Chapter VI: Introduction (3)

"I have already said that the slip of silk should be drawn from at least four cocoons, and even then it only serves for making slender fabrics, such as taffeta or ribbon. We were shown, indeed, a skein which was assured to contain no more than two cocoons; but so slight a slip is of no use at all. Most of them are made from seven or eight cocoons, and two of the former are joined in order to form a thread sufficient to be placed upon the loom.

"My readers are sure to know that all woven fabrics consist of two distinct parts, the woof and the warp. The woof is that which is passed by the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other, and which is enchased between the two surfaces formed by the warp. As the woof is subjected to more wear and tear than the warp, it should be stouter. For this reason each of the two ends of which it is composed is twisted separately before the two are twisted together, while for the warp the latter of these processes is sufficient. The result of this difference is that, when looked at beneath the microscope, the thread of the woof has an uneven look, as though it were a small cable, while that of the warp looks flat and smooth, and is therefore adapted to reflect the light, receiving the shiny look which makes a silk-stuff so attractive.

"But the beauty of these fabrics depends, above all else, upon the way in which the silk is divided as it is drawn from the cocoon. This first stage of the spinning is performed in one or other of three ways, according to the kind of wheel which is employed for it. The method which the Spaniards have adopted from an early period has the following drawback; that the small threads of six, seven, and eight cocoons which are stripped at the same time, go to form a single thread, and are deposited upon a small spindle without the thread rubbing against another one, which friction serves to lay the little hairs which bristle up, so that the slip of silk thus formed retains a hairy nap and is easily frayed. In the Piedmontese method, on the other hand, each slip is joined to another, and is not drawn apart until it has been twisted round it four or five times.

"The third method, known as that of Vaucanson, is more expensive than the one last mentioned. In the wheel invented by Vaucanson, the two silk-slips are reunited after the first twisting, in order to be twisted once again. This operation is called the 'double _croissade_.'

"If these threads, thus placed on bobbins, are intended for the woof, they are enchased perpendicularly in a machine consisting of several compartments, in which they are twisted separately. Thence they are transferred to another machine, in which they are twisted all together; after which they are ready for the loom. Those which are destined for the web are not twisted (as I have explained above) until the moment when they are united. Both at Valencia and at Talavera de la Reina these machines, so precious to the weaver's craft, and which economise manual toil, are not unknown.[20]

[20] They certainly were not unknown at Valencia. I have before me a
copy of the work, _Disertacion descriptiva de la Hilaza de la Seda,
segun el antiguo modo de hilar y el nuevo llamado de Vaucanson_,
written by the priest Francisco Ortells y Gombau, and published at
Valencia in 1783, by order of the Royal Council of Commerce and
Agriculture. This book, which clearly sets forth the superiority
of Vaucanson's method over those which had preceded it, states
that at first the Valencians were strongly opposed to the
Vaucanson wheel, believing that it caused a loss and waste of
silk. Probably the real reason was that it prevented the
manufacturers from adding spurious weight to the silk by mixing it
with oil. This practice, says Ortells, was then "so widespread an
evil in the kingdom of Valencia, that there is hardly anybody who
does not resort to it: notwithstanding it has been so often
prohibited by His Majesty, yet openly, where all the world may
witness, do the workers spin with much oil added to the silk."

The Vaucanson form of wheel was also more expensive. In the region
of Valencia its cost was about thirty _pesos_, that of the older
wheels being only fifteen or sixteen _pesos_. However, this
difficulty was not insuperable, for in the year 1779 the Royal
Council of Commerce presented a hundred and twenty Vaucanson
wheels to the peasants who had raised a minimum crop of a hundred
pounds of silk, requiring, in return, that the recipients of the
gift should spin not less than fifty pounds of silk per annum.

"At the latter of these towns I had already seen a single toothed-wheel, which set in motion up to a thousand of these tiny bobbins on which are wound the twisted slips of silk. The wheels I saw at Valencia were smaller, because in this city there is not, as there is at Talavera, a royal factory self-contained within a single building. At Valencia each manufacturer, in order to carry out these various processes, requires to deal with workmen and machines distributed through several quarters of the town, and chooses from among them such as he best prefers.

"Nothing can be simpler than the working of these silk-twisting machines, when once the toothed-wheel has set them going. The perpendicular movement of all these little bobbins is looked after by women, and even children.[21]

[21] At the time when Vaucanson's wheels began to be used in Spain, silk
was spun by men all over the Peninsula, except in the immediate
neighbourhood of Valencia (Orteils; _Hilaza de la Seda_, pp. 134
_et seq._) In every other region devoted to this industry such as
the valley of the Jucar and the Huertas of Orihuela and Murviedro,
as well as in the factories of Toledo, Seville, Granada, Cordova,
Jaén, Baeza, Talavera, and Priego, the spinning was performed by
men exclusively. Women, however, were often engaged in harvesting
the cocoons.

"If they should happen to clog, a touch of the finger disengages them. If one of the slips should break, the harm is mended in a trice: the practised fingers of the machinist pick up the broken ends with marvellous despatch, tie them together by an imperceptible knot, and the bobbin which was thus delayed loses no time in overtaking its neighbours.

"The slips of silk, before being twisted two by two, are put through another process which I ought to mention. When they are still in skeins they are spread upon a large tub in which is a quantity of viscous substances heated to boiling point, the gases from which tend to make them adhere to one another. This is termed _passer à la brève_.

