Toledo silk, including the delicate and costly _cendal_ (see pp. 5, 6) which is mentioned in the sumptuary law, dated 1348, of Alfonso the Eleventh, was largely in demand from early in the Middle Ages till about the sixteenth century. The statements of the older writers as to this neighbourhood are contradictory. According to Damián de Olivares, himself a native of Toledo, this city in the sixteenth century possessed between five thousand five hundred and six thousand looms, consuming annually more than six hundred thousand pounds of raw silk. Other authors estimate the number of her looms at twenty, thirty, or even forty thousand. Writing in our own time, Count Cedillo is responsible for declaring that after the revolt of the Communities, the persons occupied in weaving silk amounted to fifty thousand, all of whom were natives of Toledo and the neighbouring villages; and he adds, perhaps a little rashly, that the velvets, damasks, satins, and taffetas of this locality were "unrivalled, even in comparison with the admirable products of Seville, Cordova, and Granada."[18] Certainly, the silk stockings of Toledo enjoyed a wide-spread fame, and were used, among other distinguished patrons, by the Duke of Guise and by Philip the Second. They were also exported in quantities to America. Banners, altar-fronts, and vestments for religious worship were also made here in large numbers, and of excellent quality, both in silk alone, and in this substance mixed with gold and silver. [18] _Toledo en el Siglo XVI._ Miquel y Badía says that in the fifteenth century Toledo, together with Genoa and Venice, manufactured superb velvets, coloured crimson, blue, purple, or yellow, and figured with pineapples or pomegranates (Plate iv.). The latter tree and fruit are commonly related, in Spain, with the city of _Granada_; but quite apart from this, the pomegranate was formerly regarded as a symbol of fecundity and life. (See Goblet d'Alviella, _La Migration des Symboles_, p. 184, and also Madame Errera's Catalogue, No. 50.) In these velvets the gold thread is woven with consummate skill, and forms, in the costliest and most elaborate specimens, a groundwork of exceedingly small rings. These fabrics were used as hangings for beds and walls, as well as for the clothing of great lords and ladies. Touching the use of silk for certain articles of dress, an amusing story is told in the MS. account of Valladolid, published by Gayangos in the _Revista de España_. "One day, Don Pedro de Medicis is reported to have paid a visit to a married lady, to whom he had presented some damask curtains, and he was wearing at the time some taffeta hose which made a creaking as he walked. The lady came out of her room, and, finding him in one of the lower apartments, exclaimed, 'Why do you