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 prés 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”).
The laws affecting the dyers of silk contain the following provisions. They were not to dye with pomegranate or sumach, and if the rind of the former fruit were found in their houses, they were liable to a fine of six thousand maravedis and thirty days' imprisonment. Dyeing with Brazil-wood was also prohibited in the case of silks of finer quality exposed for sale in the Alcaicería. Elaborate directions follow as to the manner of applying the dye. In the case of silks dyed blue or purple, the dyer, before he drew the fabric from the vat, was required to show it to the alamin or inspector of the silk, or else to one of the veedores nominated by the city councillors. The fines imposed upon the dyers who were found to contravene these regulations were distributed in the following proportion: one-third towards repairing the ramparts or adarves of Granada; another third between the alamin, the veedores, and the other officials who discovered and denounced the culprit; and the remaining third between the magistrates and other authorities who tried and sentenced him.
Further, each silk-dyer was to have six tinajas, or large jars (see Vol. II., pp. [120] et seq.), kept continually full of dye, well settled, and liable at any hour to be analyzed by the veedores. In dyeing fabrics black, each pound of silk was to be treated with ten ounces of foreign galls of fine quality, two ounces of copperas, and two ounces of gum-arabic.