"Thence they are removed to the machine for twisting them. The silk, on issuing from this machine, is called organzine; and it is only when it is in this state that it can be exported from Piedmont, where the twisting process was better executed than elsewhere, until the time when it was rendered yet more perfect by Vaucanson.[22] This clever mechanic has combined all possible advantages relating to the business of the silk-weaver. His system, and no other, is practised in the Lyons factories; but these wheels _à double croissade_ are only available for silk produced in France; since that which is exported from abroad and which is principally used in these factories, requires to be reduced to organzine before it can again be taken out of the country.

[22] "I should here remark that the silk which is spun and twisted
according to the method of Vaucanson, forms a fabric a third part
closer and stronger than ordinary silk-stuffs."

"In this respect Spain possesses a sensible advantage over other manufacturing nations; since she raises a greater quantity of silk than she is able to consume, and could easily put it through the most advanced and perfect processes; in spite of which she has clung for ages to her faulty method. The present government has attacked this method by the only means efficient to bring about a change; that is, the slow but certain influence of persuasion. In 1781 the Count of Floridablanca contracted with a French merchant settled in Madrid, that he should supply a hundred _tours_ of the Vaucanson pattern for spinning silk, first to the Murcian factories (of which province the Count was a native), next to the Valencian, and subsequently to any others that might wish for them; and with this object he granted to the merchant in question the privilege of exporting, free of duty, six hundred thousand pounds of silk in six years. Nevertheless, it is possible that this measure may yet remain fruitless for many years owing to the apathy of the Spanish manufacturers, who were loth to use a finer, closer quality of silk, because it must be woven with greater care owing to its containing three ends instead of two, the work being greater on this account without a corresponding increase in the gain. It has also been found necessary to employ Frenchmen in the earliest trials made in Spain of this new method.

"The success of the Spaniards should not be counted on, if we are to judge of it by a factory, which was founded some years since at _La Milanesa_, a league's distance from Valencia, by an intelligent man named La Payessa.[23]

[23] This man, Joseph Lapayese or La Payessa, did not initiate
Vaucanson's method in this region. He succeeded a Frenchman named
Reboul, who, in 1769, and holding privileges from the Crown, began
to work with Vaucanson wheels at Vilanesa, near Valencia--the same
place which Bourgoing calls _La Milanesa_. Both the king and his
minister of finance, Don Miguel de Muzquiz, were keenly interested
in these experiments, and Muzquiz, who owned an estate near the
town of Sueca, in the same neighbourhood, imported four more of
the new wheels there, under Reboul's direction. This craftsman,
however, was not successful. Lapayese, who came after him and
enjoyed the same Crown privileges, made considerably better
progress, his efforts being seconded by the Royal Junta, the
archbishop, and other bodies or individuals of Valencia, who
awarded prizes of wheels and money to the best workers in the new
style.

"He introduced the method of Vaucanson, but when I went to see his factory he had not seen his way to recover the money which this improvement had cost him. He employed barely two hundred persons for the most important work; nothing more was done than to spin the silk, divide it, and convert it into organzine. Thus treated, it cost from fifty to sixty _reales_ more per pound than that which is prepared according to the Spanish method, so that its success was but small.

"I shall not describe in detail either the method of dyeing the silk, or that of weaving it. The first of these operations is readily imagined; the second is hard to understand, and still more so to explain, unless one is assisted by engravings. I will merely observe that all silk is dyed in skeins, just before it enters the loom. If it be required occasionally to dye it after it is woven, this is only when the silk is spotted, or when the dyeing of the skeins has proved a failure. At the time of my visit to Valencia, there were a hundred and seventeen master-dyers in that city, but not all of them were working.

"The stuffs in which the factories of Valencia are most successful are principally of the smooth sort; they also make there handsome damask _brochés_ with large flowers for wall-hangings; but generally all that is undertaken is by order of the Court, Madrid, and the provinces. The Valencians follow as closely as possible the rapidity with which the French designs are changed, and those who profess to invent new ones are but copying the French ones in a greater or less degree. Notwithstanding, the Valencian Fine-Arts Academy is taking serious steps to form designers, and a school has been founded which has already developed able pupils--amongst others, a young man called Ferrers, who had died a short while before our arrival at the city, and some of whose designs of flowers we had occasion to admire.

"But the process in which the Valencians particularly excel is that of watering stuffs, which M. Foz has rendered absolutely perfect. He gave us a clear account of this process, which consists in passing a cylinder over the stuff to be watered, this cylinder being pressed upon by a heavy mass moved to and fro by a mule which draws a lever round and round. The stuff is folded in the manner of a closed jalousie, and these folds require to be often varied so as to distribute the undulations evenly. M. Foz admitted that the shape and the arrangement of these undulations are more or less a matter of chance, but he proved to us that it is possible to influence them to some extent by moistening the stuff in a certain manner and direction, and this is the particular secret which he alone possesses in the whole of Spain. The excellence of this method is demonstrated by the beauty of the watered silk which issues from these presses. M. Foz himself set us to judge of this by asking us to compare the blue ribbon of the Order of Charles the Third, watered by himself, with those of the Order of the Holy Spirit. The comparison, I must admit, was far from advantageous to these last."

The subsequent vicissitudes of the Valencian silk trade are indicated by Laborde, who wrote, some few years later than the conscientious and observant author of the _Nouveau Voyage en Espagne_:--

"The mulberry-trees are of great importance; the fields of Valencia are covered with them, particularly in the environs of that town, in the dale of Elda, in the county of Carlet, in almost all the places situated on the sea coast, etc. There are white mulberry-trees, which are lopped every two years.

"The leaves of these trees serve as nourishment to silkworms, which are raised almost everywhere in the kingdom of Valencia. Algemesi, Alcira, Carcagente, Castillo of San Felipe, the county of Carlet, Undasuar, Gandia, Denia, Orihuela, and all the villages near the sea are places which produce the greatest quantity.

