_imama_[11] was the only form of head-dress used by the _cheiks_,
_cadis_, and _ulemas_ of Granada. At this capital red was the
distinctive colour of the sovereigns of the Alahmar dynasty, who took
their very title from this circumstance, the Arabic word _alahmar_
meaning "red." The distinctive colour of the Nasrite sultans was purple,
which was replaced by black in time of mourning. In this last fashion
the sultans were probably influenced by the Christian usage, for
Ibn-Khaldun remarks that black was not a colour approved of by the
orientals, who considered it to be related with the spirits of evil.
However this may be, the manuscript _History of the House of Cordova_
quoted by Eguilaz Yanguas, says that when Boabdil el Chico entered that
city as a prisoner, "the captive monarch was dressed in black velvet, in
token of his adverse fortune and defeat. He rode a richly caparisoned
charger, whose coat was black and glossy."
[11] This was a large form of turban. In the well-known painting in the
Hall of Justice of the Alhambra, the head-dress is the _aharim_ or
_almaizar_.
The Moors regarded green or white as pleasant and well-omened colours,
symbolic of the angels and of all good fortune. Perhaps this preference
was suggested to them by the cool oasis in the desert. Nevertheless,
when Ibn-Hud became ruler of Andalusia, his shields and banners were
black, as well as his costume. Black, too, was the colour adopted by the
Abbaside Sultans, to whom Ibn-Hud was subject. Under the Beni-Nasr and
Beni-Alahmar, this gloomy hue was changed, as we have seen, to purple or
to scarlet, though black continued to be used in sign of mourning.
[Illustration: V
THE TUNIC OF BOABDIL EL CHICO
(_National Museum of Artillery, Madrid_)]
The chronicle says that Abu-Said, "the Red," who was assassinated at
Tablada, under the walls of Seville, by Pedro the Cruel, was clothed in
scarlet at the time of that atrocious deed. Boabdil was also clothed in
red at the battle of Lucena. The _History of the House of Cordova_, from
which I have already quoted, says: "Il était armé d'une forte cuirasse à
clous dorés, doublée de velours _cramoisi_, d'un morion teint de
_grenat_ et doré.... Sur sa cuirasse était passé un caban de brocart et
de velours cramoisi" (Plate v.). Eguilaz quotes a further passage from
Hurtado de Mendoza, to prove that red continued to be the official
colour of the Moorish rulers of Granada; for when the Moriscos had risen
in the Alpujarra, and met together to invest their leaders, Aben-Abu and
Aben-Humeya, with the insignia of royalty, they clothed the former in a
red costume and the latter in purple, "passing about his neck and
shoulders a red token in the form of a scarf."[12]
[12] Eguilaz Yanguas, _Les Peintures de l'Alhambra_.
As I remarked in speaking of the _tiraz_, the clothing of the Moorish
kings of Spain was of the richest quality obtainable, massively wrought,
embroidered in colours and in gold, and bearing "sometimes a prince's
name, sometimes his device or motto, or even a portrait of himself
embroidered on the right breast of his _caban_ or robe, thus following
the fashion of the monarchs of Assyria and Persia."
SPANISH SILK
A very fair idea of the magnitude of the craft and trade of Spanish silk
in bygone epochs may be formed by tracing chronologically the production
and treatment of the raw material in various parts of the Peninsula.
During the centuries of Moorish rule, Spain's principal silk-producing
centre was the kingdom of Granada, which then embraced a large extent of
coast, together with Málaga and other thriving ports. In proof of this,
and in his interesting memorial on the silk factories of Seville,[13]
Ulloa quotes old Spanish ordinances of the weavers, stating that
quantities of this substance were exported from "tierra de Moros" for
use by Christian craftsmen, and also the _Chronology of the Kings of
Granada_, concluded by Al-Khattib in the year 1364. A fragment of this
chronicle is preserved at the Escorial, and states, in the well-known
version of Casiri, that the silk produced at Granada was both abundant
and of excellent quality, surpassing even the Assyrian.
[13] Don Martin de Ulloa, _Discurso sobre las fábricas de seda de
Sevilla_.
