Pilgrims brought silkworm eggs in their staffs, together with the
branches of mulberry trees, from China to the Court of Justinian at
Byzantine, A.D. 555. The penalty for taking silkworm eggs out of China
was death.
The accompanying illustration is a reproduction of a mural painting
on rep in the Royal Textile Museum at Crefeld, Germany, one of the
great silk textile centers of the world. The artist shows the pilgrims
presenting the silkworm eggs and the mulberry branches to Justinian,
beside whom, just in the act of rising, is his famous queen Theodora.]
Silk culture from the time of Hoang-Ti became one of the cherished
secrets of China. The headquarters of the industry was in the Province
of Chen Tong, where was produced the silk for the royal family. In
time the silk and stuffs of China became articles of export to various
portions of Asia. Long journeys were made by caravans, occupying
two-thirds of a year in going from the cities of China to those of
Syria, but the price obtained there exceeded the expense of the
journey, and thus left a large margin of profit to the merchants. In
this manner, for one thousand years, the Chinese sent their silk to the
Persians who, without knowing how or from what it was made, carried it
to the Western nations.
So carefully did the Orientals guard their secret, that there is reason
to believe that Aristotle was the first person in the occidental world
to learn the true origin of the wrought silk from Persia. In commenting
on the silk which was brought from that country on the return of
Alexander’s victorious army, he described the silkworm as a “horned
insect,” passing through several transformations, which produced
“bomby-kia,” as he called the silk. But the classics must convince one
that Aristotle’s discovery did not at once become matter of current
knowledge. In fact, for five hundred years after Aristotle’s time the
common theory of the origin of silk among the Greeks and Romans was
that it was either “a fleece which grew upon a tree” (thus confounding
it with cotton), or a fibre obtained from the inner bark of a tree; and
some, deceived by the glossy and silky fibres of the seed vessels of
the plant that corresponds to our milk or silk weed, believed it to be
the product of some plant or flower. So Virgil, in speaking of silk,
says, “the Seres comb the delicate fleecings from the leaves.”
In the Sixth Century, A.D., all the raw silk was still being imported
from China by way of Persia, when the Emperor Justinian, having engaged
in war with Persia, found his supply of raw silk cut off and the
manufacturers in great distress. His foolish legislation did not help
the situation, and a crisis was averted only by two Nestorian monks,
who came from China with seed of the mulberry tree and a knowledge
of the Chinese method of rearing worms. No one, on pain of death,
was allowed to export the silkworm eggs from China, but Justinian
bribed the monks to return to that country, and in 555 they came
back, bringing with them a quantity of silkworm eggs concealed in
their pilgrim’s staffs. And here let us say that there has only once
since been an important importation of eggs from Asia. That was about
1860, when Dr. Pasteur was making a study of a germ disease which was
threatening the industry. Consequently, it can truly be said that
practically all the silkworms of the Western world are descended from
those brought in the eggs by the monks to Constantinople. Justinian
gave the control of the silk industry to his own treasurer. Weavers,
brought from Tyre and Berytus, were employed to manufacture the silk,
and the whole production was a monopoly of the emperor, he fixing its
prices. Under his management, the cost of silk became eight times as
great as before, and the Royal Purple was twenty-four times its former
price. But this monopoly was not of long duration and, at the death of
Justinian in 565, the monopoly ceased, and the spread of the industry
commenced in new and diverse directions.
While every detail of the growth of the industry has an unusual
interest, as showing how such an insignificant thing as a worm may
become a potent factor in Nature’s economy, the scope of this article
will hardly allow us to more than sketch some of the other more salient
points of the history of the silkworm.
About the year 910, the silkworms made their appearance in Cordova,
Spain, being brought there by the Moors. From Spain silk culture soon
extended to Greece and Italy.
~WHEN SILK CULTURE WAS INTRODUCED IN AMERICA~
Silk was introduced on this continent through the Spanish Conquest of
Mexico, and the first silkworm eggs sold for $60.00 an ounce.
A century later royal orders were issued requiring mulberry trees to
be planted in the Colony of Virginia, and a fine of twenty pounds of
tobacco was imposed for neglect, and fifty pounds of tobacco was given
as a bounty for every pound of reeled silk produced.
Silk culture spread rapidly in the other Colonies, and to-day the story
of the ineffectual attempts to profitably rear the silkworm in this
country is as voluminous as it is interesting. Suffice it to say, as
a sop to our inherent Yankee pride, that silk culture was introduced
into Connecticut as early as 1737, the first coat and stockings made
from New England silk being worn by Governor Law in 1747, and the first
silk dress by his daughter, in 1750. This State, for the eighty-four
years following, led all the others in the amount of raw silk produced.
In Connecticut also, was built the first silk mill to be erected on
this continent for the special purpose of manufacturing silk goods.
This building was constructed in 1810 by Rodney and Horatio Hanks, at
Mansfield, and is still standing as an heirloom which has come to us
from the infant days of the industry.
The silkworm has become domesticated, since, during the long centuries
in which it has been cultivated, it has acquired many useful
peculiarities. Man has striven to increase its silk producing power,
and in this he has succeeded, for, by comparing the cocoon of the
silkworm of to-day with its wild relations, the cocoon is found to be
much larger, even in proportion to the size of the worm that makes
it or the moth that issues from it. The moth’s loss of the power of
flight and the white color of the species are probably the results of
domestication.
[Illustration: JAPAN THE NATURAL HOME OF THE SILK WORM