"The silk made from them is the finest in Spain. It would be equal to the best and finest silks of Europe, if the Valencians, in spite of the vivacity of their imagination, did not obstinately persist in their old routine in the skeining; for in the skein they put an undetermined number of threads. The government has hired a man who has the most experience in this kind of work; but in vain does he endeavour to instruct them, since the manufacturers continue their bad custom just the same. The quantity of silk wound annually is, on an average, about 1,500,000 pounds of twelve Valencian ounces (1,312,500 pounds of sixteen ounces avoirdupois). It is commonly sold raw for fifty reals of vellon a Valencian pound, which gives a total of 75,000,000 reals of vellon (£731,250)....

"Silk is twisted in different places in the kingdom of Valencia, for which purpose machines and mills are established at Gandia, San Felipe, Carcagente, Orihuela, and Valencia. The most important establishment of this kind is at La Milanesa, near the last mentioned town. Nevertheless, these machines are not able to furnish as much as the manufactures of the country require. Part of the silk is sent to Priego and Toledo in Andalusia, whence it is returned into the kingdom of Valencia to be worked....

"A great many impediments are thrown in the way of the exportation of silk, which is only allowed for six months after the harvest. If in that period the national manufacturers want it, they are at liberty to take it from the merchants who have bought it, on reimbursing them the purchase-money together with six per cent. interest. The consequence is that the merchants, uncertain whether they will be allowed to export the silk which they have purchased, no longer take any foreign commissions for it, and so this branch of exportation has fallen. Besides this, a duty has been laid upon the silk sent out of the kingdom, of nine reals of vellon and one quartillo (1s. 11-1/4d. sterling) on every pound of twelve Valencian ounces, which is almost a fifth of its value. This is another obstacle to the exportation of it. A very small quantity, twisted and dyed, is sent into Portugal.

"Generally 1,500,000 pounds of silk are made annually, of which 1,100,000 are consumed in the province, and 400,000 pounds are exported to Talavera de la Reina, Requeña, Toledo, Granada, Seville, Priego, and Cataluña. From this results a product of 20,000,000 reals (£208,333, 6s.)."

Of the city of Valencia, Laborde wrote:--

"The manufactories of silk are the most considerable. They employ nearly 25,000 persons, and make taffetas, serges, silks, satins, plain damasks, striped, printed, of one colour and of mixed colours, full velvets, flowered velvets, plain and of various colours. The plain stuffs are those in which they succeed best. There are also fine damasks made and worked with large flowers."

According to the same writer, the manufacture at Valencia of silk stockings, galloons, silk ribbon, handkerchiefs, and sashes revived to such an extent, that in the year 1799 the looms for producing these articles were 423 more than they had been in 1769. "There are 3618 silk looms, which work about 800,000 pounds of silk annually; the handkerchiefs, sashes, and other little articles of lace consume 100,000 pounds."

Equally as instructive is Laborde's account of Barcelona.[24] After remarking that the decay in her manufactures lasted from the end of the sixteenth century till the middle of the eighteenth, he continues:--"They are at present in a very flourishing state, and are more numerous and varied than ever.... There are 524 looms of silk stuffs, and 2700 of ribbons and silk galloon. The silk works consist of taffetas, twilled and common silks, satins, and velvets of every kind and colour. These are mixed with gold and silver. Gold cloths and brocades are also made there.[25] The manufactures are not carried on by companies, but dispersed among the workmen themselves, by which perhaps the qualities may in some degree be injured. It is remarked that the stuffs would be better if they were closer, for their texture is commonly loose; they are also different in the gloss, which is seldom fine, and is never equal to that in the manufactures of France. Another fault in all these stuffs is the imperfect preparation of the silk, which leaves it nearly always shaggy: the cause of this is the silk being spun or twisted in an uneven manner. The same unpleasant effect is observed in the silk stockings. They cannot be fine, their stitches being uneven, and often large and shaggy. They do not last long, and are as dear as the French stockings after the duty on their entrance into Spain has been paid.

[24] The art of weaving silk appears to have found its way into
Barcelona comparatively late, for the veil-makers did not form a
guild of their own till A.D. 1553, the velvet-makers till 1548,
the silk-twisters till 1619, and the dyers of silk till 1624.

[25] Brocade (Spanish _brocado_ or _brocato_) may be generally described
as a silk-stuff woven with devices or raised figures in gold and
silver thread, or either of these metals separately (Plate viii.).
This costly fabric, which may be said to have superseded the
earlier kinds of cloth of gold, was greatly in vogue in older
Spain, especially throughout the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries. It is constantly referred to by her writers
("No siendo nueva la que prohibe las telas de oro, los _brocados_,
y tabies."--Fernandez Navarrete; _Conservacion de Monarquías_,
p. 231), and denounced by her priests (Fray Luis de León, "Y ha de
venir la tela de no sé donde, y _el brocado de mas altos_, y el
ambar que bañe el guante"), or in the pragmatics of her kings
(_e.g._ that of September 2nd, 1494, and of 1611: "Está prohibido
todo género de colgaduras, tapicerias sillas, coches, y literas de
_brocados_, telas de oro ó plata.... Asi mismo se prohiben
bordaduras en el campo de los doseles y camas; pero no en las
cenefas, que podrán llevar alamares, y fluecos de oro, ó plata,
ó _brocado_").

