[81] Barzanallana says that the earliest sign of a movement in the direction of emancipating the Spanish people from the thraldom of the gremios is contained in the royal cedula of May 17th, 1790, abolishing several of the noxious prerogatives which had hitherto been enjoyed by the families of master-craftsmen. A further crown decree, dated the same month and year, empowered the Audiencias and Chancillerías to authorize persons to pursue a craft (provided they were reasonably competent) without the necessity of approval from the gremios and their veedores. Three years later, the same monarch (Charles the Fourth) suppressed the gremios and colegios of the silk-twisters, and declared this craft to be open to all such persons, of either sex, as wished to practise it. In 1797 it was permitted to all foreigners who should be competent in any art or industry (except Jews) to establish themselves in Spain or her dominions, nor were they to be molested in their religious theories if they should happen not to be Roman Catholics.
At a later time the Cortes annulled, or very nearly so, the ordenanzas of the gremios, and allowed the exercise of any lawful trade or craft to everybody, Spaniards and foreigners alike, without the requisite of special license or examination, or approval by the officers of the guilds (decree of June 8th, 1813). This measure was revoked in 1815, but again became law in 1836, and two years before this latter date was issued the decree of Queen María Cristina prohibiting associations which, under the semblance of a gremio, should aim at converting any craft or office into a monopoly.
The Spanish gremios still exist, but all their sting has departed. To-day they may be said to spring from the natural and beneficial interdependence of persons working together in the same groove, and seeking mutual support by means of peaceable association. Thus the abuses which rendered them so terrible and evil in the olden time are fortunately now no more.
[82] This custom was borrowed from the East, and explains why, in many of the older Spanish cities, a number of their streets have taken their title from the trades that formerly were plied in them, or (in some instances) that still are so. Especially was this the case at Valencia and Toledo. In the latter capital there are, or used to be, the streets, plazas, or barrios, of the silversmiths, armourers, bakers, old-clothes vendors, potters, esparto-weavers, dyers, chairmakers, and many more. Martín Gamero, in his excellent History of Toledo (Introduction, p. 60), says that in the centre of the city were located the quiet crafts, such as those of the jewellers, silversmiths, chandlers, and clog-makers, as well as the shops of the silk, brocade, and tissue-vendors. Noisy trades, such as the swordsmiths', tinsmiths', boiler-makers', chairmakers', and turners', were practised on the outskirts of the town.
[83] Colmeiro has published memoriales presented by the hatters of Zaragoza, in which they pray to be allowed to line, by their own hands, or by those of their wives, the hats which they had manufactured, instead of being required to give up this finishing and accessorial process to the makers of silk cord.—Historia de la Economía Política en España, and Biblioteca de los economistas españoles de los siglos XVI., XVII., y XVIII.
[84] This meddlesomeness almost exceeds belief. It was at its worst, perhaps, in the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, who decreed that the wicks of candles were to be made of the same kind of tow, and horse-shoes and nails to be of the same weight in every part of their dominions. It was required that machines, which might have been to great advantage moved by mules or horses, should only be worked by the hand of man, however lengthy and exhausting this might prove. The Count of Torreánaz, who quotes these ridiculous dispositions from the Libro de bulas y pragmáticas of Juan Ramírez, further recalls that, as late as the middle of the eighteenth century, costly woven stuffs of Seville and Valencia used to be confiscated because, although the ground of the fabric was of a colour which the law allowed, the flowers or other devices which formed the decoration were of a forbidden shade. On one occasion the chief lady-in-waiting of the queen was prohibited from wearing a dress which she had ordered from a weaver of Valencia, because the flowered pattern was contrary to the ordenanzas.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY]
The following is a fairly complete list of the works I have consulted for the preparation of these volumes.