So what do the Beach Boys have to do with the early textile trade? Absolutely nothing other than they have been around for a long time and whether you love them or not, they continue to have global affect. One of the cities which ended up having a great affect on global trade in the late 1400's was the "Andalusian city of Seville, located fifty-four miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean. [...] The hub of the Spanish empire for much of the early modern era." (1) But even before that, Seville was surrounded by a flourishing rural textile trade which would help to supplement income for seasonal farmers, with women often taking the lead in the spinning, weaving and construction of woolen cloth t

Once the political capital and part of the Castilian textile industry, Toledo “liked to think of itself as a second Rome." Built on seven hills, "the city served as the sea to the court until the decision of Philip II in 1561 to make Madrid his capital.“(1) Prior to this tumultuous decision to move the royal court, Toledo, the largest city, was located “at the center of the Iberian Peninsula [...], a natural stopping-off point for travelers and merchandise, [...] and dominated the economy for much of the sixteenth century". (2) Multi-denominational until the late 1400's, Arab, Jewish and Christian groups all peacefully resided in this great hilltop city in “relative tranquility”. This le

Or should I say Islamic Spain? During the Italian Renaissance, the Iberian Peninsula, which is now Portugal, Spain and Andorra, was very much Islamic territory. Moors, Muslims who resided in this area during the Middle Ages, " who were initially [...] Berber and Arab peoples from North Africa" (1) have been said to live in harmony with a large Jewish population until Christendom entered the area with an iron hand, exiling many of the knowledgeable and skilled farmers, engineers, scientists and craftspeople represented by these demographics.(2) While following the early Western Europe textile trade routes of the early Renaissance, I have discovered that Spain until the late 1400's was very