Brocade was made in Spain at Toledo, Barcelona, Seville, Valencia
and elsewhere, but as a rule it could not be compared in quality
with that of Genoa or Venice. A cheaper, though showy and
attractive modification of brocade was brocatel, in which the silk
was mixed with common thread or flax. According to the Dictionary
of the Spanish Academy, this commoner fabric was used for hangings
for churches, halls, beds, etc., and a document of 1680 tells us
that the price of brocatel made at Granada, and containing two
colours, was twenty-two _reales_ the yard.

"At Barcelona, laces, blonds, net-work, and tapes employ about twelve thousand persons. Galloons, laces, and gold and silver fringes, are likewise made here; but these are of no great importance. Silk, gold, and silver embroideries are very common, and the embroiderers are so numerous that they are to be found in every street.

"_Silk Stuffs._--These are manufactured at Manresa, Cardona, and Mataró, which has forty-eight looms; but principally at Barcelona, where there are five hundred and twenty-four. There they make velvets, satins, damasks, silks, taffetas, and gold and silver stuffs. The town of Barcelona alone uses annually 300,000 pounds of raw silk.

"_Taffetas, Handkerchiefs, and silk sashes._--They make a great quantity of these at Barcelona, where there are a good many little manufactories of this kind. There are a hundred and fifty looms at Reus, and six hundred at Manresa. At the last place sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs are made, which take about seventy thousand pounds of raw silk.

"_Silk twisters._--There are some of these in several towns, and a great many in Barcelona. There are eighteen frames at Mataró, which twist, one year with another, one hundred and twenty-four quintals of silk; and thirty-seven at Tarragona, which twist eleven thousand quintals."

Elsewhere in the course of his exhaustive tomes, Laborde sums up the general revival of the Spanish silk-trade in the following terms:--

"Silk stockings are woven at Málaga, Zaragoza, Valencia, and at various other places in the kingdom of Valencia; at Valdemoro, and at Talavera de la Reina in New Castile; also in different parts of Cataluña, more especially at Mataró, Arenys del Mar, and Barcelona. The most extensive manufacture is carried on at the latter city, where the number of frames amounts to nine hundred. In the city of Mataró are fifty-two, in Valencia one hundred and fifty, and nearly as many in Talavera. The stockings made in Spain are of a loose texture; owing to the improper method in which silk-throwsting is conducted, they are badly dressed and worse glossed. The Spanish people themselves prefer French stockings, and most of those manufactured in the country are exported to America.

"Ribbons hold a distinguished place among the manufactured articles of Spain. Some few are woven at Jaen, Granada, and Cordova; but more at Talavera. Cadiz has but twenty ribbon-looms, Manresa five hundred, Mataró eighty, Vich twenty-two, Requeña two hundred, Valencia four hundred, Murcia twelve hundred, and Barcelona nearly three thousand. These looms are not in factories, but individually dispersed. The Spanish ribbons are in general thin and flimsy, have little lustre, and their colours are neither brilliant nor permanent. Ribbons are made of floss-silk at Toledo, where there are about twelve looms, and at Manresa, where there is a greater number.[26]

[26] Towards the nineteenth century, ribbon was a great deal worn upon,
or together with, the regional costumes of the Spanish women; for
instance, on the gala bodice or _cotilla_ of the _hortelana_ of
Valencia, who further used it to make fast her _alpargatas_ or
sandals, described in the manuscript account attached to Pigal's
plates as "espèce de cothurnes, attachés avec des rubans en soie
ou fil bleu ou rouge." The same fabric served the peasant woman
of Carthagena for securing the sleeves of her gala camisole, for
lacing the bodice of the woman of Iviza, and in the other Balearic
Islands, for tying the _rebocillo_ or _rebociño_ beneath the chin.
Also it was with ribbon that the servant-girls of Granada suspended
a cross round their necks, that the _charra_ of Salamanca
(Plate ix.) trimmed her hat, that the women of Madrid, La Mancha,
and Andalusia bound up their knots of hair (_moños
con cinta_), and that, in some localities, even ladies of the
highest class secured their shoes about the lower leg and ankle.

"Silk taffetas, serges, and other articles, such as common and figured satins, damasks, and plain and flowered velvets, are made at Jaen, Granada, Murcia, Valencia, and the adjacent villages; at Málaga, Zaragoza, Toledo, Requeña, Talavera de la Reina, Mataró, Manresa, Cardona, and Barcelona. The silk-trade of Jaen and Granada is at present in a very languishing state; the manufacture of Murcia is dwindled to a few individual looms. At Toledo are fifty looms, fifty at Mataró, forty at Málaga, six hundred at Requeña, four hundred at Talavera, which consume annually two hundred thousand pounds of silk; five hundred at Barcelona, which annually manufacture, in conjunction with those of Cardona and Manresa, about three thousand pounds weight of silk; and in the city of Valencia are three thousand, whose annual demand of silk is eight hundred thousand pounds, while twenty-two thousand persons are employed in the trade. In Zaragoza are sixty looms, which consume fifty thousand pounds of silk; but taffetas only are manufactured there. The cities of Toledo and Talavera de la Reina are the only places where the looms are collected together in factories: in all other places they are separated, and are found individually at the houses of the respective weavers.

"A great portion of the silks manufactured in Spain are stout and excellent, but they are destitute of the brilliancy observable in French silks. The damasks made at Valencia are extremely beautiful, and in that city they excel in the art of mixing silk and mohair, and produce mohair stuffs which appear to be superior to those of France and England.

"Quantities of silk handkerchiefs and bands are manufactured at Reus, Manresa, and Barcelona. Reus had five hundred looms, Manresa six hundred, and annually made sixty thousand dozen handkerchiefs; Barcelona, a much larger quantity.

"At Barcelona is a very considerable manufacture of white, coloured, plain, and figured gauzes.

