Leonard Williams

“ In the time of the Almoravides there were at Almería as many as a thousand factories for making holas.
The piece of tiraz which belongs to the Spanish Academy of History measures about a yard and a half in length by eighteen inches wide. Riaño describes it as of wool, embroidered in silks with “seated figures which appear to be a king, a lady, lions, birds, and quadrupeds”; but after carefully examining it I cannot but agree with Miquel y Badía that this fabric is woven throughout of pure silk, without the slightest trace of hand-embroidery. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Nevertheless, Rico y Sinobas points out (Del vidrio y de sus artífices en España) that Philip the Fifth and Ferdinand the Sixth, on founding the royal glass factory of San Ildefonso, did not dare to ennoble the Castilian workmen.
“I bestow the name of craftsmen in silver (artífices plateros) , not upon all who handle silver or gold, but only upon such as draw, and grave, and execute in relief, whether on a large or small scale, figures and histories from life, just as do the sculptors.” ”

“ 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 ”

“ The costumes of the guildsmen of Valencia have been already noticed. An equal recklessness and foppery prevailed in other Spanish towns; for instance, at Barcelona, where, on a visit of Ferdinand and Isabella in 1481, the silversmiths formed part of the procession “dressed in the richest manner, with robes and mantles all covered with silver, and some of them with bonnets that were all of silver plate with jewels and silver foliage, while others wore silver chains about their necks.”
Two of the most conspicuous faults among the Spanish race are pride and envy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Spaniards, through all the process of their national development, have clung by preference to the calling of the soldier or the priest; that is, the only occupations which directly dissipate the revenue of the commonwealth. Since, therefore, they were thus inclined from earliest antiquity, as well as tutored by a crafty priesthood to believe that might or violence alone is right, the haughtiness of the Spanish people is a logical, and indeed inevitable, outcome of their history. ”

“ Referring to the end of the [3] tenth century, this author wrote that “Almería is the key of profit and of all prosperity. Within her walls dwell cunning weavers who produce in quantities magnificent silken cloths inwoven with gold thread.” Other important centres of this trade and craft were Málaga, Baeza, Alicante, Seville, and Granada. Rassis wrote of Málaga: “She has a fertile territory, wherein is made the finest sirgo in the world. From here they trade in it with every part of Spain. Here too is made the finest of all linens, and that which the women best esteem.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ A very fair idea of the magnitude of the craft and trade of Spanish silk in bygone epochs may be formed by tracing chronologically the production and treatment of the raw material in various parts of the Peninsula. During the centuries of Moorish rule, Spain's principal silk-producing centre was the kingdom of Granada, which then embraced a large extent of coast, together with Málaga and other thriving ports. ”

“ Towards the year a.d. 707, when Witiza was king of Spain, there dwelt at the castle of Goñi, not far from the city of Pamplona in Navarre, a cavalier named Don Theodosio, whose wife, Doña Constanza de Viandra, was a lady of remarkable beauty. On one occasion Don Theodosio found himself obliged to quit his native country for a time, in order to command a military expedition against the Berbers, and before his departure he begged his father and mother to cheer his wife's loneliness while he should be away, by taking up their residence at his castle. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ 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. ”

“ You never see a shopman here who does not clothe himself in velvet, silk, and satin, like the king; or who is not the owner of a mighty rapier, which dangles from the wall, together with his dagger and guitar. These fellows work as little as they may, for, as I said, they are by nature indolent. Only in case of extreme necessity do they work at all, and then they never rest, but labour even throughout a feast-day ”

“ If, as seems most likely, the woollen reposteros above referred to were of woven work containing a device, this passage would demonstrate that the manufacture of the cloths in question was sometimes the province of the tapestry-maker and sometimes that of the embroiderer. Ramírez de Arellano, from whose instructive studies on the craftsmen of older Spain I quote the foregoing extract, says that the making of reposteros constitutes a branch of craftsmanship distinct from embroidery of the common class, and that the men who produced them deserve to be included among artists of real merit. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Truly that man is rich that maketh gold to minister to his wants, and he a miserable pauper that to gold himself is slave, not knowing how to turn its uses to his good. Therefore let other peoples accumulate wealth at ease, heaping up the gold wherewith Madrid repays their ministration to her needs. ”

“ There is a dim tradition, derived from or supported by a Latin poet (“Tunc operosa suis Hispana tapetia villis”) that carpets or tapestries of some kind were made in the Spanish Peninsula in the time of the Romans. Undoubtedly this craft was practised by the Spanish-Moors, particularly in the regions of Valencia, Alicante, Cuenca, and Granada. This statement is confirmed by two laconic notices which occur in the Description of Africa and Spain of Edrisi, a Mohammedan geographer of the twelfth century. ”

“ On Corpus Christi day there is a grand procession composed of the regular and secular clergy of Madrid, followed by the king, his ministers, and court, each bearing in his hand a wax taper. Magnificent awnings of tapestry are raised in the streets through which the procession [143] is to pass; the balconies are decorated with splendid hangings; the seats are covered with cushions, and occasionally surmounted with a daïs; in some of the streets the face of day is darkened by canopies which stretch from one side to the other. ”

“ At one side is the figure of a youth with wings, and a bandage over his eyes, representing Intelligence. His hands are shackled, and he is kneeling, as one that surrenders himself captive to Faith in all her mysteries, and particularly in this one. ”

“ 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.
“I have already said that the slip of silk should [85] 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. ”

“ 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 [74] 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. ”

“ And it is a fact that from some cause, which we cannot now determine, white silk is that which disappears soonest from among the textile fabrics of the Spanish Moors and Mudejares, so [11] that by far the greater part of them contain no white at all, or only traces of it.”
In Spain these handsome stuffs were used by all the wealthier classes, and some idea of their prevalence and popularity may be formed from the voluminous mass of sumptuary laws which deal with them at almost every stage of Spanish history. ”

“ Early in the fourteenth century a number of other costly stuffs began to be made in various quarters of the civilized world, including Spain. Among these fabrics were zatonin or zatony (perhaps the same as zetani, aceituni, or aceytoni—that is, satin) , several kinds of drap d'aur or cloth of gold, several kinds of velvet, sarga or serge, and camocas, which is stated by Miquel y Badía to have been a strong material used for lining curtains, coats of mail, etc. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Three years later, the same monarch (Charles the Fourth) suppressed the gremios and colegios of the silk-twisters, and declared this craft to be open to all such persons, of either sex, as wished to practise it. In 1797 it was permitted to all foreigners who should be competent in any art or industry (except Jews) to establish themselves in Spain or her dominions, nor were they to be molested in their religious theories if they should happen not to be Roman Catholics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Women were allowed to spin upon the following conditions: “Also, seeing that there be some honest women here who have no access to [54] 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”) . ”

“ 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 [69] 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ It is evident, too, that the cause of the relentless exclusion, by the Spanish guilds, of Moors, Moriscos, Jews, or converts—men who, owing to the unsubstantial taint of heresy, were hated and derided by the Spanish nation almost to a man—resided also in this morbid sensitiveness. ”