The use of metals as a means of ornamentation was also frequently applied to leather. This was for the most part made at Cordova, whose products were conceded to be of superior quality, and commanded the highest price in every market. Some of the tanning vats, huge vessels of terra-cotta, in which this material was prepared, are still to be seen in Spain. The leathern hangings produced in the capital were justly ranked among the most important of its numerous manufactures. By some ingenious process the skins were rendered as soft and pliable as the finest cloth, and were then decorated in accordance with the canons of Arabic taste, which, without offending the eye with glaring contrasts, could blend in harmony the richest tints and the sheen of the brightest metals. The gold and silver were applied with stamps; the colors were laid on with the brush; and the gorgeous designs produced an almost magical effect when viewed amidst the varied magnificence of a Moorish palace. This art, like that of the metallic glaze of porcelain, also appears to be irretrievably lost. The torn and faded fragments of ornamented leather which have descended to us prove not only the durability and excellence of the material, but indicate a skill beside which the efforts of the most accomplished modern bookbinders seem clumsy in comparison. It was often impressed with colored figures in relief, which added greatly to its beauty, imparting to it the appearance of brocade. The finer grades were perfumed with amber. The artisans of Cordova also excelled in the carving and engraving of vessels of silver and gold.
The manufacture of silk at Seville gave employment to a hundred and sixty thousand weavers, a number of whom were employed in the fabrication of the stuff called tiraz, whose use was a royal prerogative. Xativa was long the seat of the first paper factory in Europe,—that substance whose invention has contributed so greatly to the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of civilization. For ages known to the Chinese, the Arabs substituted linen, and finally cotton, for the silk which had been employed in the Celestial empire. Its introduction by the Spanish Moors into Europe is indisputable, a manuscript of cotton paper dating from the eleventh century having been discovered in the library of the Escorial. Although used at Mecca in 710, it was practically unknown in Europe until the fifteenth century, and was not manufactured in London before 1690. The extraordinary impulse imparted to letters by the khalifs, the countless volumes contained in the imperial libraries, the transcriptions of rare manuscripts, and the constant publication of new works for whose composition, if possessed of merit, incredible premiums were paid, must have caused an immense consumption of paper. A profession held in such honor, and whose productions were rewarded with such munificence, naturally attracted to its ranks the noble and the learned of every Moslem nation; and especially was this the case in the Peninsula, where the highest literary advantages were enjoyed even by families of humble rank; and where education among all classes was not only a religious duty, but a stigma attached to its neglect. In consequence of this, literary pursuits became not only a fashion but a pleasure; a correct taste was formed; popular emulation was aroused; the manufacture of books was multiplied; and the palaces of the rich, irrespective of their nationality, were filled with collections which would have provoked the astonishment of a learned “clerk” of France or Britain, whose superiority over his parishioners consisted in his ability to write an illegible scrawl and to intone the service—whose meaning he often did not comprehend, and the application of whose teachings was a matter of conjecture—in a barbarous jargon of monkish Latin. Care for the preservation, and facilities for the purchase, of these literary treasures kept pace with their original production. Binding in leather was perfectly understood, and the elaborately decorated cases in which the volumes were often enclosed were deposited upon shelves of aromatic and precious woods, such as cedar, aloe, ebony, and sandal.
The change from the roll of the ancients to the square form of books now used dates from the middle of the fifth century. The art had already reached a high degree of perfection before the establishment of Islamism. Its best efforts were originally, as might be conjectured, confined to works on sacred subjects. Bindings enriched with ivory, gems, cameos, medallions, and clasps of the precious metals were adorned with the utmost skill of the goldsmith and the lapidary. The Arabs, and especially those of Spain,—the seat of the greatest culture of the race,—excelled in this art, as in all others to which they diligently applied their talents and their industry. The superiority of their materials, the beauty of their designs, the brilliancy of their colors, and the profusion of their ornamentation were proverbial. The value of their covers caused the disappearance and mutilation of great numbers of works, now either entirely lost or existing only in a fragmentary condition. At the sack of Cordova, the Berbers used the leather of priceless volumes for sandals. The Castilian invader stripped others of their gold and jewels and contemptuously cast the manuscripts away. The magnificence of those sacrificed to the malignant energy of Ximenes in the destruction of Moslem learning at Granada only intensified the prejudice existing against Arabic literature in the mind of every ignorant and infuriated bigot of the time.
The trade in books held a high rank in the commercial world; its profits corresponded with its mercantile importance; and in the time of Al-Hakem II. the booksellers in Cordova alone numbered more than twenty thousand.