"The art of silk-throwsting tends greatly to improve the silk manufactures in Spain. Machines invented in other countries have been adopted here, and in many places profitable changes and corrections have taken place in the trade. Silk is principally thrown at Priego, Toledo in Andalusia, at Murcia in the kingdom of the same name, at Cervera near Talavera de la Reina in New Castile, at Valencia, at Milanesa near that city, at Gandia, San Felipe, and Carcagente in the kingdom of Valencia. The silk-throwsters, who work at their own houses, and are paid in the great, that is, according to the quantity of work they perform, are very numerous in Murcia; but they perform the business there in a very slovenly way. In the city of Murcia a factory is established, where silk is thrown in an excellent manner by means of an ingenious machine, which has been already described. The establishment at La Milanesa is a very important one, and well administered. At Cervera are a dozen silk-mills, each having four large dividers, and six machines for doubling and twisting, by which seven thousand and seventy-two threads are divided, doubled, and twisted at the same time."

CLOTHS AND WOOLLENS

Although the history of Spanish cloths and woollens is not of great importance, I think it well to briefly sketch their history. Sails and other fabrics of the coarsest kind are said to have been made, almost in prehistoric times, at Sætabi (the modern Játiva) and at Saguntum (Murviedro). From the thirteenth century cloths of good quality were made at Barcelona, Lerida, San Daniel, Bañolas, Valls, and other towns of Cataluña. A privilege of Alfonso the Learned, dated May 18th, 1283, contains the following technical disposition relative to the cloth-looms of the city of Soria: "Que la trenza cuando sea ordida que haya 88 varas, que pese una aranzada é 5 libras de estambre; é cualquier que la fallare menor, que peche 5 sueldos. Que todos los tejedores é tejedoras de la dicha cibdad é de su tierra, que pongan en las telas de lino 42 linnuelos é en las de estopazo 32 linnuelos; é en las de marga é de sayal 32 linnuelos."

Segovia was another ancient centre of this manufacture, which Larruga considers to have been transferred hither upon the extinction of the factories of Cameros, Burgos, and Palencia. However this may be, the _fuero_ of Sepúlveda, signed by Alfonso the Sixth, tells us that clothworks existed here as early as the eleventh century. Towards the end of the fourteenth, when Catherine of Lancaster was married to the Infante Don Enrique, the English princess brought over, as part of her dowry, a flock of merino sheep. These are believed to have pastured near Segovia--a city where Catherine made her home for many years. In any case, Segovian cloths improved considerably from about this time, and by the reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second, when thirty-four thousand persons were employed in the manufacture and twenty-five thousand pieces of cloth were produced annually, were thought (especially the baizes and the serges) to be unsurpassed in Europe.[27] Sovereigns, including Charles the Second and Charles the Fifth of Spain, and Henry the Eighth of England, were among the patrons of these fabrics, while as late as the year 1700 the Franciscan friars engaged in redeeming captives from the Turks, reported that "at Constantinople, whither they had carried Segovian cloths as presents to the principal rulers of that country, those cloths were spoken of in terms of high approval."

[27] Colmenares, who wrote a history of Segovia down to the reign of
Philip the Second, says that in his time the clothmakers of this
town were "true fathers of families, who within and without their
houses sustain a multitude of persons (in many cases two and three
hundred), producing, with the aid of other people's hands, a great
variety of finest cloth: an employment worthy to be ranked with
agriculture, and that is of the utmost profit to any city, or to
any kingdom."

Early in the seventeenth century, and owing to a series of causes such as impertinent or improvident legislation, heavy taxes, and the importation of foreign cloths, the trade showed symptoms of decay.[28] Bertaut de Rouen wrote in 1659, referring to the Spanish character at this time: "Bien souvent le pain leur manque, comme j'ay veu dans _Almagro_, petite ville située dans le meilleur pays d'Andalousie, et dans _Segovie_, qui est une des grandes villes d'Espagne, et où il y avoit autrefois des plus riches marchands à cause des draps et des chapeaux que l'on y faisoit, qui a esté longtemps le sejour des Roys de Castille, et qui n'est qu'environ à douze ou quatorze lieuës de Madrid, où il n'y avoit point de pain dans toute la ville le jour que j'y arrivay, et il n'y en eut qu'à quatre heures après midy, que l'on le distribua par ordre du _Corregidor_, aussi bien qu'à Almagro."

[28] An amusing passage in Fernandez Navarrete's _Conservación de
Monarquías_ (A.D. 1626) tells us that most of the costlier
dress-materials used in Spain about this time proceeded from
abroad, and that they were "of so fine a texture that the heat of
an iron scorches them and wears them out in a couple of days;
while a great number of men employ themselves in the effeminate
office of dressing collars, who, ceasing also to be men, forsake
the plough or warlike exercises; for it is certain that when the
Spaniards kept the world in awe, this land produced a greater
number of armourers, and less persons who busied themselves with
looking after womanish apparel" (p. 232).

The rise, decay, and subsequent revival of the Spanish cloth industries, and particularly the Segovian, are well described by Laborde, Bourgoing, and Townsend. According to the first of these authorities, "at so early a period as 1629 the merchants (of Segovia) complained that there was every year a reduction in the fabrication of cloth, to the amount of five thousand five hundred pieces; and that there resulted from this deficiency an annual loss of 2,424,818 ducats and 2 reals, or about £274,000 sterling. In the eighteenth century it appeared, from the observations of the Economical Society, that the fabrication of stuffs and cloths employed but one hundred and twenty looms, in which only four thousand three hundred and eighteen quintals of washed wool were consumed.

