WOOLLEN MANUFACTURE. 



tween the Netherlands and foreign countries, which proved 

 of the higheft importance to commerce. It contributed to 

 a much more fpeedy recovery of the arts connefted with the 

 woollen manufafture, from the ruin which feemed to 

 threaten them, and gave a ftriking inftance of their partia- 

 lity for the feats where they have once flourifhed, under the 

 patronage of a government liberal enough to encourage, and 

 fufficiently powerful to proteft them, even in fituations at- 

 tended with natural difadvantages. The influence of thefe 

 manufaftures upon the fleeces of the Low Countries muft 

 have been very confiderable ; for before the year g6o we have 

 no reafon to fuppofe that their quality was fuperior to that 

 which we find in the neighbouring dillrifts ; yet it was not 

 very long ere Flanders and Brabant became famous for the 

 manufafture of fine cloths, even at a period when they im- 

 ported but little foreign wool. Perhaps the fabrics might 

 not be equal to thofe which we now produce from the 

 fleeces of Spain, or even from the improved ones of our own 

 iheep, but they were preferable to thofe of England and the 

 ] nations of the continent, Italy and Spain excepted. It was 

 about the year 1 200 that the merchants began to import the 

 wools of other countries, to extend their conneftions much 

 more widely, and to grow by this means ftiU more rich and 

 powerful. The manufaftures required a larger quantity of 

 the raw material than ufual, and the population of the country 

 had reached that extent which does not admit of a great 

 number of (heep being kept, even though the employment 

 ,o{ the people depend upon the fleeces, and their fubfiftence 

 lUpon tlie food which they furnifti. We fhall obferve in- 

 ;fcances of a fimilar kind when we treat more particularly of 

 England. The operation of thefe two caufes was evidently 

 jfufficient to induce the manufadlurer to go farther from 

 home, and to feek the mofl convenient methods of fupplying 

 :his looms. It might have been expeftcd that he would have 

 turned his attention to France and to Germany ; but inde- 

 pendent of the hoftile difpofitions of fomeof the neighbour- 

 |ing fovereigns, the raw material was too bulky to be con- 

 iveyed at an eafy expence through the bad roads of a half 

 icultivated country ; and the rtiips of Spain and of Britain, 

 iwfho found an intereft in fupplying the wants of the Nether- 

 lands, unladed their cargoes almoft at his very door, and fo- 

 ilicited in payment but little elfc than the goods which he 

 bad manufaftured. 



1 Spain was the firft country on the weftern fide of Eu- 

 Irope, where the Tarentine breed of fine-woolled fiieep 

 were cultivated with fuccefs by the Romans. See Sheep. 

 ; This breed, intermixed with the native flocks, gave rife 

 j;o the prefent fine-woolled fheep of Spain ; and it does not 

 ippear that this valuable race was ever greatly neglefted in 

 hat country. That it abounded in flieep in what is called 

 !.he middle age cannot be doubted. At the period when 

 'he Saracens extended themfelves in Spain, about the eighth 

 ;entiiry, to ufe the quaint words of Roderic, archbiftiop of 

 (Foledo, " it was fruitful in corn, pleafant in fruits, de- 

 jicious In fiflies, favoury in milk, clamorous in hunting, 

 lind gluttonous in herds and flocks,"— .^a/o/i armentu et 

 '•rcgibus. He wrote in A.D. 1243. In England at that 

 ime flseep were fo fcarce, that a fleece was eilimated at 

 '' wo-thirds the value of the ewe which produced it, together 

 iwith the lamb. 



] Into Spain the invaders either carried the arts of luxury, 

 hr, what is more probable, improved them by their fuperior 

 nduftry. The revenue of one of their fovereigns in the 

 ;enth century amounted to fix millions fterling ; a fum, fays 

 ' jibbon, which at that time probably furpaffed the united 

 |evenues of the Chriftian monarchs. When, feveral centuries 

 ifterwards, the Saracens were gradually expelled by their 

 ■ Vol. XXXVIII. 