The growing of mulberry trees and rearing of silkworms was also busily
pursued in the kingdom of Aragon, which formerly included Cataluña,
Valencia, and the Balearic Islands. Hence, though somewhat gradually, it
seems to have spread to Seville. In the ordinances of this town relating
to her weavers of silks and velvets, and which are dated 1492, it is
stated that her _oficiales de texer sedas_ were so few that, as a
stimulus to augment their number, all who wished might join them in the
practice of this craft without examination. Between that year and 1502
they evidently multiplied, since subjects of examination of no easy
character are formulated in the ordinances of this later date, examined
and confirmed by Ferdinand and Isabella. Nevertheless, it is impossible
to credit the assertion of some authors that by the year 1519 Seville
possessed no less than sixteen thousand looms, affording occupation to
one hundred and fifty thousand persons. As Ulloa suggests, it is far
more reasonable to suppose that her silk trade grew in proportion as the
Spaniards continued to discover, and to open up to commerce, new regions
of America; and that it reached the maximum of its development in the
reigns of Charles the Fifth and Philip the Second. The same writer
attributes its decline and downfall to the "piracies and insults" of
Spain's foreign enemies and rivals.
The price of Seville silks was also raised and the trade injuriously
affected, by the imposition, at the close of the reign of Philip the
Second, of the onerous _millones_ tax, as well as of the minor dues
denominated _alcavalas_ and _cientos_; while finally, when Philip the
Third was on the throne, the expulsion of the Moriscos precipitated the
utter ruin of this industry.
[Illustration: VI
THE "BANNER OF SAINT FERDINAND"
(_Seville Cathedral_)]
The Spanish government proved quite incapable of grappling with these
wrongs and difficulties. There were, however, numerous attempts to
legislate in the direction of reform. Measures forbidding the
introduction of silk proceeding from abroad received the royal signature
in 1500, 1514, 1525, 1532, and 1552. A petition to the same effect,
framed by the procurators of the Cortes, was presented to the king in
1618, urging that no skein or twisted silk proceeding from the
Portuguese Indies, China, or Persia should be imported into Spain in
view of the damage thus inflicted on the silk-producing regions of
Granada, Murcia, and Valencia. At the same time the petitioners
suggested that if it should be found impracticable to suppress such
importation altogether, the foreign silk should be required to be in the
form of stuffs already woven.
Matters grew steadily worse all through the reign of Philip the Fourth.
The principal cause of this additional decline lay in the constant
depreciation of the national currency, which kept at an intolerable
pitch of dearness the price of home-grown silk, and enabled foreign
traders to undersell the Spaniard. This will be better understood if we
consider that the composition of the copper and silver coinage was often
tampered with by Crown and Parliament in such a way as to allow the
foreigner to rid the country of nearly all her gold and silver, leaving
in exchange only the baser metal. At intervals of a few years,
proclamations were issued altering the values of the coinage in the most
capricious and disastrous terms, and Ulloa mentions as still in
circulation in the eighteenth century, _ochavos_ of Philip the Third
which bore inscribed the value of twelve _maravedis_ in Roman numerals,
and also (owing to the restamping of the coins by order of the Crown),
the second and successive value of eight _maravedis_, marked in ordinary
numerals. In fact, so grave were these abuses, that the arbitrary value
imposed upon the coins in question grew to be six times that of the
actual value of the metal.
At the close of the seventeenth century, when Charles the Second was on
the throne, a couple of well-meant and not completely ineffectual
attempts were made to bring about a fresh revival in the growth of
Spanish silk. On November 18th, 1683, the silk-makers of Toledo,
Seville, Granada, and Valencia were summoned to a council at Madrid, and
the dispositions they then agreed upon received the royal signature and
became law on January 30th of the following year, the pragmatic which
embodied them being issued to the public ten days later. It was
commanded by this document that all the silk produced at the above-named
towns should be examined and approved by the _veedores_ or _mayorales_,
and bear the official stamp which guaranteed their quality. The effect
of these ordinances was further strengthened by a Crown _cedula_ of July
15th, 1692, confirming other dispositions dated 1635; and later still,
in June of 1699, a law was passed prohibiting the exportation of all
home-made silks to other countries.
The accession of the Bourbon kings heralded a further slight
improvement. Philip the Fifth had barely mounted the throne when the
Junta de Comercio was revived by his command, and drafted various laws
for bettering this and other industries. Royal decrees of June 20th and
September 17th, 1718, renewed in June of 1728 and in April and August of
1734, forbade the introduction of silk and certain other stuffs from
China and the rest of Asia--a measure which was made more strict as time
went on, the prohibition being extended to linens and cottons produced
and printed in Africa or Asia or imitated in Europe. In the meantime
another _cedula_, signed at the Escorial on November 10th, 1726, had
ordered that every Spanish citizen of either sex should dress
exclusively in silks or cloths of Spanish manufacture.
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").