f REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATIOM. 457 those of the Catholic sovereigns were rarely fifteen chapter thousand, or one-tenth of that sum. ^^ ^^ -'_ They passed several salutary laws for restraining the ambitious expenditure at weddings and funerals, as usual, most affected by those who could least afford it. ™ In 1494, they issued a pragmatic, pro- hibiting the importation or manufacture of brocades, or of gold or silver embroidery, and also plating with these metals. The avowed object was to check the growth of luxury and the waste of the precious metals.^ These provisions had the usual fate of laws of this kind. They gave an artificial and still higher value to the prohibited article. Some evaded them. Others indemnified themselves for the privation, by some other, and scarcely less expensive variety of luxury. Such, for example, were the costly silks, which came into more general use after the con- quest of Granada. But here the government, on remonstrance of the cortes, again interposed its pro- hibition, restricting the privilege of wearing them to certain specified classes. '^ Nothing, obviously, 69 " Porque haci^ndose ansi al infantas con gran numero y multi- modo e costumbre de los dichos tud de damas no se gastar cada un seiiores Reyes pasados, cesaran los dia, seyendo mui abastados como inmensos gastos y sin provecho que de tales Reyes, mas de doce a en la mesa fe casa de S. M. se ha- quince mil maravedis." Pelicion cen ; pues el daiio desto notoria- de la Junta de Tordesillas, October mente paresce porque se halla en 20, 1520, apud Sandoval, Hist, del el plato real y en los platos que se Emp. Carlos V., torn. i. p. 230. hacen a los privados e criados de ™ In 1493; repeated in 1501. su casa gastarse cada un dia ciento Recop. de las Leyes, torn. ii. fol. y cincuenta mil maravedis ; y los 3. — In 1502. Pragmaticas del catolicos Reyes D. Hernando e Reyno, fol. 139. DoHa Isabel, seyendo tan exce- ^ At Segovia, September 2d ; al- lentes y tan poderosos, en su plato so in 1496 and 1498. Pragmaticas y en el plato del principe D. Joan del Reyno, fol. 123, 125, 126. que haya gloria, e de las seHoras 73 ^i Granada, in 1499. — This VOL. III. 58