The various kinds of textile fabrics manufactured by the Spanish Arabs embraced every species of stuffs and every style of pattern. In addition to silk, the fine merino wools of Lusitania and the cotton and flax for which Andalusia was long famous furnished to the weaver supplies of raw material unsurpassed in strength and delicacy of fibre. Silk introduced into Spain by the Moors had for centuries been known to the inhabitants of Yemen, who had become familiar with it through their trade with China. Its use was forbidden to men by Mohammed, in whose time it was a mark of effeminacy; but this prohibition was constantly and systematically evaded by the artifice of mingling a few threads of wool or cotton in the web of the fabric. Essentially an article of luxury, the amount consumed in the Peninsula indicated the prosperous condition of a society which could afford to purchase in such quantities a material that in many countries commanded extravagant prices. As an article of export none was more in demand or more profitable. The broad and discerning government of the khalifs, which, in accordance with the true principles of political economy, promoted every important branch of commerce, regarded its culture and manufacture with peculiar favor. It was by an especial provision of the law exempted from taxation. They encouraged by bounties the planting of mulberry-trees. In addition to the incredible numbers of these to be encountered in the valleys of Granada, Valencia, and Almeria, the city of Jaen, whose climate and situation were remarkably propitious to the rearing of silk-worms, was the centre of three thousand hamlets devoted to this lucrative industry. While in Spain silk was a common material for the apparel of the rich, elsewhere in Europe it was one of the rarest of commodities and a commercial curiosity. It formed part of the most precious booty of the Crusaders. Relics were enclosed in its folds as the most costly of fabrics. It was spread upon the altars of noble cathedrals. Monarchs were delighted with the possession of a small piece of a stuff which for generations had filled the shops and furnished the wardrobes of wealthy citizens of Granada, Cordova, and Seville.
By the cultivation of a single branch of manufactures in a particular locality, the subjects of the khalif, profiting by experience, by the transmission of hereditary talent to successive generations, by the improvement in mechanical processes which from time to time spontaneously suggested themselves, attained in many departments of industry to an almost unprecedented degree of dexterity. Water-power was used to drive machinery in all the Andalusian manufacturing centres; in the time of Ferdinand and Isabella looms were still operated by means of it at Cordova. Nearly every city was noted for a specialty in whose fabrication it excelled. The armorers of Seville were famous for their coats of mail and armor inlaid and embossed with gold. The swords of Toledo were considered unapproachable for the elegance of their chasing, the keenness of their edge, and the fineness of their temper. At Almeria were made articles of gilded and decorated glass, the method of whose manufacture, carried by the Moors to Italy, is now possessed in its perfection by the Venetians alone. The superiority of the woollens of Cuenca and the cottons of Beja was undisputed. Bocayrente produced a linen fabric of gossamer lightness, which resembled the meshes of a spider’s web in strength and in delicacy. The carpets of Murcia had no equals except in Persia. The silken gauzes and sumptuous caparisons of Granada were sent as presents to kings. In its Alcaiceria, or Silk Market, were two hundred shops for the exclusive sale of that staple. It is said that in this beautiful city edifices built for the transaction of business resembled palaces in their splendor. Its tapestries and brocades were wonderful specimens of the weaver’s skill, and their designs were subsequently used as models by the artisans of Italy and France. There also were made exquisite enamels and vases of rock-crystal. The Moorish jewellers of Granada were the most celebrated in Europe. Among the specimens of their handiwork is mentioned a necklace containing four hundred pearls, each worth a hundred and fifty dinars. Alicante enjoyed a monopoly in its mats and baskets of esparto, that tough African grass, whose employment dates from the occupation of Iberia by the Carthaginians, and whose manifold uses are so admirably adapted to the requirements of a tropical climate. The mills of Saragossa and Murcia, built upon boats moored over the rapid currents of the Ebro and the Guadalaviar, were renowned for the excellent character of their flour. The drug-market of Lorca was universally resorted to by physicians, aware that their reputation depended on the purity of the medicines they administered and relying upon the official supervision of the government as a sufficient guaranty of their excellence. No such organized and co-operative system for the production of commodities and fabrics had at that time been adopted by any other nation in the world. The founder’s art, particularly exemplified in the casting of ponderous pieces of metal, was practised with a surprising degree of skill. Cordova contained at least one establishment of this description, where were made the figures for the decoration of the fountains at Medina-al-Zahrâ. The usual difficulties attending the even distribution of the molten metal during the operation of casting seem to have been entirely overcome in the examples to be met with in the museums of Europe, and the results appear to have been as complete and satisfactory as in the perfected processes of the present day.
