THE EMIGRANT'S HAND-BOOK. 



477 



I ^at part of their wool was exported to the Low Coun- 

 tnes, where weaving had been successfully practiced, and 

 brought back in the form of cloth. At so late a period 

 as 1331, this art was so little understood in England, that 

 the arrival of two weavers from Brabant is recorded in 

 the chronicles, among the important events of that time. 

 But it was the. religious persecution under the Duke of 

 Alva, and the revocation of the edict of Nants, that oc- 

 casioned a great number of Flemish weavers to take re- 

 fuge and settle in this country. 



Weaving is performed by the aid of a machine called 

 a loom, and the simplest kind, or common looms, vary 

 but little as to their general structure, whatever may be 

 the nature of the fabric they are intended to make ; the 

 chief difference in those for weaving silk or wool, consist- 

 ing in the greater stability and strength of the latter, on 

 account of the greater coarseness and elasticity of the 

 fibres and the thickness of the cloth woven. Great im- 



