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Spanish and European Textiles in Sixteenth Century Mexico*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Peter Boyd-Bowman
Peter Boyd-Bowman*
Affiliation:
State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, New York
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Extract

The extraordinary demand for luxury clothes in XVIth Century New Spain, especially for silks and velvets, has been well documented. For example, Archbishop Zumárraga, writing to the King, observed that “silks are so common here (in Mexico) that low-class journeymen and servants of both sexes as well as lovers and unmarried girls go about laden with silken capes, tunics, petticoats and mantles. … ”, while the royal accountant Rodrigo de Albornoz, also writing to His Majesty, stated that “tradespeople's wives and prostitutes wear more clothes of silk than a nobleman in Castile.” And although edicts repeatedly prohibited such luxurious dress, these edicts would only be obeyed for a brief time.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 29 , Issue 3 , January 1973 , pp. 334 - 358
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1973

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Footnotes

*

The author is grateful to the American Council of Learned Societies for a $1,500 grant-in-aid in support of this research.

References

1 See especially Alfonso Toro, La familia Carvajal, pp. 139–140 and 153, note 2.

2 Livermore, Harold, A History of Spain. New York, Farrar, Straussand Cudahy, 1958, pp. 186-.Google Scholar Bazant, Jan, “Evolución de la industria textil poblana (1554–1845)” in Hist. Mx. XIII (1964), pp. 473–516.Google Scholar Also Borah’s, Woodrow article, “El origen de la sericultura en la Mixteca Alta,” Hist. Mx. 13 (1964), pp. 1–17,Google Scholar Villegas, Luis Márquez, Un Léxico de la Artesanía Granadina. Universidad de Granada, 1961, and Camarena, Miguel Gual, “Para un mapa de la industria textil hispana en la Edad Media, ” Anuario de estudios medievales, Barcelona 1967, pp. 109–168.Google Scholar

3 Puebla’s notarial archive, parts of which have been damaged by mildew, bookworms and other hazards, was microfilmed in 1959 by the Academia Mexicana de Genealogía. The 85 rolls, covering rather thoroughly the period 1540-1664, are a rich source of information about the social and economic life of an early colonial city. Unfortunately, many of its earlier documents are in deplorable condition as well as being unindexed and chronologically disorganized, which makes them difficult and time-consuming to consult in their existing form. In order to make this archive more accessible to scholars both in Mexico and elsewhere, this writer has indexed and extracted from microfilm the substance of over 1600 documents executed in Puebla between 1540 and 1556.

4 See Boyd-Bowman, Peter, “Early Spanish Trade with Mexico: A Sixteenth Century Bill of Lading” in Studies on Latin America: A miscellany (Buffalo Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3) August 1968, pp. 45–56.Google Scholar Also, by the same author, “Otro inventario de mercancías del siglo XVI” in Historia Mexicana, Vol. XX (1970), pp. 92–118.

5 Our data for this study is taken from the following documents in our MS Indice y extractos del Archivo de Protocolos de Puebla (APP) : APP I, Doc. No. 666, APP II Nos. 16, 98, 425, 520, 544, 548, 601, 666, 820, 852-3, 855–6, 877, 890, 896–7, 936–40, 960 and 994. Also from the Academia Mexicana de Genealogía’s as yet unindexed microfilm roll for 1562, No. 12779 (the documents dated Sept. 19, 23, 24, 28 and 30; Oct. 10, 15, 16 and 20; and Nov. 5, 11, 14 and 17), plus a single document from Roll No. 12800 dated March 3, 1563.

6 The prior y cónsules were the governing officers of the powerful merchants ’ guild that regulated the conduct of their members and arbitrated disputes. The assessment here levied was a small one, the blanca being worth at this time approximately 3.75 mrs. This made the special assessment amount to only 3.75mils.

7 Granada had been since Moorísh times the capital of Spain’s famous silk industry. Other centers of silk growing were nearby Córdoba and the region around Valencia.

8 A reference to the famous Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the trading house in Venice where since the Middle Ages merchants from Germany, Bohemia, Poland and Hungary kept their wares, and which became immensely wealthy at that time. According to the Encyclopedia of World Art, it was merchants from Cologne who most often presided over this institution.

8a According to the 18th Century Diccionario de Autoridades (D. A.), hiladillo was silk thread from the waste part of the cocoon which could not be twisted but was spun on the distaff like linen.

9 According to the Dicc, de Autoridades, “ doblete es una fase entre el doble y el sencillo. El tafetán doblete debe llevar las mismas portadas que el doble y tramarse á un cabo.”

10 The Old Castilian city of Segovia was at this time noted for the quality of its woolen goods, as were Baeza in the province of Jaén in upper Andalusia and Puertollano in the province of Toledo. (Cf. Gual, op. cit.)

11 Capital of the province of the same name in eastern New Castile.

12 Like burel (cf. Léx. Art. Gran., 87) the term burato derives from the word bura ‘tejido de lana o seda.’

13 There is no town in Anjou called Beaufort, but in eastern France not far from the Swiss city of Basel, there is the textile town of Belfort, which may be the one referred to here.

14 Other such nouns often counted in the plural were parises, Zaragozas, cariseas, ruanes, cuencas, bocacíes.