37^ Dr. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



historians is called the middle age, cannot he doabted. In less than one hundred 

 years fio-.n the beginning of the seventh century, when Mahomet fled from Mecca 

 to Medina, the Saracens, his followers, extended themselves into Spain, which, in 

 714, they made great progress in taking from the Goths, and, in two or three yearsj 

 totally over-ran. At this period, in the quaint words of Roderic, Archbishop of 

 Toledo, it was " fruitful in corn, pleasant in fruits, delicious in fishes, savoury 

 " in milk, clamorous in hunting, gluttonous in herds and flocks,"* while in Eng- 

 land, as we have before seen, sheep were so scarce, that a fleece was estimated 

 at two-thirds of the value of the ewe, which produced it, and the lamb put 

 together. 



Into Spain the invaders either carried with them the arts of luxury, or acquired 

 and improved them there ; so that the revenue of one of their sovereigns in the 

 10th century amounted to six millions sterling — " a sum, which probably at that 

 " time surpassed the united revenues of the Christian monarchs." t And when, 

 after several centuries, they were in their turns gradually expelled by their Christian 

 neighbours, their country saw nothing but the change of religion, which could com- 

 pensate for the loss of population, of agricultural and mechanical science, industry, 

 and wealth. On the recovery of Seville from the Moors by Ferdinand the Third, 

 in 1248, not less than 1 6,000 looms are said to have been found in that city.^J; Of 

 these machines, the far greater number was probably employed in the fabric of 

 woollen cloths. Thus, according to Ustariz, " the manufactures of Segovia flou- 

 " rished most, both in point of number and quality, and were in high esteem, being 

 " the best and finest that were known in ancient times." ^ These fabrics, the tem- 

 perature of the climate, and the luxurious propensities of the inhabitants, would 

 indeed naturally determine to be of the lightest and softest kinds. Hence in the 

 midst of all our boast of manufacture, and of various treaties from the time of Ed- 

 ward the Second to that of Elizabeth, we read of only two or three instances of the 



* Foecunda frugibus, amoena fructibus, deliciosa piscibus, sapida lacticiniis, clamosa venationi- 

 b\is, gulosa armentis et gregibiis. De Rebus Hispanias lib. III. cap. xx. Apiid Beli Scriptores. 

 He wrote in 1243. 



t Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, V. 381. 



t Ustariz, Theory and Practice of Commerce. English edition, I. 24. Townsend's Travels 

 in Spain, Vol. II, page 332. 



§ Ustariz, II. 281. 