"About forty years ago these manufactures began to revive, the looms were multiplied, and the consumption of wool considerably augmented. A single individual, Don Lorenzo Ortiz, has for some years accelerated their progress. In 1790 there was an addition of sixty-three looms, which employed eight or nine hundred quintals of wool, and afforded occupation to two thousand four hundred manufacturers."

The same author wrote that early in the nineteenth century, "the woollen manufactures of New Castile are the most numerous and important. Cloths are made at Toledo, Chinchon, Brihuega, Guadalajara; serges, stuffs, and flannels at Toledo and Cuenca. The cloths of Brihuega are of an excellent quality, but those of Guadalajara are still superior to them; in particular, the cloth of Vigonia. There are twenty-eight looms at Toledo, forty at Guasmenia, a hundred at Brihuega, and six hundred and fifty-six at Guadalajara."

Bourgoing wrote, a dozen years or so before the close of the eighteenth century: "Spanish wool is eagerly demanded by manufacturing peoples of the rest of Europe. Nevertheless, it is not turned to so much advantage as it might be. French, Dutch, and English come to Spain to purchase the wools of Segovia and León at the ports of Bilbao and Santander.[29] Not even so much as the commission on their sale is left in power of the Spaniards, for the foreigners buy up the wool straight from the shepherd, and wash it on their own account. Out of one million of _arrobas_[30] of fine wool which Spain produces annually, she exports more than half in washed wool, and a lesser quantity, by far, of unwashed. It has been estimated that the export duties on this wool and which it has not been hitherto thought prudent to curtail, produce a sum of close upon five millions for the King of Spain. Here, therefore, is another reason for not suppressing the 'abusive measure' of which the patriotic Spaniards complain so loudly; since it is far from easy to do away with so appreciable a source of revenue unless one has at hand a swift and sure alternative measure by which it may be substituted. All the same, government is endeavouring to derive a greater fiscal profit from the exportation of these wools, and at the same time to bring about a greater use of them in the Peninsula. For a long time past, all kinds of common woollen fabrics, such as clothing for the soldiery and lower classes, have been made in Spain. The exportation of these fabrics is prohibited. As for the finer wools, these also are employed in several places, but more than anywhere else at Guadalajara, where I visited the factories towards the end of the year 1783. I was surprised to remark that in several respects the manufacture had reached a great pitch of perfection. I say _I was surprised_, because I had heard, times without number, that the Spaniards were completely ignorant of these processes, and did not know how to card, or spin, or weave, or dye, or full, or calender; that their stuffs grew loose and wore badly; that the price was exorbitant, etc. How many prejudices of this nature was I able to throw aside after fair and deliberate examination of the stuffs in question! I will only quote a single point to prove that the censures which are aimed at the Spaniards respecting the quality of their cloths are not applicable to them all, and that they are well upon the road to being entirely undeserving of them. I was shown at Guadalajara a piece of scarlet cloth, which, both for its excellent quality and for its skilful dyeing, seemed to me to be quite comparable with the best cloths of Julienne. These latter cost at their place of manufacture as much as thirty-nine _livres_ the ell. At Guadalajara, I noted from the tariff established in the factory, that the price of the finest scarlet cloth was only from thirty-one to thirty-two _livres_ the ell. Comparing these and other figures on the tariff, I came to the conclusion that there was about the same difference in price between Spanish cloths and French cloths, in favour of the former. What seems more singular still is that the factories which work at the King's expense are generally administered in a thriftless fashion, and that the factory of Guadalajara was being greatly mismanaged at the time in question. However, subsequently to my visit, changes for the better have been introduced, which will improve the quality of, as well as cheapen, its products, though, even when I saw it, this factory was one of the most perfect to be seen anywhere. Within a space by no means large, it contained all the machines and apparatus required for clothmaking, except the thin, polished pasteboards which are placed between the folds of a piece of cloth as it is passed through the press. These were still brought from England; but everything else was prepared upon the spot, even to the large scissors used in the shearing. There were eighty looms for the finest cloths, whose proper name is _cloths of San Fernando_, from the town where they were first produced; a hundred for cloths of the second quality; and five hundred and six for making serges, in which, in course of time, hopes are entertained of excelling those of England.[31] All these looms were contained in two buildings, and kept employed three thousand eight hundred and twenty-five persons, all of them paid by the King,[32] without counting some forty thousand more dispersed all over the Castilian and Manchegan tableland, engaged in spinning the wool which is made up into stuffs at Guadalajara. It would be difficult, I am sure, to find a factory better organized. Even the town in which it is, presents a striking contrast with others of that neighbourhood. I did not see one single mendicant or idler among all its fifteen or sixteen thousand inhabitants. Such are the good results of its manufactures, and, above all, those of cloth, including many small and detailed processes which women, children, aged people, or even the sick are able to perform. Here, where Nature seemed to have condemned these ailing folk to a tedious and useless existence, art, as it were, steps in and finds employment and relief for them. Nevertheless, it must be owned that the Spaniards (as they themselves admit) are still a little behindhand in the method of dyeing and fulling their cloths, though when a people possess (as they) the raw materials needed, both for making and for dyeing, a few men skilled in these processes are all that is wanted to perfect several branches of this industry; especially when, as is the case in Spain, government spares no effort to achieve this end. Guadalajara is further the only place in Spain which produces the celebrated Vicuña cloth; an admirable fabric for which the rest of the world has cause to envy Spanish America.[33] As the use of this cloth has not as yet become general, it is not continually manufactured, nor is it easy to obtain a few ells of it without ordering them several months in advance. This stuff is also manufactured for the King of Spain, who makes presents of it to various other monarchs. In the year 1782, after concluding a treaty with the Porte, he sent twenty pieces of it to the Sultan of Turkey. They gave great satisfaction. It has been imagined from this circumstance that Spain would not be loth to supply the Turkish market with her cloths; and other of the manufacturing nations have felt some measure of alarm, perhaps unnecessarily. The Spanish government has too much sense to enter upon such a competition with other peoples as long as Spain does not supply the whole of the two and twenty million citizens who live beneath her rule. The same government, too, is well aware how remote is this degree of prosperity. The clothworks of Guadalajara have a kind of branch factory at Brihuega, four leagues distant. At Brihuega there are a hundred looms, all used for making fabrics of the finest quality.

