378 X)r. Parry's Essay on the Nature, Produce, Origin, 



" and flocks, so that the woods, mountains, meadows, fields, and forest?, every 

 " where resounded with their lowing and bleating. More especially it possessed 

 " innumerable sheep, so that rpany shepherds whom he knew had flocks of 30,000 

 "each; on which account, Spain most abundantly supplied not only its own 

 " people, but also foreign nations, with the very softest wool." " Est Hispania 

 " praeterea et pecoris omnis generis dives, gregibus et armentis plena, adeo ut 

 '* mugitu balatuque nemora, silvae, montes, prata, campi, saltus ubique resonent. 

 " Oves imprimis innumeras habet Hispania. Siquidcm multos in Hispania pas- 

 " tores novimus, quorum unusquisque ovium triginta millia possidebat. Quapropter 

 " lanas moUissimas non Hispanis solum populis, sed externis etiam gentibus ove* 

 " abundatissime suggerunt."* 



This account is confirmed by what is related by Sandoval, who states that, in an 

 insurrection in Spain in 1519, the army of insurgents, among whom were many 

 cloth-workers, stipulated, among other points, that the cloths imported into Spain, 

 should be of the same size and goodness as those wrought there ; and that the 

 merchants and clothiers might have leave to seize, in order to work up, half the 

 ■wools sold for exportation, paying the owners the price at which they had been 

 bought.t Hence we learn the superiority of Spanish cloth, and the great sale of 

 Spanish wool to foreign countries, at that iime. 



Damianus a Goes, who was page of the bedchamber to Emanuel King of Por- 

 tugal in 1516, has written a short account of the memorable things of Spain, which 

 he dates at Louvain in t4ie year 1541. In this work he says, that there are 

 annually exported from Spain to Bruges, 40,000 sacks of wool, each selling, at the 

 lowest, for twenty gold ducats. + Now from an authentic acquittance, preserved ir» 

 the Foedera, from Queen Elizabeih to Cosmo de Medici, for a sum borrowed by 

 him of Henry the.'^Eighth, we find that the gold ducat, or florin, was, in 1545, equal 

 to five shillings of our money. In this year, the 36th of Henry the Eighth, the base 

 coinages began ; but as Ouecn Elizabeth seems to have continued receiving the 

 instalments of the Florentine debt, for several years, at the same rate, when the 

 shilling was of something more than the present value, I think it probable that the 



• 



• De Rebus Hispanix, lib. i. f Sandoval apiid Anderson, anno citato. 



t Apud Beii scriptores. Vehuntur navigio Brugas, civitatcm Gallis Belgicac, singulis annis 

 quadraginta tnillia lanx sarcinaruin, quas Saquas vocant, quarum unaquajque ut miiiimuisi 

 pretium viginti ducatoruin aureorum vel squat vel superat. 



