[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.
[12] Eguilaz Yanguas, Les Peintures de l'Alhambra.
[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.
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.
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.