Chriftian neighbours, Spain faw nothing but the change ol 

 religion to compenfate the lofs of population, of agricultural 

 and mechanical fcience, of induftry, and wealth. On the re- 

 covery of the Seville from the Moors in 1248, not lefs than 

 16,000 looms are faid to have been found in that city. Of 

 thefe, the greater number was probably employed in the 

 fabric of woollen cloths. According to Uftarix, " Theory 

 and Praftice of Commerce," the manufaftures of Segovia 

 flouriflied mofl;, both in point of number and quality, and 

 were in high efteem, being the beft and fineft that were 

 known in ancient times. The temperature of the climate, 

 and the luxurious propenfities of the inhabitants, would natu- 

 rally determine thefe fabrics to be of the lighteft and foftcft 

 kinds. Hence in the midft of the boafted ancient manu- 

 fadlures of England, we read only of two or three inftances 

 of the importation of Englilh cloth into Spain. The 

 Spaniards had certainly at that time their own native fleeces 

 beft adapted to their own tafte and climate. 



We are told by Dillon, in his " Hiftory of Peter the 

 Cruel," that the woollen cloths of Barcelona were in high 

 efteem in Seville in the reign of that prince, and in the 

 preceding century. So far back as 1243, the woollen cloth 

 of Lerida is fpoken of in terms of great ettimation. A few 

 years after, Baurlas, Valis, Gerena, Perpignan, and Tor- 

 tofa, were remarkable as manufafturing towns, and for the 

 finenefs of their cloths, fuftians, and ferges. So great was 

 their exportation, that in 1353 there were 935 bales of 

 cloth taken on board a (hip from Barcelona to Alexandria 

 by a Genoefe privateer; and 1000 bales of cloth were 

 taken on board three Catalonian fliips in 141 2, by Antonio 

 Dorco, in the port of Callus. We are told by the fame 

 author, that, according to records ftill extant in Barcelona, 

 confiderable orders for wool were fent to England in 1446, 

 in order to be manufaftured there and returned to England 

 in the form of cloth, the Spaniards themfelves difdaining to 

 wear it. 



According to Lucius Marineus Siculus, who wrote in 

 the time of the emperor Charles V., Spain was then full of 

 herds and flocks, more efpecially it contained innumerable 

 fliecp ; fo that many fliepherds, whom he knew, had flocks 

 of 30,000 each ; on which account Spain not only fupplied 

 its own people moft abundantly, but alfo foreign nations, 

 with the very fofteft wool. 



This account is confirmed by what is related by Sandoval, 

 wlio ftates, that in an infurreftion in Spain in 1519, the 

 army of infurgents, among whom were many cloth-workers, 

 ftipulated, among other points, that the cloths imported 

 into Spain fiiould be of the fame fize and goodnefs as thofe 

 wrought there ; and that the merchants and clothiers might 

 have leave to feize, in order to work up, half the wools fold 

 for exportation, paying the owners the price at which they 

 had been bought. Hence we learn the fuperiority of Spanifh 

 cloth, and the great fale of Spanifti wool to foreign countries 

 at that time. 



Damianus a Goes, who was page to Emanuel, king of 

 Portugal, in 15 1 6, has written a ftiort account of the me- 

 morable things of Spain, which he dates at Louvain in the 

 year 1541. In this work he fays, that there are annually 

 exported from Spain to Bruges 40,000 facks of wool, each 

 felling at the loweft for twenty gold ducats. 



Now from an authentic acquittance, preferved in the 

 Fcedera, from queen Ehzabeth to Cofmo de Medici, for a 

 fum borrowed by him of Henry VIII., we find that the 

 gold ducat or florin was in 1545 equal to five ibillings of 

 our money. In this year, the 36th of Henry VIII., the 

 bafe coinages began ; but as queen Elizabeth Teems to have 

 continued receiving the inftalments of the Florentine debt 

 4M for 



