Towards the beginning of the Christian era raw silk began to form an important and costly item among the prized products of the East which came to Rome. Allusions to silk and its source became common in classical literature ; but, although these refer ences show familiarity with the material, they are singularly vague and inaccurate as to its source ; even Pliny knew nothing more about the silkworm than could be learned from Aristotle's description. The silken textures which at first found their way to Rome were necessarily of enormous cost, and their use by men was deemed a piece of effeminate luxury. From an anecdote of Aurelian, who neither used silk himself nor would allow his wife to possess a single silken garment, we learn that silk was worth its weight in gold. Notwithstanding its price and the restraints other wise put on the use of silk the trade grew. Under Justinian a monopoly of the trade and manufacture was reserved to the emperor, and looms, worked by women, were set up within the imperial palace at Constantinople. Justinian also endeavoured, through the Christian prince of Abyssinia, to divert the trade from the Persian route along which silk was then brought into the east of Europe. In this he failed, but two Persian monks who had long resided in China, and there learned the whole art and mystery of silkworm rearing, arrived at Constantinople and im parted their knowledge to the emperor. By him they were in duced to return to China and attempt to bring to Europe the ma terial necessary for the cultivation of silk, which they effected by concealing the eggs of the silkworm in a hollow cane. From the precious contents of that bamboo tube, brought to Constantinople about the year 55o, were produced all the races and varieties of silkworm which stocked and supplied the Western world for more than twelve hundred years.
The silkworm took kindly to its Western home and flourished, and the silken textures of Byzantium became famous. At a later period the conquering Saracens obtained a mastery over the trade, and by them it was spread both east and west—the textures be coming meantime impressed with the patterns and colours peculiar to that people. They established the trade in the thriving towns of Asia Minor, and they planted it as far west as Sicily, as Sicilian silks of the 12th century with Saracenic patterns still testify. Ordericus Vitalis, who died in the first half of the 12th century, mentions that the bishop of St. Evroul, in Normandy, brought with him from Apulia in southern Italy several large pieces of silk, out of the finest of which four copes were made for his cathedral chanters. The cultivation and manufacture spread north wards to Florence, Milan, Genoa and Venice—all towns which became famous for silken textures in mediaeval times. In 148o silk weaving was begun under Louis XI at Tours, and in 152o Francis I brought from Milan silkworm eggs, which were reared in the Rhone valley. About the beginning of the 17th century Olivier de Serres and Laffemas, somewhat against the will of Sully, ob tained royal edicts favouring the growth of mulberry plantations and the cultivation of silk; but it cannot be said that these indus tries were firmly established before Colbert in the 17th century encouraged the planting of the mulberry by premiums, and otherwise stimulated local efforts.
Into England silk manufacture was introduced during the reign of Henry VI ; but the first serious impulse to manufactures of that class was due to the immigration in 1585 of a large body of skilled Flemish weavers who fled from the Low Countries in consequence of the struggle with Spain then devastating their land. Precisely one hundred years later religious troubles gave the most effective impetus to the silk-trade of England, when the revocation of the Edict of Nantes sent simultaneously to Switzerland, Germany and England a vast body of the most skilled artisans of France, who planted in these countries silk-weaving colonies which are to this day the principal rivals of the French manufacturers. The bulk of the French Protestant weavers settled at Spitalfields, London—an incorporation of silk workers having been there formed in 1629. James I used many efforts to encour age the planting of the mulberry and the rearing of silkworms both at home and in the colonies. Up to the year 1718 England depended on the thrown silks of Europe for manufacturing pur poses, but in that year Lombe of Derby, disguised as a common workman, and obtaining entrance as such into one of the Italian throwing mills, made drawings of the machinery used for this process. On his return, subsidized by the government, he built and worked, on the banks of the Derwent, the first English throw ing mill. In 1825 a public company was formed and incorporated under the name of the British, Irish and Colonial Silk Company, with a capital of i,000,000, principally with the view of introduc ing sericulture into Ireland, but it was a complete failure, and the rearing of the silkworm cannot be said ever to have become a branch of British industry.
In 1522 Cortes appointed officials to introduce sericulture into New Spain (Mexico), and mulberry trees were then planted and eggs were brought from Spain. The Mexican adventure is men tioned by Acosta, but all trace of the culture had died out before the end of the century. In 1609 James I attempted to reinstate the silkworm on the American continent, but his first effort failed through shipwreck. An effort made in 1619 obtained greater suc cess, and, the materials being present, the Virginian settlers were strongly urged to devote attention to the profitable industry of silk cultivation. Sericulture was enjoined under penalties by statute; it was encouraged by bounties and rewards; and its prose cution was stimulated by rhapsodical rhymes like the following: Where Wormes and Food doe naturally abound A gallant Silken Trade must there be found. Virginia excels the World in both Envie nor malice can gaine say this troth! Written instructions were sent to the colonists on the care of the worms, raising of trees and even an ingenious scheme for the creation of silkworms, from the putrefaction of a young calf. This description is given in a booklet published at London in 1620 with the title Observations to be Followed, For the Making of Fit Room-es to Keepe Silk-wormes in: and For the Best Manner of Planting of Mulberry Trees, to feed them. It concludes with the following exhortation: "Meane while, with all speed make these timely and necessary provisions aforesaid, for the ground-worke of the busines, as to plant store of the best Mulbery trees, in a good aire, in proper soyle, & fit distance, & dig store of holes in the ground betimes for the preparing of the earth, the better to plant the trees in : prouide also faire and fit middle lodgings for the Silk-wormes: fdr this delicate creature, which clothes Princes, and payes his charges so bountifully, cannot indure to bee lodged in bare and beggerly roomes, but in those that be large, sweet, neat, wel ayred and lightsome. It is a thing well knowne, that a few Silk-wormes, fed at large, and ease, make farre more silke than a greater num ber, pent in narrow and ill-fauoured roomes. No ill smels must come neere them, they must be kept sweet, and oft perfumed; therefore hauing such store of sweetwoods in Virginia as you haue there, you shall do well to make their roomes and tables of those woods : sweet sents being a thing most agreeable to them. Bee carefull to doe things curiously and thorowly well for them at the first, for your more plentifull and certaine gaine after : con sidering the charge to you is all one : and a thing once wel done, they say, is twice done, which will thereby also bring you twice double profit, with long continuance." In the prospectus of Law's great Compagnie des Indes Occiden tales the cultivation of silk occupies a place among the glowing attractions which allured so many to disaster. Onward till the period of the War of Independence bounties and other rewards for the rearing of worms and silk filature continued to be offered; and when the war broke out Benjamin Franklin and others were engaged in establishing a filature at Philadelphia. With the resump tion of peaceful enterprise, the stimulus of bounties was again ap plied—first by Connecticut in 1783 ; and such efforts have been continued sporadically down almost to the present day. Bounties were offered by the State of California in 1865-1866, but the State law was soon repealed, and an attempt to obtain State en couragement again in 1872 was defeated. About 1838 a specula tive mania for the cultivation of silk developed itself with remark able severity in America. It was caused principally through the representations of Samuel Whitmarsh as to the suitability of the South Sea island mulberry (Mores multicaulis) for feeding silk worms ; and so intense was the excitement that plants and crops of all kinds were displaced to make room for plantations of M. multicaulis. In Pennsylvania as much as $300,00o changed hands for plants in one week and frequently the young trees were sold two and three times over within a few days at ever advancing prices. Plants of a year's growth reached the ridiculous price of $1 each at the height of the fever, which, however, did not last long, for in 1839 the speculation collapsed; the famous M. multi caulis was found to be no golden tree, and the costly plantations were uprooted.