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Chapter One

INTRODUCTION

Spain has a considerable reputation for dccorativc leathcrwork of many kinds, but it should be madę elear from the outset that, apart from dmrsions intended to darify ccitain aspeets of tbc subjcct, this treatise ii primarily concerned with only one kind of leatherwork, namely the leather which was cvolved, from a purcly utilitarian type, for decorative hangings - although at times it was also used for other purposes. From a vcry simple beginning there fóUowcd a scrics of developmcnts, spread ovcr the greater part ofa millenium, resulting from the consequeoces of the Moocish invasion of Spain. Thcsc kathro, cven in their carlint and dmplot ferm, achicvcd a fimg ao great and widespread that, though copied and adapted to local tana aO over Europę, the common denomination outude the Iberian peninsula was 'Cordovan' or ‘Spanish’ leather. But within Spain, a morę andent term - guoitmni, of inerrating denvation — icmaincd constandy in use from the carlicst days untd the righieenth century, by which umc the product had bccome to changed in chanaer and so spectacular as to havc lott all rcscmblancc to the original, simple materiał.

The Libyan town of Chadlmes was, in earły times, renowned for a pcculiar kind of tofr and beanrifiil leather that was probabły madę from goatskin and dressed with alum. A Spanisb-Arab wiitrr of the twdfih century¹ uyt :‘Chad2mcs... from thit viDage comes the Guadamed skin’; and another nich author* tta tes, 'There is no morę bcautiful Am than this, which fcds likc silk in id sofiness’. GomLmai* was the aame by which

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