XI
PRIEST'S ROBE; SPANISH
(Embroidered in Gold on Green Velvet. About A.D. 1500)
The Ordinances of Granada (a.d. 1532), from which we learn that cloth was also manufactured at that capital, contain the usual dispositions relative to the stamping of this product by the city officers. The stamps were in a box which was kept in a corner of the cathedral and closed by two keys, guarded severally by a councillor and an inspector of the trade, or veedor. On every day except a public festival, between the hours of ten and eleven of the morning, and three and four of the afternoon, it was the duty of these two authorities to proceed to the Alcaicería, and ascertain if any cloth required stamping. If so, the stamps were fetched forthwith from the cathedral, the cloth was marked, and the stamps were solemnly restored to their chest beneath the double key.
Among the woven fabrics other than those of silk, and which are specified in the Ordinances of Granada relative to the tundidores or shearers, are cloths of Florence, Flanders, London, Valencia, Zaragoza, Onteniente, Segovia, and Perpignan; velarte (a fine cloth manufactured at Granada), red burel (kersey) of Baeza, black kersey of Villanueva and La Mancha, ruan (Roan linen), fustians, friezes, and cordellate (grogram) of Granada, Valencia, Toledo, Segovia, and Cuenca. According to Capmany, cloths of the commoner kind, and which were popular about this time, were the granas treintenas and black cloths of Valencia, the white or yellow veintiseiseno cloths of Toledo, the white cloths of Ciudad Real, the green palmillas of Cuenca, and green dieciochenos of Segovia, the contrayes of Cazalla, and the pardillos of Aragon. Spanish cloth was also manufactured at Vergara, Cordova, Jaen, Murcia, Palencia, Tavira de Durango, and Medina del Campo.
XII
EMBROIDERED CHASUBLE
(Palencia Cathedral)
Laborde says: “In the archives of the Crowns of Aragon and Castile there is a notice of the duties paid from the thirteenth to the end of the seventeenth century for foreign cloths sold in Spain, and for other articles of consumption coming from abroad. The principal cloths came from Bruges, Montpellier, and London; the velvets from Malines, Courtrai, Ypres, and Florence. This trade became so injurious to Spain, that Ferdinand and Isabella thought themselves bound to limit it entirely to the stuffs required for ornaments of the church, which of itself was a considerable quantity. Their prohibition is the subject of the rescript of September 2nd, 1494, for the provinces of the Crown of Castile. Even so far back as the Ordinances of Barcelona in 1271, mention is made of the taxes levied on the cloths of Flanders, Arras, Lannoy, Paris, Saint Denis, Chalons, Beziers, and Reims.”[35]
