[43] A Portuguese word meaning a strip of silk upon the back of a chasuble. The fashion of collecting foreign tapestries seems to have reached its height at the Spanish capital in the first half of the seventeenth century. "Nowadays," wrote Fernandez de Navarrete, in his _Conservacion de Monarquías_, published in 1626, "gentlemen are not contented with hangings which a few years ago were considered good enough to adorn a prince's palace. The Spanish taffetas and guadamecíes, so highly esteemed in other provinces, are held of no account in this one (Madrid). The _sargas_ and _arãbeles_ wherewith the moderation of the Spanish people was satisfied in former days, must now be turned into injurious _telas rizas_ of Florence and Milan, and into costliest Brussels tapestry." [Illustration: XX _TAPIZ_ OF CRIMSON VELVET WORKED IN GOLD TISSUE (_16th Century. Monastery of Las Huelgas, Burgos_)] It is perhaps allowable to include among the oldest makers of Spanish tapestry the names of Gonzalo de Mesa and Diego Roman, who, in the year 1331, were paid respectively one thousand _maravedis_ and eighteen hundred _maravedis_, for decorating the tents of King Sancho the Fourth. There also exists the following entry, dating from the same period; "To Boançibre, master of the tents; XXX _maravedis_ for his food, for fifteen days."[44] [44] Manuel G. Simancas, _Artistas Castellanos del Siglo XIII_ (_Boletín de la Sociedad Española de Excursiones_ for January, 1905.)