[29] This recalls the statement made, centuries before, by Alonso de
Cartagena at the Council of Bâle: "And if the English should vaunt
the cunning of their cloth-makers, then would I tell them somewhat;
for if our country lack the weavers to make a cloth so delicate as
the scarlet cloths of London, yet is that substance titled _grana_
(the kermes, or scarlet grain), from which the scarlet cloth
receives its pleasantness of smell and brilliancy of hue, raised
in the kingdom of Castile, and thence conveyed to England, and
even to Italy."--Larruga, _Memorias_, Vol. XIV., p. 167.

[30] "The weight of an _arroba_ is twenty-seven pounds. The average
price is from twenty-three to twenty-seven _livres_ the _arroba_
of unwashed wool of the best quality, which pays five _livres_ ten
_sols_ of export duty. The _arroba_ of washed wool pays double."

[31] "It has been calculated that Spain, about this time, paid annually
to England two million pounds sterling per annum, solely on account
of her woollens."

[32] "His Majesty maintained this factory by a monthly payment from his
treasury of one hundred and fifty thousand _livres_; an exorbitant
amount, which very possibly would not be covered by the sales of
cloth."

Townsend wrote in 1787 "Royal manufactures and monopolies have a
baneful influence on population: for, as no private adventurers
can stand the competition with their sovereign, where he is the
great monopolist, trade will never prosper. The Spanish monarch is
a manufacturer of

Broad cloth, at Guadalajara and Brihuega;
China, at the palace of the Buen Retiro;
Cards, at Madrid and Málaga;
Glass, at San Ildefonso;
Paper, in Segovia;
Pottery, at Talavera;
Saltpetre, at Madrid and various other places;
Stockings, at Valdemoro;
Swords, at Toledo;
Tapestry, at Madrid;
Tissue, at Talavera.

He has the monopoly of brandy, cards, gunpowder, lead, quicksilver,
sealing-wax, salts, sulphur, and tobacco."--(_Journey through
Spain_, Vol. II., p. 240.)

[33] "It is made from wools of Buenos Aires and Peru. The wool of the
former of these regions is the longer, but the Peruvian is the more
silky."

"Segovia, famous at all periods for the excellence of her wool, was formerly not less so for the number and perfection of her clothworks. Now, every patriotic Spaniard must lament to see how she has fallen. In the year 1785 the number of her looms did not exceed two hundred and fifty. The most important factory was that of Ortiz, founded in 1779 under the title of _Real Fábrica_: the King possessed an interest in it. In 1785 Ortiz was still employing three thousand workers in and about Segovia, and manufactured every quality of cloth in sixty-three looms, from the pieces which contained the two thousand threads prescribed by the _Ordenanzas_, to those which should contain four thousand. His energy was only hampered by the indolent character of the Segovians. The privileges wherewith the government has sought to stimulate his first experiments in this craft are not at all injurious to the other manufacturers. They all concur to sell their goods, and at a reasonable price. In September of 1785, the most expensive cloths cost only ninety reals the _vara_; that is to say, about thirty-one _livres_ and ten _sols_ the ell."

Townsend wrote, precisely at the same time as Bourgoing: "Segovia was once famous for its cloth, made on the King's account; but other nations have since become rivals in this branch, and the manufacture in this city has been gradually declining. When the King gave it up to a private company, he left about three thousand pounds in trade; but now he is no longer a partner in the business.[34] In the year 1612 were made here twenty-five thousand five hundred pieces of cloth, which consumed forty-four thousand six hundred and twenty-five quintals of wool, and employed thirty-four thousand one hundred and eighty-nine persons; but at present they make only about four thousand pieces. The principal imperfections of this cloth are, that the thread is not even, and that much grease remains in it when it is delivered to the dyer; in consequence of which the colour is apt to fail. Yet, independently of imperfections, so many are the disadvantages under which the manufacture labours, that foreigners can afford to pay three pounds for the _arroba_ of fine wool, for which the Spaniard gives no more than twenty shillings, and after all his charges can command the market even in the ports of Spain.

"In the year 1525, the city contained five thousand families, but now they do not surpass two thousand--a scanty population this for twenty-five parishes; yet, besides the twenty-five churches, together with the cathedral, they have one and twenty convents. When the canal is finished, and the communication opened to the Bay of Biscay at Santander, the trade and manufactures of Segovia may revive; but, previous to that event, there can be nothing to inspire them with hope."

[34] A report presented by the Council of Commerce to the Marquis of la
Ensenada, put forward, in 1744, the absurd pretence that the king
of Spain maintained his factories "not for any State convenience
or _ad lucrum captandum_, but in order to augment our own products,
and diminish those which are imported from abroad."--Larruga's
_Memorias_, Vol. XV., pp. 70 and 247. Also see the conference
delivered by the Count of Torreánaz in 1886, in the Royal Spanish
Academy of Moral and Political Science; p. 27, note.

