[37] The device of Ferdinand the Catholic was a yoke; the sheaf of arrows, that of Isabella. (See Vol. II., p. [147], etc.).
[38] The skull and crossbones were a favourite design upon these objects. The Church of the Escorial possesses four paraments so decorated, which were shown, in 1878, at the Parisian Exhibition of Retrospective Art.
[39] Gómez Moreno; Apuntes que pueden servir de historia del bordado de imagineria en Granada (El Liceo de Granada; 6th year, No. 18).
[40] A similar usage prevailed at Valladolid. The account of this city as it existed in 1605, published by Gayangos in the Revista de España, describes Don Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana, as “riding in the finest clothes imaginable; his cloak, jacket, breeches, shoes, and the trappings, harness, reins, etc., of his horse, being all embroidered with the finest twisted silver thread. Even his horse's blinkers were of the same material.”
[41] The use of embroidery was, however, greatly curbed by sumptuary pragmatics, issued early in this century (see Vol. I., pp. [287], [289]). A similar pragmatic had appeared in 1622; but it is clear from the passages I have quoted, that little or no attention was paid to it.
[TAPESTRY]
There is a dim tradition, derived from or supported by a Latin poet (“Tunc operosa suis Hispana tapetia villis”) that carpets or tapestries of some kind were made in the Spanish Peninsula in the time of the Romans. Undoubtedly this craft was practised by the Spanish-Moors, particularly in the regions of Valencia, Alicante, Cuenca, and Granada. This statement is confirmed by two laconic notices which occur in the Description of Africa and Spain of Edrisi, a Mohammedan geographer of the twelfth century. Of the town of Chinchilla, in Alicante province, he wrote,—“woollen carpets are made here, such as could not be manufactured anywhere else, owing to the qualities of the air and water”; and of Cuenca, “excellent woollen carpets are manufactured at this town.”
“En Espagne,” says Müntz, “l'industrie textile ne tarda pas à prendre également le plus brilliant essor, grâce à la conquête maure. Les étoffes d'Almeria acquirent rapidement une réputation européenne; il est vrai que c'étaient des brocarts, des damas, et autres tissus analogues, non des tapisseries: l'influence qu'elles furent appelées à exercer au dehors se borna donc au domaine de l'ornementation.”
