Without digressing from our subject to question the right of the royal marauder thus tyrannously to sever these unoffending artisans from the ties of country and of kindred, we may yet be allowed to express some satisfaction at the consequences of his cruelty. It is well for the interests of humanity that blessings, although unsought and remote, do sometimes follow in the train of conquest; that wars are not always limited in their results to the exaltation of one individual, the downfall of another, the slaughter of thousands, and misery of millions, but occasionally prove the harbingers of peaceful arts, heralds of science, and in short deliverers from the yoke of slavery or superstition.
In twenty years from this forcible establishment of the manufacture, the silks of Sicily are described as having attained a decided excellence; as being of diversified patterns and colors; some fancifully interwoven with gold tastefully embellished with figures; and others richly adorned with pearls. The industry and ingenuity thus called forth, could not fail to exercise a beneficial influence over the character and condition of the Sicilians.
From Palermo the manufacture of silk extended itself through all parts of Italy and into Spain. We learn from Roger de Hoveden, that the manufacture flourished at Almeria in Grenada about A. D. 1190[91].
[91] “Deinde per nobilem civitatem, quæ dicitur Almaria, ubi fit nobile sericum et delicatum, quod dicitur sericum de Almaria.” Scriptores post Bedam, p. 671.
FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
According to Nicholas Tegrini[92], the silk manufacture afterwards flourished in Lucca; and the weavers, having been ejected from that city in the earlier part of the fourteenth century, carried their art to Venice, Florence, Milan, Bologna, and even to Germany, France, and Britain.
[92] Vita Castruccii, in Muratori, Rer. Ital. Scriptores, t. xi. p. 1320.
We have seen from different historical testimonies, that silk was known to the inhabitants of France and England as early as the sixth century. The fact of its introduction into all parts of the North of Europe is manifest from the use of words for silk in several northern languages. These words appear, according to the inquiries of the learned orientalists, Klaproth and Abel Rémusat[93], to have been derived from those Asiatic countries, in which silk was originally produced. In the language of Corea silk is called Sir; in Chinese Se, which may have been produced by the usual omission of the final r. In the Mongol language silk is called Sirkek, in the Mandchou Sirghè. In the Armenian the silk-worm is called Chèram. In Arabic, Chaldee, and Syriac, silk was called Seric[94]. From the same source we have in Greek and Latin Σηρικὸν, Sericum.
[93] Journal Asiatique, 1823, tom. ii. p. 246. Julius Klaproth (Tableau Historique de l’Asie, Paris, 1826, p. 57, 58.) says, that in the year 165 B. C. the inhabitants of the country called by us Tangut, who constituted a powerful kingdom, were attacked by the Hioung Nou, and driven to the West, where they fixed themselves in Transoxiana, and that these events led to an uninterrupted communication with Persia and India, especially in regard to the silk trade. Klaproth considers that the Seres of the ancients were the Chinese; but he appears to include under that term all the nations which were brought into subjection to the Chinese.
Professor Karl Ritter (Erdkunde, Asien, Band iv. 2 te Auflage, Berlin, 1835, p. 437.) observes, in allusion to the authority just quoted, that all the names of the silk-worm and its products are to be accounted for on the supposition (which he considers the true one) that they were first known and cultivated in China, and from thence extended through central Asia into Europe.