The numberless pragmaticas, or royal proclamations and ordinances, issued at this time show how vigilant was Ferdinand and Isabel’s interest in all that concerned the welfare of their land. In 1486 the cloth-workers of Murcia complained that their trade was being killed by external competition; their looms stood idle, and whereas 50,000 sheep had been needed in old days to provide them with wool, now only some 8000 grazed in their meadows. The response to their petition was a command that for two years no woollen fabrics should enter Murcia; while the import of silk thread from Naples, that threatened the silk industry of Granada, was similarly forbidden. These are only two instances of measures that ranged from awarding bounties to owners of ships of six hundred tons and upwards by way of encouraging navigation to minute instructions as to shoes, hats, embroideries, and armour.
Much of this scheme of protection was well-considered and beneficial. Since merchant ships were liable to be impressed in time of war, the navy, once almost negligible, throve rapidly on the royal preference shown to large vessels, and also owing to a law commanding that no goods should be shipped in a foreign craft while there was a Spanish boat in the harbour. The small merchantmen suffered of course; but the squadron that the sovereigns dispatched to Flanders with the Infanta Joanna in 1496 presented the proud array of one hundred and thirty vessels containing some two thousand souls.
Legislation usually has its dark side; and the sovereigns’ efforts to establish the commercial progress of their land on a sound basis were vitiated by the theory which they shared with their age that precious metals are not merely a convenient medium of exchange but an object of value in themselves. The lust of gold had been the curse that Columbus carried with him to the New World to corrupt his earthly paradise, blinding the settlers to the true wealth of its soil. It was to be the curse also of Spain, where the glitter of bars and ingots was to draw men away from the humbler yet necessary occupation of a life in the fields to adventure their fortunes across the ocean, or to overcrowd the streets of Seville, the home market of the Western Continent.
“Gold” and “ever more gold” was the popular cry; and Ferdinand and Isabel, in their eagerness that their new discovery should not enrich other nations, passed stringent laws forbidding the export of precious metals. The Spanish merchant, at the home frontier or harbour, must state from what locality he came, where he was going, and for how long, and how much coin he had with him;—his answers being written down and signed in the presence of three witnesses, that any subterfuge might afterwards be confuted. The foreign merchant had not even this indulgence. In exchange for what he imported from his own country he must take back neither coin nor bullion, however small the quantity, but exports in the form of goods manufactured in Spain; and these by a proclamation of 1494 might not include brocades nor embroideries woven or worked with gold thread.
Thus by excessive care what might have been a lucrative industry was ruined; the more that sumptuary laws prohibited the wearing of rich stuffs in Spain itself save by a limited part of the population. A desire for splendid clothing, like the love of beauty, is imprinted deep in human hearts, and “fine feathers” are the usual accompaniment of commercial prosperity; but Ferdinand and Isabel regarded with horror what they considered as the growing extravagance of the lower classes. The latter were intended to work, not to flaunt fine stuffs in the faces of the aristocracy; and the silk-trade, its growth watered by protection, was stunted by restrictions on its sales.
On the splendour of Isabel and her Court we have already remarked; but it is significant that, at Tordesillas in 1520, the Commons nevertheless looked back to the reign of the Catholic sovereigns as a time of economy, complaining to the young Emperor that the daily expenses of his household were ten times as great as those of his grandparents. Ferdinand and his Queen were gorgeous in their dress and ceremony; but it was the considered maintenance of their ideal of dignity not the careless extravagance of those who spend what others have earned, and therefore fail to realize its true value.
They did not let themselves be imprisoned behind the bars of pomp [wrote the Royal Council to Charles, soon after Ferdinand’s death] for it seemed to them that there was greater security in the good reputation of their government than in the magnificence of their household.
It has been urged as an instance of parsimony in contrast to their personal expenditure that the Catholic sovereigns, in spite of their professed love of learning, did not with the exception of the College at Avila found or endow any school or college; and had the education of their land depended solely on the support of the royal treasury such criticism would be just. It will be seen however that, given the momentum of royal encouragement, private enterprise, often almost as well endowed as sovereignty and with far less claims upon its purse, was quite capable of acting “Alma Mater” to the would-be scholars of Spain.
The civil wars of Henry IV.’s reign had, it is true, developed muscle and sword-play rather than the literary mind; but the blows suffered by culture at the hands of anarchy, though heavy, had not proved mortal. Men were still alive who recalled the artistic traditions of the Court of John II., Isabel’s father, and rejoiced to see their revival under his daughter. It was not only that Isabel herself, by her own studies and the careful education of her children, set an example which an obsequious Court must necessarily follow; but her whole attitude to life expressed her belief in the importance of this learning that the average young noble would otherwise have held in little esteem.
In 1474 the art of printing was introduced into Spain; and before the end of the century presses were set up in Valencia, Saragossa, Barcelona, Seville, Salamanca, Toledo, and all the large cities of the two kingdoms. The Queen, quick to realize the power this invention might become, granted freedom from taxation to German and Italian printers of repute; just as she had encouraged the advent of picked engineers and artisans that the best brains of Europe, whatever the line of their development, might be at her disposal. Spanish books, classics, and classical translations were published; while, in contrast to the heavy tariffs usually levied on imports, foreign books were allowed free entrance into the home markets.