Chapter IV: Introduction (1)

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.

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

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]

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

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]

[3] _Elogio de la Reina Católica_, p. 374.

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."

[4] These are defined by the Count of Clonard as "a kind of clog
(_chapín_) with a cork sole, and which was introduced by the Moors
under the name _al-kork_."

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]

[5] Specifically, _tartari_ was a costly fabric, heavily embroidered.
Ducange considers that it came, or came originally, from Tartary.
We read of it twice in the _Chronicle of the Cid_, and again, in
the _Chronicle of Ferdinand the Fourth_:--"tiraron los paños de
marhega que tenia vestidos por su padre é vistiéronle unos paños
nobles de tartari."

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

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_.

[7] "An interesting parallel to the royal silk factory, or
D[=a]r-et-tir[=a]z of Kay-Kub[=a]d, and to that of the F[=a]timy
Khalif at Tinn[=i]s, is found in the similar institution at Palermo,
which owed its foundation to the Kelby Am[=i]rs who ruled Sicily as
vassals of the F[=a]timis in the ninth and tenth centuries, though
it maintained its special character and excellence of work under
the Norman kings. The factory was in the palace, and the weavers
were Mohammedans, as indeed is obvious from a glance at the famous
silk cloth preserved at Vienna, and called the "Mantle of Nürnberg,"
where a long Arabic inscription testifies to the hands that made it,
by order of King Roger, in the year of the Hijra 528, or
A.D. 1133."--Stanley Lane-Poole, _The Art of the Saracens in Egypt_,
p. 289.

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.

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.

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.

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_."

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."

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

[9] See particularly _Las Ordenanzas de los tejedores de seda de
Sevilla_ (officially proclaimed on March 2nd, 1502), and also _Las
Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy
leal, é imperial cuidad de Toledo_. (_Tit._ cxxxv: "silk-weavers.")

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-Khattib, 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.

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

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."

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

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.

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]

[12] Eguilaz Yanguas, _Les Peintures de l'Alhambra_.

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."

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.

[13] Don Martin de Ulloa, _Discurso sobre las fábricas de seda de
Sevilla_.

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.

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.