Chapter V: Introduction (2)

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]

[14] In former times, linens and cottons painted, stencilled, or stamped
with decorative patterns from an iron or boxwood matrix, were
considered to be luxurious fabrics, and are denounced as such in
the sumptuary pragmatic (quoted by Miquel y Badía) issued by Jayme
the Conqueror in A.D. 1234: "Item statuimos quod nos nec aliquis
subditus noster non portet vestes _incisas_, _listatas_, vel
trepatas."

Latterly, these kind of stuffs were made in great quantities at
Barcelona, and exported to other Spanish provinces, as well as to
America. "Several manufactures of printed linens are established
here," wrote Swinburne, in 1775, "but have not yet arrived at any
great elegance of design or liveliness of colour." The manuscript
(dated about A.D. 1810) attached to my copy of Pigal's plates of
Spanish costume, says that the _pañoleta_ or _fichu_ (neckerchief)
of the women of Cartagena in their gala-dress was at that time of
"mousseline blanche, quelquefois brodé, et três souvent n'est
qu'un mouchoir d'indienne des fabriques de Barcelonne, avec une
brodure en fleurs rouges, le fond blanc et parsemé de petits
bouquets." The same manuscript describes the dress of a cook at
Granada:--"Le jupon (_refajo_), qui est toujours três court, est
en hiver de laine avec une garniture au bas: en été il est en
indienne. Cette _indienne_ est une sorte de percale ou toile de
coton peinte, dont il y a plusieurs fabriques en Catalogne. On en
exportait autrefois une quantité, immense que l'on portait dans
les Amériques Espagnoles; c'est ce qui lui a fait donner le nom
d'indienne."

From the same source we learn respecting another cotton fabric,
which might easily be thought by the unwary reader of to-day to
have been of Spanish manufacture, that "l'habitant de Mahon fait
en été un grand usage de l'étoffe des Indes appelée _nankin_.
Cette étoffe n'est connue dans plusieurs parties de l'Espagne que
sous le nom de _Mahon_."

[15] In 1799 the Marquis of Monte-Fuerte declared the silk of Seville
to be of as fine a quality as that of Valencia and Carmona.
(_Discurso sobre el plantío de moreras en Sevilla y sus
inmediaciones._)

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 près 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.

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."

[16] Granada was especially renowned for her velvets (Plate vii.),
grounded or relieved, in the oriental manner, with gold or silver.

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."

[17] Similar companies were formed at Toledo, Zaragoza, Burgos, Seville,
and Zarza. For the Crown _cedula_, dated February 10th, 1748,
authorizing the Real Compañía de Comercio y Fábricas of Toledo,
see Larruga's _Memorias_, Vol. VII., p. 63.

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.

[18] _Toledo en el Siglo XVI._ Miquel y Badía says that in the fifteenth
century Toledo, together with Genoa and Venice, manufactured superb
velvets, coloured crimson, blue, purple, or yellow, and figured
with pineapples or pomegranates (Plate iv.). The latter tree and
fruit are commonly related, in Spain, with the city of _Granada_;
but quite apart from this, the pomegranate was formerly regarded as
a symbol of fecundity and life. (See Goblet d'Alviella, _La
Migration des Symboles_, p. 184, and also Madame Errera's
Catalogue, No. 50.) In these velvets the gold thread is woven with
consummate skill, and forms, in the costliest and most elaborate
specimens, a groundwork of exceedingly small rings. These fabrics
were used as hangings for beds and walls, as well as for the
clothing of great lords and ladies. Touching the use of silk for
certain articles of dress, an amusing story is told in the MS.
account of Valladolid, published by Gayangos in the _Revista de
España_. "One day, Don Pedro de Medicis is reported to have paid
a visit to a married lady, to whom he had presented some damask
curtains, and he was wearing at the time some taffeta hose which
made a creaking as he walked. The lady came out of her room, and,
finding him in one of the lower apartments, exclaimed, 'Why do you
come here at such an hour, and with that silk on you which creaks
so loudly? Take care my husband does not hear it.' Whereto the
gentleman replied; 'Good God, madam, is it possible that the two
hundred yards of damask which I gave you for that curtain have
made no noise at all, but that a mere four yards of simple taffeta
about my breeches should put you in such consternation?'"

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]

[19] "The mulberry of Valencia is the _white_, as being most suitable to
a well-watered plain. In Granada they give the preference to the
_black_, as thriving well in elevated stations, as more durable,
more abundant in leaves, and yielding a much finer and more
valuable silk. But then it does not begin bearing till it is about
twenty years of age. In this province they reckon that five trees
should produce two pounds of silk.

"I had the curiosity to examine their method of feeding the
silkworms. These industrious spinners are spread upon wicker
shelves, which are placed one above the other, all round, and
likewise in the middle of each apartment, so as to leave room only
for the good woman to pass with their provisions. In one house I
saw the produce of six ounces of seed, and was informed that to
every ounce, during their feeding season, they allow sixty
_arrobas_ of leaves, valued at two pounds five. Each ounce of seed
is supposed to yield ten pounds of silk, at twelve ounces to the
pound. March 28th, the worms began to hatch, and May 22nd they went
up to spin. On the eleventh day, from the time that they were
hatched, they slept; and on the fourteenth, they awoke to eat
again, receiving food twice a day till the twenty-second day.
Having then slept a second time, without interruption, for three
days, they were fed thrice a day; and thus alternately they
continued eating eight days and sleeping three, till the
forty-seventh day; after which they ate voraciously for ten
days, and not being stinted, consumed sometimes from thirty to
fifty _arrobas_ in four and twenty hours. They then climbed up
into rosemary bushes, fixed for that purpose between the shelves,
and began to spin.

"Upon examination, they appear evidently to draw out two threads
by the same operation, and to glue these together, covering them
with wax. Thismay be proved by spirit of wine, which will dissolve
the wax, and leave the thread. Having exhausted her magazine, the
worm changes her form and becomes a nymph, until the seventy-first
day from the time that the little animal was hatched, when she
comes forth with plumage, and having found her mate, begins to
lay her eggs. At the end of six days from this period of existence,
having answered the end of their creation, they both lie down and
die. This would be the natural progress; but, to preserve the silk,
the animal is killed by heat, and the cones being thrown into
boiling water, the women and children wind off the
silk."--Townsend; _Journey through Spain in the years 1786 and
1787_; Vol. III., pp. 264-266.

"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.

"In order to strip them of their covering of silk, they are thrown into hot water, after which the women workers pick up, and with surprising quickness, the threads of several of them, join them, and deal them out, thus joined, on wheels constructed for this object. On the design of the wheels depends the degree of thoroughness with which the silk is spun; but those which are employed in Spain are generally the most imperfect, as I shall presently explain.