In every department of scientific labor, in every practical operation of life demanding a high degree of mechanical skill, the Spanish Moor exhibited on all occasions a precocious and remarkable ingenuity. There was no field too extensive, no detail too insignificant, to be investigated by his enterprising genius. The marvellous scope of his powers was the greatest factor of his success. Like the famous English philosopher, he seemed to have “taken all knowledge to be his province.” His intellectual faculties grasped and utilized in an instant conceptions that individuals of other nations would have, and, in fact, often did, cast aside with contempt. The pioneer of modern progress, the permanent traces he has left upon civilization, and his salutary customs, adopted by posterity in defiance of popular odium and traditional prejudice, are unwilling tributes of national and ecclesiastical hostility to the talents and greatness of an accomplished people to whom history is indebted for the sole bright spot on the dark map of mediæval Europe.
For the commodities of European convenience and Oriental luxury were bartered innumerable products of Moorish agriculture, mining enterprise, and manufacturing skill,—the oils, the fruits, the sugar, the rice, the cotton, of Andalusia and Valencia; cochineal, which abounded in many parts of the Peninsula; the antimony and quicksilver of Estremadura; the rubies, amethysts, and pearls of Alicante and Carthagena; the linens of Salamanca; the woollens of Segovia; the silks of Granada; the damasks of Almeria; the blades and armor of Seville and Toledo. The product of the paper-mills of Xativa, famous throughout the East, was annually exported in large quantities. Malaga disposed of the most of its exquisite ceramic manufactures in Syria and Constantinople. From Cordova came the enamelled leather, long famous from the name of the Ommeyade capital. The horses of the Hispano-Arab breed were transported in great numbers even as far as Persia. In the kingdom of Granada a hundred thousand were regularly maintained for the use of the crown. Andalusia enjoyed an infamous celebrity as the principal market for eunuchs in the world. The supply came from France, Galicia, and Barbary, through the medium of Christian and Hebrew dealers, by whose instrumentality, also, these unfortunates were prepared for the humiliating service of the seraglio. Vast multitudes of other slaves, the produce of foray and conquest, were also disposed of from time to time; a single expedition of Al-Mansur conveyed to Cordova nine thousand Christian captives. Thus, exclusive of other booty, prisoners of war were a source of constant and enormous revenue to the state.
The natural resources of Sicily and its fortunate position, as the entrepôt of the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, were the means of enriching its people beyond that of any territory of equal area known in any age. The harbors of Palermo and Syracuse were constantly crowded with shipping. Sicilian merchantmen were to be encountered in every European port; they brought cargoes of slaves, ivory, and gold-dust from the coast of Guinea; they traversed the canal of Suez,—reopened by the Egyptian khalifs,—and, braving the tempests of the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean, penetrated to the Spice Islands of the far distant East. The intimate relations of the Moorish princes of Sicily with the khalifs of Cordova and the Byzantine emperors placed within reach of their merchants every article of popular research and commercial value. In exchange for these, they exported the vegetable and mineral productions of the island,—cotton, hemp, grapes, oranges, sugar, wine, and oil; copper, lead, iron, and mercury; rock-salt, sal-ammoniac, and vitriol; cattle and horses; and the shell-fish from which was extracted the Tyrian purple. The profits of this extensive commerce were naturally productive of enormous wealth; the warehouses of the Sicilian cities were crowded with valuable merchandise of every conceivable description; the houses of the Palermitan merchants rivalled the palaces of sovereigns; and the people in effeminacy and voluptuousness, in no respect surpassed by the inhabitants of ancient Sybaris, were proverbial for their opulence, their refinement, their extravagance, and their luxury.
It will appear from the foregoing observations that the energy manifested by the European Moslems in mercantile pursuits was fully equal to their industrial and literary activity. In neither the ancient nor the mediæval world did any nation—excepting the Phœnicians—approach the Spanish and the Sicilian Arabs in craft, in foresight, in enterprise, in accuracy of judgment, in that singleness of purpose which is indispensable to success. Their Midas touch turned everything to gold. They were familiar with Oriental countries at a period when the very existence of the latter was unknown to Europe or was considered fabulous. The number of shops for the sale of merchandise which existed in the great cities indicated the immensity of the traffic of which they were the centres; of these Cordova contained more than eighty thousand. The rules which governed the transactions of commercial intercourse in the markets of the Peninsula were so simple, convenient, and equitable that they were subsequently adopted by many other nations. The learned French writer, Sédillot, is authority for the statement that Europe has borrowed from the Arabs some of its most important principles of finance as well as its present code of maritime law.