REVIEW OF THEIR ADMINISTRATION. 459 cious laws, succeeded in restoring it to such repute, chapter XXVI that this noble animal became an extensive article _ of foreign trade." But the chief staple of the country was wool ; which, since the introduction of English sheep at the close of the fourteenth century, had reached a degree of fineness and beauty, that enabled it, under the present reign, to compete with any other in Europe.'^ To what extent the finer manufactures were car- Manmac tures. ried, or made an article of export, is uncertain. The vagueness of statistical information in these early times has given rise to much crude specula- tion and to extravagant estimates of their resources, which have been met by a corresponding skepti- cism in later and more scrutinizing critics. Cap- many, the most acute of these, has advanced the opinion, that the coarser cloths only were manufac- tured in Castile, and those exclusively for home consumption." The royal ordinances, however, '5 Prat^maticas del Reyno, fol. abroad. Bourgoanne reckons that 127, 128. — Ante, Part II., Chap- 20,000 were annually imported in- ter 3, note 12. — The cortes of To- to the country from France, at the ledo, in 1525, complained, " que close of the last century. Travels habia tantos caballos Espauoles en in Spain, torn. i. chap. 4. Franciacomoen Castilla." (Mem. ^ Hist, del Luxo, torn. i. p. de la Acad, de Hist., torn. vi. p. 170. — " Tiene muchas ouejas," 285.) The trade, however, was says Marineo, " cuya lana es contraband ; the laws against the tan singular, que no solamente se exportation of horses being as an- aprouechan della en Espaiia, mas cient as the time of Alfonso XI. tambien se lleua en abundancia a (See also Ordenancas Reales, fol. otras partes." (Cosas Memora- 85,86.) ^ bles, fol.3.) He notices especially Laws can never permanently avail the fine wool of Molina, in whose against national prejudices. Those territory 400,000 sheep pastured, in favor of mules have been so fol. 19. strong in the Peninsula, and such " Mem. de Barcelona, torn. iii. the consequent decay of the fine pp. 338, 339. — Or if ever ex- breed of horses, that the Spaniards ported," he adds, " it was at some have been compelled to supply period long posterior to the discov- themselves with the latter from ery of America."