Several of the Spanish Crown factories were finally taken over by
the association--immensely wealthy at one period--known as the Five
Chief Gremios of Madrid (_Los Cinco Gremios Mayores de la Villa de
Madrid_), and it is clear that the investment of a large amount of
capital, subscribed by many shareholders, would of itself be
calculated to destroy the narrow ideals and what I may term the
individually greedy spirit which hitherto had ruled within the
craftsman's private family. Private interests, in short, were
superseded by the larger interests of a powerful company. That
which I have mentioned was composed of the five _gremios_ of the
capital of Spain which subscribed the largest sums in taxes to the
national exchequer; namely, the drapers, haberdashers, spicers and
druggists, jewellers, cloth-merchants, and linen-drapers. For many
years this association administered, on government's behalf, the
_alcabalas_, _tercias_, and _cientos_ of the town and district of
Madrid, and subsequently (A.D. 1745) the _millones_ tax, together
with other important dues, and ultimately, as I have stated, took
over, on a liberal scale of purchase, the royal cloth and silk
factories of Talavera de la Reina (A.D. 1785), San Fernando,
Guadalajara, Brihuega, Ezcaray, and Cuenca. The decay and downfall
of the company was due to gross mismanagement, and indeed, the
idiosyncrasies of the Spanish character render this people, even
at the present day, but little fitted to embark upon commercial
schemes requiring competent directors, heavy capital, and confident
assistance, moral and material, from a large body of investors.
Spaniards, as I have insisted elsewhere, do not pull well together;
and so, early in the nineteenth century, the association of the
five great _gremios_, which had possessed at one time many millions
of _pesetas_, suspended payment of all dividends. It is fair to
add, however, that this collapse was partly owing to the wars
between France and Spain.

Swinburne had written of the same city ten years earlier (1776): "The inhabitants do not appear much the richer for their cloth manufactory. Indeed, it is not in a very flourishing condition; but what cloth they make is very fine."

The Ordinances of Granada (A.D. 1532), from which we learn that cloth was also manufactured at that capital, contain the usual dispositions relative to the stamping of this product by the city officers. The stamps were in a box which was kept in a corner of the cathedral and closed by two keys, guarded severally by a councillor and an inspector of the trade, or _veedor_. On every day except a public festival, between the hours of ten and eleven of the morning, and three and four of the afternoon, it was the duty of these two authorities to proceed to the Alcaicería, and ascertain if any cloth required stamping. If so, the stamps were fetched forthwith from the cathedral, the cloth was marked, and the stamps were solemnly restored to their chest beneath the double key.

Among the woven fabrics other than those of silk, and which are specified in the Ordinances of Granada relative to the _tundidores_ or shearers, are cloths of Florence, Flanders, London, Valencia, Zaragoza, Onteniente, Segovia, and Perpignan; _velarte_ (a fine cloth manufactured at Granada), red _burel_ (kersey) of Baeza, black kersey of Villanueva and La Mancha, _ruan_ (Roan linen), fustians, friezes, and _cordellate_ (grogram) of Granada, Valencia, Toledo, Segovia, and Cuenca. According to Capmany, cloths of the commoner kind, and which were popular about this time, were the _granas treintenas_ and black cloths of Valencia, the white or yellow _veintiseiseno_ cloths of Toledo, the white cloths of Ciudad Real, the green _palmillas_ of Cuenca, and green _dieciochenos_ of Segovia, the _contrayes_ of Cazalla, and the _pardillos_ of Aragon. Spanish cloth was also manufactured at Vergara, Cordova, Jaen, Murcia, Palencia, Tavira de Durango, and Medina del Campo.

Laborde says: "In the archives of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile there is a notice of the duties paid from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century for foreign cloths sold in Spain, and for other articles of consumption coming from abroad. The principal cloths came from Bruges, Montpellier, and London; the velvets from Malines, Courtrai, Ypres, and Florence. This trade became so injurious to Spain, that Ferdinand and Isabella thought themselves bound to limit it entirely to the stuffs required for ornaments of the church, which of itself was a considerable quantity. Their prohibition is the subject of the rescript of September 2nd, 1494, for the provinces of the Crown of Castile. Even so far back as the Ordinances of Barcelona in 1271, mention is made of the taxes levied on the cloths of Flanders, Arras, Lannoy, Paris, Saint Denis, Chalons, Beziers, and Reims."[35]

[35] In the reign of Francis the First, the importation of Catalan cloth
into France was prohibited altogether.--Levasseur, _Histoire des
classes ouvrières en France_, Vol. II., p. 73.

Among the various cloths (exclusively or chiefly of the less
expensive kinds) which were manufactured in the capital and country
of Cataluña, we read of those of pure scarlet, scarlet tinted with
light or dark purple, ash-coloured, carmine, and rose; of cloth of
combed wool, _medias lanas_ (half-woollens), serges, and _cadinas_
or _banyolenchs_. But before the close of the fifteenth century
the production of these fabrics had suffered a serious decline
caused by the tactless government of Ferdinand the Catholic, and
above all, by the introduction of the Inquisition into Barcelona.
A privilege of Ferdinand, granted on November 4th, 1493, to the
Barcelonese clothmakers, admits that this was the foremost and
most useful local manufacture ("no y ha altre art ni offici que mes
util done"), adding, however, that it had fallen into a state of
sad prostration "owing to the indisposition of these times."
(Capmany, _Memorias_, Vol. II., _Doc._ ccxliv).

This was undoubtedly the case; for in a report of the city council
drawn up in 1491, it is stated that good cloth can only be
manufactured from good wool, but that this had now become a
difficult matter at Barcelona, because the clothmakers were without
the money to purchase such wool. In consequence, they appealed to
the city (then even more resourceless than themselves) to help
them.