VIII and Prescott's "Ferdinand and Isabella," volume
I, chapter VIII.

The Jews were the most skillful physicians, the ablest
financiers, and among the most profound philosophers; while
they were only second to the Moors in the cultivation of
natural science. They were also the chief interpreters to
western Europe of Arabian learning. But their most important
service, and that with which we are now most especially
concerned, was in sustaining commercial activity. For
centuries they were its only representatives. By travelling
from land to land till they became intimately acquainted both
with the wants and the productions of each, by practising
money-lending on a large scale and with consumate skill, by
keeping up a constant and secret correspondence and organising
a system of exchange that was then unparalleled in Europe, the
Jews succeeded in making themselves absolutely indispensable
to the Christian community, and in accumulating immense
wealth and acquiring immense influence in the midst of their
sufferings. When the Italian republics rose to power, they
soon became the centres to which the Jews flocked; and under
the merchant governments of Leghorn, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa,
a degree of toleration was accorded that was indeed far from
perfect, but was at last immeasurably greater than elsewhere.
(From Lecky's "Rationalism in Europe," part II, Chapter VI.).

From the port of Barcelona the Spanish khalifs had carried on
an enormous commerce, and they with their coadjutors--Jewish
merchants--had adopted or originated many commercial
inventions, which, with matters of pure science, they had
transmitted to the trading communities of Europe. The art
of book-keeping by double entry was thus brought into Upper
Italy. The different kinds of insurance were adopted, though
strenuously resisted by the clergy. They opposed fire and
marine insurance, on the ground that it was a tempting
of Providence. Life insurance was regarded as an act of
interference with the consequences of God's will. Houses for
lending money on interest, that is, banking establishments,
were bitterly denounced, and especially was indignation
excited against the taking of high rates of interests, which
was stigmatized as usury--a feeling existing in some backward
communities up to the present day. Bills of exchange in the
present form were adopted, the office of the public notary
established, and protests for dishonored obligations resorted
to. Indeed, it may be said, with but little exaggeration,
that the commercial machinery now used was thus introduced.
(Draper's "Conflict between Religion and Science," Chapter XI,
pg. 317-318)

"The isolation in which the Jews were forced to live, and the
prohibitions long continued, against acquiring real estate,
directed their speculations toward commerce and manufactures,
in which they soon obtained incontestable superiority....
Nothing is more curious to study than the commercial condition
of that nation which had no territory of its own, nor ports,
nor armies, and which, constantly tacking about on an agitated
sea, with contrary winds, at last arrived in port with rich
cargoes and immense wealth. The Jews traded because it was
rarely permitted them to employ themselves in any other way
with security. While the multiplicity of toll-houses and the
tyranny of the feudal lords rendered all trade impossible
except that of the petty tradesmen of the market-towns and
cities, the Jews, more bold, more mobile, were dreaming of
vaster operations, and were working silently to bind together
continents, to bring together kingdoms. They avoided the
highways and the castles, carefully concealing their real
opulence and their secret transactions under the appearances
of poverty. They went great distances for rare products of the
remote countries, and brought them within reach of well-to-do
consumers. By wandering about and traveling from country to
country they had acquired an exact acquaintance with the needs
of all places; they knew where to buy and where to sell.
Some samples and a notebook sufficed them for their most
important operations. They corresponded with each other on
the strength of engagements which their interest obliged them
to respect, in view of the enemies of every sort by whom they
were surrounded. Commerce has lost the trace of the ingenious
inventions which were the result of their efforts; but it is
to their influence that it owes the rapid progress of which
history shows us the brilliant phenomenon in the midst of
the horrors of feudal darkness. Insensibly, the Jews were
absorbing all the money, since this was the kind of property
which they could acquire and keep safely.... For more than
five hundred years, it is in the history of that nation that
we must study the progress of commerce and the more or less
venturesome attempts through which it has risen to the rank
of political power.... The Jews were the depositaries of
the finest cloths known, and they traded in them at immense
profits: they extended the use and at the same time the demand
for them into castles and into abbeys. They also engrossed the
trade in jewelry and in gold and silver bullion. Feudalism
disturbed these lucrative occupations less than one might
suppose: the lords put upon them strict conditions, but they
had the good sense to treat them with respect. Besides in
the midst of the general terror which continually hovered
around all highways and all travelers, the Jews, armed with
safe-conducts, traveled all over Europe without inquietude,
and in the tenth and eleventh centuries disposed like
sovereigns of all the commerce of France. At that period, they
had already greatly simplified commercial proceedings, and
their correspondence would have done honor to the most able
merchants of our great cities.

