[73] En la nombrada y gran ciudad de Granada, Agosto 20. Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 135.
[74] Pragmáticas del Reyno, passim.—Diccionario Geográfico-Hist. de España, tom. i. p. 333—Capmany, Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. part 3, cap. 2.—Mines of lead, copper, and silver were wrought extensively in Guipuzcoa and Biscay.—Col. de Céd., tom. i. no. 25.
[75] Pragmáticas del Reyno, fol. 127, 128.—Ante, Part II., Chapter 3, note 12.—The cortes of Toledo, in 1525, complained, "que habia tantos caballos Españoles en Francia como en Castilla." (Mem. de la Acad. de Hist., tom. vi. p. 285.) The trade, however, was contraband; the laws against the exportation of horses being as ancient as the time of Alfonso XI. (See also Ordenanças Reales, fol. 85, 86.)
Laws can never permanently avail against national prejudices. Those in favor of mules have been so strong in the Peninsula, and such the consequent decay of the fine breed of horses, that the Spaniards have been compelled to supply themselves with the latter from abroad. Bourgoanne reckons that 20,000 were annually imported into the country from France, at the close of the last century. Travels in Spain, tom. i. chap. 4.
[76] Hist. del Luxo, tom. i. p. 170.—"Tiene muchas ouejas," says Marineo, "cuya lana estan singular, que no solamente se aprouechan della en España, mas tambien se lleua en abundancia a otras partes." (Cosas Memorables, fol. 3.) He notices especially the fine wool of Molina, in whose territory 400,000 sheep pastured, fol. 19.
[77] Mem. de Barcelona, tom. iii. pp. 338, 339.—"Or if ever exported," he adds, "it was at some period long posterior to the discovery of America."
[78] Pragmáticas del Reyno, passim.—Many of them were designed to check impositions, too often practised in the manufacture and sale of goods, and to keep them up to a fair standard.
[79] L. Marineo, Cosas Memorables, fol. 11.
[80] Ibid., fol. 19.—Navagiero, Viaggio, fol. 26.—The Venetian minister, however, pronounces them inferior to the silks of his own country.
[81] "Proueyda," says Marineo, "de todos officios, y artes mecánicas que en ella se exercitan mucho: y principalmente en lanor, y exercicio de lanas, y sedas. Por las quales dos cosas biuen en esta ciudad mas de diez mil personas. Es de mas desto la ciudad muy rica, por los grandes tratos de mercadurias." Cosas Memorables, fol. 12.