Medieval Sourcebook:
Procopius: The Roman Silk Industry, c. 550
Procopius shows how the silk industry was first introduced into Europe from the
Orient.
About the same time there came from India certain monks; and when they had satisfied
Justinian Augustus that the Romans no longer should buy silk from the Persians, they
promised the emperor in an interview that they would provide the materials for making silk
so that never should the Romans seek business of this kind from their enemy the Persians,
or from any other people whatsoever. They said that they were formerly in Serinda, which
they call the region frequented by the people of the Indies, and there they learned
perfectly the art of making silk. Moreover, to the emperor who plied them with many
questions as to whether he might have the secret, the monks replied that certain worms
were manufacturers of silk, nature itself forcing them to keep always at work; the worms
could certainly not be brought here alive, but they could be grown easily and without
difficulty; the eggs of single hatchings are innumerable; as soon as they are laid men
cover them with dung and keep them warm for as long as it is necessary so that they
produce insects. When they had announced these tidings, led on by liberal promises of the
emperor to prove the fact, they returned to India. When they had brought the eggs to
Byzantium, the method having been learned, as I have said, they changed them by
metamorphosis into worms which feed on the leaves of mulberry. Thus began the art of
making silk from that time on in the Roman Empire.
Source.
From: Procopii Caesariensis Historiarum Temporis Sui Tetras Altera. De Bello Gothico,
trans. Claudius Maltretus (Venice, 1729), Lib. IV, cap. XVII, p. 212; reprinted in Roy C.
Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, eds., A Source Book for Medieval Economic History, (Milwaukee:
The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965), pp.
244-245.
Scanned by Jerome S. Arkenberg, Cal. State Fullerton. The text has been modernized by
Prof. Arkenberg.
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