The history of the _gremios_ of Valencia has been traced in an instructive essay by Luis Tramoyeres Blasco. Early in the fifteenth century guilds were established here of nearly thirty trades, including tailors, millers, carpenters, shoemakers, silversmiths, weavers, tanners, dyers, swordsmiths, and bonnet-makers. These guilds developed greatly in the sixteenth century, expanding into powerful and wealthy bodies, who practically controlled the entire commerce and commercial products of their native town. Among the _gremios_ instituted at a later date were those of the firework-makers, basket-makers, twisters of silk, stiffeners of dress fabrics, bell-founders, and painters of chests and boxes, each of these corporations being enrolled by law, and possessing a code of regulations for the government and guidance of its members. Sometimes, however, owing to diminution in its trade, a guild became extinct, as happened with the _guadamacileros_ (see Vol. II., pp. 38 _et seq._), and with the clothmakers, of whom, in 1595, but three remained in all Valencia. Or else a _gremio_ would purposely amalgamate with, or merge insensibly into, another. Thus in 1668 the tailors and the makers of trunk-hose united in a single corporation, just as, at other times, the glovers and the parchment-dressers, the clog-makers and the shoemakers. [68] The foremost in importance of the _gremios_ of Toledo was that of the silk-weavers (_arte mayor de la seda_), whose earliest ordinances date from A.D. 1533. Interesting particulars of the old Toledan _gremios_ generally will be found in the municipal archives of this city, in the _Ordenanzas para el buen régimen y gobierno de la muy noble, muy leal é imperial ciudad de Toledo_ (reprinted in 1858); in Martín Gamero's _History of Toledo_; and in the Count of Cedillo's scholarly monograph, _Toledo in the Sixteenth Century_. Those of the Valencian guilds which possessed the greatest influence and resources, and enjoyed the highest privileges from the city or the crown, were called _colegiados_. Among them were the velvet-makers, hatters, bronze-founders, wax-makers, confectioners, dyers, and makers of silk hose. The earliest to obtain this coveted and honourable title were the booksellers, in 1539, followed by the wax-makers in 1634, the confectioners in 1644, the velvet-makers also in this year, and others in succession, terminating with the dyers in 1763, the hatters in 1770, the bell-founders in 1772, and the makers of silk stockings in 1774.