{
  "id": "xarcia-de-la-carrera-de-indias",
  "type": "entity",
  "name": "Ten laws on rope: the cordage code of the Carrera de Indias — libro VIIII título XXIX",
  "summary": "A título of ten laws on the rigging of the Indies fleets. Hemp must be worked to two ends; rope may not be tarred before inspection; named defects bar a sale; old cable may not be remade into new rope; cordage officers may be examined at Seville, Sanlúcar and Cádiz; and returned rigging is handed over by weight and kept apart ship by ship. The stated reason is technical: hemp under water must not rot, \"y es parte para que las Naos hagan agua\". Folios 372-374.",
  "locale": "en",
  "tags": [
    "colonial-law",
    "law-of-the-indies",
    "legislation",
    "legal-history",
    "recopilacion",
    "navigation",
    "shipbuilding",
    "technology",
    "standards",
    "casa-de-contratacion",
    "spanish-empire",
    "seventeenth-century"
  ],
  "relations": [
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "recopilacion-de-leyes-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "universidad-de-los-mareantes-de-sevilla"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "casa-de-contratacion"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "flotas-y-galeones-de-la-carrera-de-indias"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "cabuya-y-henequen"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "garcia-de-palacio-instruccion-nautica-1587"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "real-astillero-de-guayaquil"
    },
    {
      "rel": "related",
      "target": "compradores-de-plata-de-sevilla"
    }
  ],
  "questions": [
    "How was the rope and rigging of the Spanish Indies fleets regulated?",
    "Who inspected the cordage of ships sailing to the Americas?",
    "Why did Spanish law forbid making new rope from old cables?",
    "Was there a quality standard for hemp in the Spanish Atlantic fleets?",
    "What happened to a galleon's rigging when it returned from the Indies?"
  ],
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "text": "Rope has a título of its own in the código, which is itself the finding. In the fourth impression, printed at Madrid in 1791 by the widow of Joaquín Ibarra for the Royal and Supreme Council of the Indies, libro VIIII título XXIX is headed \"DE LA XARCIA\" and runs to ten laws. This entry reads all ten, from the heading set across both columns at the middle of folio 372 to the end of ley x in the right-hand column of folio 374, where \"TÍTULO TREINTA. DE LAS ARMADAS, Y FLOTAS\" stands immediately below. Both boundaries were read on the leaves.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "text": "The inspectorate is named by the shipping corporation and approved by the crown's court. Ley j, from Philip III on 20 July 1619 and at Madrid on 18 January 1620, ordinance 1, recites that the Universidad de los Mareantes of Seville may name \"persona hábil, y experimentada, con aprobacion del Presidente, y Jueces de la Casa\", to inspect all cordage white and tarred made in these kingdoms or brought from outside for the ships of the Carrera, \"y aparte y deseche la que no fuere buena\". It then forbids the sale at Seville, Sanlúcar or Cádiz of cordage brought from Flanders, Germany and elsewhere until the Universidad's deputies, with a master ropemaker designated by the Casa, have inspected it; what fails is to be cut up for oakum. The naming power sits with the corporation and the approval with the Casa.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "text": "The same law pays the inspectors out of the fines they generate, and says what happens when there are none. The salary of the deputy and the master ropemaker who travel to Sanlúcar or Cádiz \"se les pague de lo procedido de las condenaciones, que se hicieren en la dicha xarcia, y contra las personas que contravinieren á las leyes de este título, y en caso que no haya condenaciones la Universidad de Mareantes tenga obligacion á satisfacerles su ocupacion\"; and for inspections made at Seville itself they are to take no salary at all. Both halves belong on the record: the pay is geared to condemnations, which is a motive to find fault, and the fallback payer is the corporation whose own members buy the rope, which is a motive to find none.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.8