The appearance of the tradesmen of Lombardy, Tuscany, and
other parts of Italy completed the work of the Jews and gave
an energetic impulse to the commerce of the middle ages.
The latter, from that time, traded in everything, and put
in circulation real and personal property, such as horses,
lands and houses. The historian Rigord goes so far as to say
that the Jews were, at that time, real proprietors of half
the kingdom.... It is also claimed that it was at this time
that the first Bills of Exchange appeared, the invention of
which some trace to about the seventh century, and others,
only to the middle of the twelfth. It is a point which has not
yet been cleared up, and which is not of so much consequence
as some have supposed. The date of such a discovery, even
if it could be authentically fixed, would be of interest
simply as a matter of curiosity; but it appears destined to
remain forever in doubt. It is thought, and with reason, that
the invention is rather due to the Italian traders than to
the Jewish brokers of this time, the latter not having had
occasion as soon as the others to devote themselves to trade
between different places, which probably suggested the idea.
The very name of Letter of Exchange, which was primitively
Italian, seems to indicate their true authorship; and the
first city where they were used, Lyons, then the entrepot
of Italy, is a further indication. It is probable that the
Lombards and the Jews had an equal part in inventing them,
and divined, from the beginning, the important consequences
from their use.[36a] These ingenious contrivers later entered
into a strife, and the history of the Italian republics of the
middle ages is full of the debates which arose between them
on the subject of privileges which some wished to exercise to
the exclusion of others. We see the Jews become intendants,
stewards, procurators, bankers, and even agents in marriages,
according as they are more or less forcibly driven from all
the regular commercial positions by the bulls of the Popes or
by the jealousy of competitors. Everything thus contributed
to narrow them down to a vicious circle, from which they can
only escape by usury and money negotiations. When envy has
forced them to abandon a city, the interest of the inhabitants
calls them back; their capital has become so necessary to
their industrial cities that the orders of the authorities
are disregarded to prevent the Jews carrying it elsewhere.
Moreover, soon houses for loaning money are started even in
the villages; and the Jews of Tuscany direct from a central
point a multitude of branch-houses of their establishments
at Florence and Pisa. Their opulence and their magnificence
surpassed imagination, and aroused against them fanatical
adversaries. We know the history of that famous Bernardin
de Feltre, who carried his enthusiasm so far as to preach a
crusade against them, and who on every occasion showed himself
their most implacable enemy. He pursued them everywhere as
usurers thirsting for the blood of the people, and, to ruin
their establishments, he conceived the idea of opposing them
by the formation of those houses of loaning on pledges, which
are called _monts-de-piete._ At the beginning, everything
was free in them, and the sums lent were without interest.
Moreover, their success was prodigious, and most of the cities
of Italy had their _monts-de-piete_, which were one day to
surpass in usurious exactions the boldest operations of the
Jews.... However these _monts-de-piete_ could not fill the
place of the establishments of the Jews, and this circumstance
proves with what shrewdness the latter had truly divined the
wants of the money circulation. Although _monts-de-piete_
loaned money almost without interest, the formalities which
it was necessary to undergo in order to have a right to
their help, the inevitable delays in their administration,
the necessity of proving the legitimate possession of the
articles pledged, and above all, the obligation on the part
of depositors to make known their names, soon kept away
borrowers, who could obtain funds at any time, in secret and
without formalities, from the Jewish bankers. Rich and poor,
lords and villeins, hastened to them, and their credit was so
great at Leghorn, in the times of the Medicis, that the saying
became proverbial: "_It is better to beat the Grand-duke than
a Jew_." Pope Sixtus Fifth had opened again to them all the
sources of wealth which his predecessors had closed; their
goods were even exempt from every toll, the _sacra monte della
pieta_ ceased to compete with them, when the Christians in
charge had surpassed the abuses of their rivals. After ten
years of its existence, the _monts-de-piete_ had become what
they are to-day, open pits under the steps of misfortune
rather than asylums to escape it.... Everything then seems to
warrant the belief that the Jews exercise a notable influence
on the course of political economy in Europe, by keeping
in charge, in the midst of feudal anarchy, the commercial
traditions destined to become perfected and refined in the
atmosphere of the fifteenth century. It is to the persecutions
of which they were victims that we are indebted for the
first attempts at credit and the system of circulation. They
alone, perhaps, by concentrating on trade in gold and silver
an attention which the prejudices of their contemporaries
prevented them from giving to anything else, prepared the
way for the great monetary revolution which the discovery of
the mines in America and the establishment of European banks
were to accomplish in the world. Thus the luminous trace of
the future shines and is preserved, in the midst even of the
darkest events.

[36a]--"History of Political Economy in Europe," by Jerome
Adolphe Blanqui Chap. XV.

This diligence and success in agriculture and in the industries made commerce necessarily very active and lucrative. The ports swarmed with vessels of traffic. The Jews and Moors of Spain maintained a merchant marine of thousands of ships. They had their factories and warehouses and consuls in all centers of industry. Their exports were very large.

The Jews, who had been compelled to wander the wide world over had acquired a most perfect geographical knowledge, which was serviceable to them now. It was through them that the existence of the Cape of Good Hope was made known in Europe. It was through Averroes that the attention of Columbus was drawn to his subject of finding a short route to the Indies. Their commerce opened the tide of discovery by navigation. Moorish and Jewish industry sought foreign markets and found them, too, from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast of Mozambique, and eventually from the kingdom of Granada to the new world. Granada, especially in the words of the historian, became the common city of all nations. The reputation of its citizens for trustworthiness was such that their bare word was more relied on than a written contract is now among us, to which a Catholic bishop adds: "Moorish integrity is all that is necessary to make a good Christian."[37]

[37] Conde's "History of the Arabs of Spain," volume III,
chapter XXVI.

The position of the Moors and Jews of Spain in the industries may, therefore, be briefly summarized thus, a prosperous state of commerce arose never known before, and in the southern part of Europe never equalled since. Farther and farther this commerce pushed its interests, and more and more busy became the industries at home, and greater and greater grew their opulence. Gradually the rest of Europe awakened from its lethargy. Moorish and Jewish toil infused life and ambition into its people. Italy, Portugal, France and England began to compete. New markets became necessary. New discoveries followed, and with the general activity and prosperity which ensued, and the learning which it fostered, it dispelled the mists of ignorance, the middle ages disappeared and modern history made its appearance upon the world's stage. So glorious was the result of Moorish and Jewish industry. How Europe rewarded them in return for all their labors, let the following chapters speak.