商品詳細

The study of Spain's early modern economic history has often been dominated by interest in her New World empire - by images of galleons returning home laden with gold, silver, and precious stones. But wealth generated from the New World accounted for only a small percentage of total income for the crown and private citizens alike. The vast majority derived from Spain's agrarian economy, of which wool production formed an important part. Large-scale herding supported tens of thousands of families at all social levels and allowed a profitable use of land that was unsuited to agriculture. For centuries, wool production and trade arguably generated more foreign income than any other component of the economy. Even after the development of Spain's New World empire, the wool trade remained a crucial source of foreign exchange. This text offers a history of Spain's vital wool industry. It shows how wool was crucial both to Spain's domestic income and to the flourishing European textile industries that depended on the incomparable wool of Spanish Merino sheep. The authors offer a broad and long-term look at the growth, dominance and decline of the herding economy. They explain the components of wool production, from herding to shearing to preparing the wool for market. They also examine the evolution of the woollen textile industry in Spain and the export trade in raw wool.