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "text": "Two laws set the physical standard in the vocabulary of the trade. Ley ij, ordinance 2, requires that home-made cordage \"no se trayga quemada en la estufa, y venga bien colchada, y sea de buen cáñamo, y limpio\", and that what lacks these qualities may not be sold and is to be cut for oakum. Ley iiij, ordinance 4, requires the hemp dressers to work it \"á dos puntas para poderlo vender, como se hace en Loja, Tarragona, Nápoles, y otras partes\", on pain of forfeiture and five hundred ducados. The código states a manufacturing method and names four places where it is already done, which is a standard set by reference to practice rather than by description.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "text": "Inspection is placed before tarring, which is the point at which the rope can no longer be judged. Ley iij, ordinance 3, forbids tarring any cordage made at Seville, Sanlúcar or Cádiz \"sin ser primero visitada por los Diputados de la Universidad de Mareantes\", on pain of forfeiture of the cordage and five hundred ducados divided in thirds between the royal chamber, the Casa's costs of justice and the informer. Tar hides the fibre; the law puts the inspection where the defect is still visible.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "text": "Ley vj is the law that gives the engineering reason, and it gives it in the ship's terms. Ordinance 6 forbids ropemakers to put \"lumpicas, ni prenados ningunos\" among the strands, \"por ser gran daño\", and confines the prenados they keep to twisted hemp for caulking the hulls, because the hemp that lies under water must be good \"y no se pudra con facilidad, y es parte para que las Naos hagan agua\". Offending work is burnt and the maker fined five hundred ducados. The two terms are printed as transcribed; neither is glossed on the leaf.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "text": "One law prohibits remanufacture outright, and binds possession as well as the act. Ley vij, ordinance 7, forbids anyone working hemp into new cordage to break up old cables or calabrotes, to buy them, to keep them in his house, or to make cordage of them, \"pena de perdido lo que así se aprehendiere, y de docientos ducados\". The ban reaches possession and not only the act, which is how the rule was made enforceable without proving what a given coil was made from.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "text": "One law is protectionist, and it is drafted around a named foreign fibre. Ley v, ordinance 5, orders that \"los Extrangeros de estos Reynos, y otras qualesquier personas\" not bring raw \"cáñamo de Chorva\" to Seville, Sanlúcar or Cádiz, because those who make Sevillian cordage interweave it with the hemp of Seville and its country and so make the cordage and rope for the artillery of the Armadas and Flotas, \"cosa de muy gran daño\"; the penalty is loss of the hemp, five hundred ducados, and the hemp, cordage and rope burnt at once. The stated harm is adulteration of the ordnance rigging rather than competition as such, but the rule's effect is to close three ports to one foreign fibre, and the law names foreigners first among those it binds.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.8
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "text": "The trade is opened at the same time as it is policed. Ley viij, ordinance 8, is one sentence: \"EN Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz se puedan exâminar los Oficiales que quisieren, para labrar xarcia.\" Any officer who wishes may be examined in any of the three ports — an entry route to the craft written into the same título that forbids tarring before inspection and burns bad rope. The law sets no fee, no quota and no local restriction, and says nothing about who conducted the examination.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.85
    },
    {
      "id": "c10",
      "text": "The last two laws close the loop at both ends of the voyage. Ley viiij, from the Emperor Charles and the Prince Governor at ordinance 217 of the Casa, puts \"los aparejos, árboles, y vergas, velas y xarcias, anclas, y cables\" and everything else a ship must carry into the hands of the visitador, who at the first visit orders the owners and masters to carry them and at the last visit, made at Sanlúcar, returns to see whether they have. Ley x, from Philip III at El Pardo on 20 November 1608, orders that masters returning from the voyage hand the rigging of galleons and other armada vessels to the tenedor \"por peso, cuenta, y razon, declarando el género de ella\", and that the tenedor keep each galleon's separately \"para que se conozca, y no se trueque al tiempo de volverla á enxarciar\". Rigging checked out before sailing, weighed back in on return, and kept apart by ship so that it cannot be swapped.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    },
    {
      "id": "c11",
      "text": "What this entry does not establish. It reads ten laws of one título in one impression and says nothing about practice: whether the Universidad's deputies in fact inspected, how much cordage the Carrera consumed, where the hemp of any particular ship came from, or whether any ropemaker was fined. \"Chorva\", \"lumpicas\" and \"prenados\" are printed as the leaf prints them and are not identified here. The ordinances of the Casa and of the Universidad de Mareantes cited in the margins were not opened and nothing is asserted about their texts. The entries this corpus holds on the Universidad de los Mareantes and on American cordage fibres were not read for this one and nothing here rests on them. The dates in the margins are the dates as this impression prints them and were not collated against the 1681 first impression, which this corpus also holds.",
