Page:Textile fabrics; a descriptive catalogue of the collection of church-vestments, dresses, silk stuffs, needle-work and tapestries, forming that section of the Museum (IA textilefabricsde00soutrich).pdf/28

 Clothing made wholly or in part out of silk, became every year more and more sought for. So remunerative was the trade of weaving the raw material into its various forms, that, by the Justinian pandects, the revised code of laws for the Roman Empire, drawn up and published 533—a monopoly in it was given to the court, and looms worked by women were set up in the imperial palace. Thus Byzantium became, and long continued famous for the beauty of its silken stuffs. Still, the raw silk itself had to be brought thither from abroad; but a remedy was very near at hand. Two Greek monks, while spending many years among the Chinese, had well learned the whole process of rearing the worm. They came home, and brought back with them a goodly number of eggs hidden in their walking-staves, likely made of that hollow tough sort of reed or tall grass, the Arundo Donax; and, carrying them to Constantinople, they presented these eggs to the Emperor, who gladly received them. When hatched, the worms were distributed all over Greece and Asia Minor, and very soon the western world reared its own silk. Not long afterwards, Persia and India also became silk-growing countries. In some places, at least in Greece, the weaving not only of the finer kinds of cloth, but of silk, got at last into the hands of the Jews. Writing of his travels, 1161, Benjamin of Tudela tells us that the great city of Thebes contained about two thousand Jewish inhabitants. These are the most eminent manufacturers of silk and purple cloth in all Greece.

Telling us how the fleet of our first Richard coasted the shores of Spain on its voyage to the Holy Land, Hoveden says of Almeria and its silk factory: "Deinde per nobilem civitatem quæ dicitur Almaria ubi fit nobile sericum et delicatum quod dicitur sericum de Almaria." So prized were these fine delicate textiles that they were paid as tribute to princes: "Insula de Maiore reddit ei (regi Arragoniæ) trecentos pannos sericos de Almaria per annum de tributo," &c.

South Italy wrought rich silken stuffs by the end of the eleventh century; for we are told by our countryman, Ordericus Vitalis, who died in the first half of the twelfth century, that Mainerius, the abbot of his monastery of St. Evroul, at Uzey, in Normandy, on coming home, brought with him from Apulia several large pieces of silk, and gave to the Church four of the finest ones, with which four copes were made for the chanters: "De pallis quas ipse de Apulia detulerat quatuor de pre-*