and a royal edict of January 12th, 1611, forbade the wearing of brocade and every other costly stuff to all except the clergy and the military.

The clergy, indeed, had always been notorious for extravagance, and not a few of all these sumptuary laws are aimed specifically at them. In a.d. 1228 the Council of Valladolid prohibited the use by priests of sleeved robes, or gilded saddles, bits, spurs, or poitrels. In 1267 the Synod of León repeated these prohibitions, further insisting that the garments of the clergy, besides being sleeveless, were not to be red or green, and were to have a moderate length (“non muy largas, non muy cortas”), and that their cloaks were not to fasten with a clasp or cord; these regulations to be rigidly adhered to en sennal de honestidat—“as a sign of honesty.”

We also know that at this time (thirteenth century) the shirts of many of the wealthier Spaniards were woven of finest linen imported from the East, embroidered and picked out with gold and silver thread, and that the clergy were at least the equals of the laity in their craze for costly clothing. In a.d. 1273, an inventory was made of the effects belonging to Don Gonzalo Palomeque, on his election to the bishopric of Cuenca. It mentions almadraques and Murcian tapetes, carpitas viadas from Tlemcen, fine Murcian blankets (alhamares), silk xamedes, Murcian matting for covering walls and daïses (“para paret et para estrado”), and stuffs from Syria. Another inventory, that of Don Gonzalo Gudiel, archbishop of Toledo, is dated a.d. 1280, and mentions, as included with his property, quantities of oriental fabrics which are designated by the general name tartaricas.[5] Among them were “unus pannus operatus ad aves de auro et campus de serica viridi, item unus alius pannus tartaricus cum campo de seta alba et vite aurea, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta rubea cum pinis aureis, item unus pannus tartaricus de seta viridi.”[6]

A number of mediæval textile fabrics, some in fragments, some intact, have been preserved in Spanish private collections or museums. It is, however, seldom easy to determine whether they were made in this Peninsula, or whether in Sicily, Byzantium, Venice, or the East. Among the most remarkable of all these interesting specimens are, a strip which was extracted from the mausoleum of a Spanish bishop, Don Bernardo Calbó, a native of Vich in Cataluña, and which is now in the museum of that town; other fragments in the same collection, including one of holosericum or pure silk, which was formerly in the neighbouring church of San Juan de las Abadesas, and is commonly known as the pallium or altar front “of the witches” (owing to certain beasts or monsters figuring in the design), a Moorish tiraz, now in the Academy of History at Madrid, the celebrated Moorish “banner of the battle of Las Navas,” now in the Monastery of Santa María la Real de las Huelgas at Burgos, the banner (also Moorish) of the battle of the River Salado, the chasubles “of the Constable” and of Chiriana, preserved respectively at Burgos and at Caravaca, a fragment, preserved in the Royal Armoury at Madrid, of the shroud of Ferdinand the Third, and the Moorish clothing of the son of the same King Ferdinand, the Infante Don Felipe, and of Felipe's second wife, Doña Leonor Ruiz de Castro.

The strip of woven material found in the sepulchre of Bishop Calbó, who is said to have accompanied Don Jayme the Conqueror in the conquest of Valencia (a.d. 1238), is described by Miquel y Badía as belonging to the class denominated pallia rotata—that is, with circles forming part of their design,—and dates most probably from the twelfth century; but it is impossible to say whether it was manufactured in the East, or whether at Valencia or some other Spanish town. The same remark applies to other fragments which are also, as I stated, in the Vich Museum. The one discovered in the tomb of Bishop Calbó contains, coloured in green, grey, and black upon a carmine ground, a decorative scheme of circles, flowers, and gryphons or other monsters in pairs, affrontés, and also, within the circles, the figure of a man grappling with two lions, tigers, dogs, or other beasts, and who is believed to represent Samson or Daniel—more probably the latter. Miquel y Badía points out that in this fragment the figure of the man recalls Egyptian art, suggested by his curious head-dress, and by the crossing of his clothes upon his breast.

Another textile fragment in the same collection is coloured black, red, and grey upon a yellowish ground. It is decorated with long-tailed birds resembling peacocks, and with sphinxes which fill the circles or medallions. A third fragment, also in the Vich Museum, belongs to the type of pallia cum aquilis et bestiolis. The design consists of a double-headed eagle with half-extended wings, holding in the claws of either foot some kind of quadruped—perhaps a bull. The colour of the ground resembles carmine, and on it the design is wrought in greenish black—that may have been originally green—relieved at intervals with yellow.

The “witches'” pallium in the same collection is decorated with the series of extraordinary beasts or monsters that have won for it this title with the vulgar, depicted in yellow, white, black, and dark green upon a red ground. Miquel believes this fabric to proceed from Byzantium, and to date from not much earlier than the eleventh century. The devices are disposed in two rows, the lower containing peacocks affrontés, and the upper a series of fantastic monsters, each of which possesses a head, two bodies, and four feet—the head being semi-human, semi-bestial, the double body that of a bird, and the claws those of a lion or some other formidable quadruped.

The Royal Academy of History at Madrid possesses a fragment of the costly fabric known as tiraz, an eastern word (corrupted by the Spaniards into taracea, i.e. embroidery on clothing), which means the bordering for a royal robe. Such bordering, which contained inscriptions, or the sultan's name, or both together, is said to have been first used in Spain by Abderrahman the Second, who ruled from a.d. 825 to 852. “The caliphs of Cordova,” says Riaño, “had a place set apart in their palaces where this stuff was kept: this custom lasted until the eleventh century, when it disappeared, and was re-established in the thirteenth century with the kings of Granada.” Tiraz, in fact, was both produced and stored in special departments of the Sultan's palaces[7]; or so we must infer from the following passage by Ibn-Khaldun. “The places (almedinas) where these stuffs were woven were situated within the palaces of the caliphs, and were known as the ‘pavilions of the tiraz.’ The person at the head of these workshops was called the superintendent of the tiraz: he had charge of both the weavers and the looms,