      "sources": [
        "recopilacion-1791-libro-ix-titulo-xxix-xarcia"
      ],
      "confidence": 0.9
    }
  ],
  "takeaways": [],
  "faqs": [],
  "evidence_tier": "primary",
  "evidence": {
    "level": "industry_observation",
    "source_types": [
      "paper"
    ]
  },
  "moat_flag": true,
  "winning_edge": "Histories of the Carrera de Indias count tonnage and silver; the materials code that kept the ships afloat is not quoted in English, and a título of the Recopilación devoted entirely to rope is the kind of thing a summary of the código does not reach. Read from the leaf the ten laws are a working quality regime in the seventeenth-century ports, stated in the vocabulary of the trade: an inspection placed before tarring because tar hides the fibre, named defects that bar a sale, a ban on remaking old cable into new rope that reaches mere possession, an open examination for cordage officers in three ports, and a chain of custody that weighs the rigging back in and keeps each galleon's apart so it cannot be swapped. This entry prints the engineering reason the code itself gives — rotted hemp under water makes the ships leak — and prints beside it the two things a flattering account would drop: that the inspectors were paid out of the condemnations they produced, and that one law shuts three ports to a named foreign hemp.",
  "confidence": 0.85,
  "last_verified": "2026-10-22",
  "media": [],
  "x": {},
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  "jsonld": {
    "@context": "https://schema.org",
    "name": "Ten laws on rope: the cordage code of the Carrera de Indias — libro VIIII título XXIX",
    "description": "A título of ten laws on the rigging of the Indies fleets. Hemp must be worked to two ends; rope may not be tarred before inspection; named defects bar a sale; old cable may not be remade into new rope; cordage officers may be examined at Seville, Sanlúcar and Cádiz; and returned rigging is handed over by weight and kept apart ship by ship. The stated reason is technical: hemp under water must not rot, \"y es parte para que las Naos hagan agua\". Folios 372-374.",
    "url": "https://hispanic-legacy.com/k/xarcia-de-la-carrera-de-indias",
    "license": "https://spdx.org/licenses/CC-BY-4.0.html",
    "dateModified": "2026-10-22",
    "citation": [
      {
        "@type": "CreativeWork",
        "name": "Recopilación de leyes de los reynos de las Indias, libro VIIII título XXIX \"DE LA XARCIA\" — leyes j to x whole, from the título's heading set across both columns at the middle of the printed folio 372 to the end of ley x in the right-hand column of folio 374, where the heading \"TÍTULO TREINTA. DE LAS ARMADAS, Y FLOTAS\" stands immediately below. Both boundaries were read on the leaves. Ley j, rubric \"Que la Universidad de los Mareantes pueda nombrar persona, que reconozca la xarcia de los Navíos de la Carrera\", margin \"D. Felipe III en 20 de Julio de 1619. En Madrid á 18 de Enero de 1620. Ordenanza 1.\", whose text reads \"SIN embargo de estar permitido á la Universidad de los Mareantes de la Ciudad de Sevilla nombrar persona hábil, y experimentada, con aprobacion del Presidente, y Jueces de la Casa, que reconozca en blanco, y alquitranada toda la xarcia, que se labrare en estos Reynos, y se traxere de fuera de ellos para servicio, y apresto de los Baxeles, que navegaren en la Carrera de Indias, y aparte y deseche la que no fuere buena: Mandamos, que toda la que se traxere á la dicha Ciudad, y Sanlúcar, y Cádiz, de Flándes, Alemania, y otras partes, no se pueda vender, sin ser primero visitada por los Diputados de la dicha Universidad, con un Oficial Cordonero, el que la Casa de Contratacion ordenare, y en Sanlúcar, y Cádiz uno de los dichos Diputados, y el Oficial Cordonero: y precediendo esta diligencia, y habiéndola reconocido, dé licencia para que se pueda vender la que aprobaren, y corte para estopa la demas, que no fuere á propósito, ni convenga permitir. Y ordenamos, que el salario del Diputado, y Oficial Cordonero, que fuere á Sanlúcar, ó Cádiz, se les pague de lo procedido de las condenaciones, que se hicieren en la dicha xarcia, y contra las personas que contravinieren á las leyes de este título, y en caso que no haya condenaciones la Universidad de Mareantes tenga obligacion á satisfacerles su ocupacion. Y declaramos, que por las visitas, que sobre esto hicieren en Sevilla, no han de llevar salario ninguno.\" Ley ij, rubric \"Que la xarcia del Reyno, que se vendiere, tenga las calidades que esta ley manda\", margin \"Ordenanza 2.\", whose text reads \"LA xarcia, que fuere del Reyno no se trayga quemada en la estufa, y venga bien colchada, y sea de buen cáñamo, y limpio, y la que no tuviere estas calidades, no se pueda vender, ni los Visitadores dén licencia para ello, ántes la hagan cortar para estopa.\" Ley iij, rubric \"Que la xarcia, que se labrare en Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz, no la puedan alquitranar sin que esté visitada\", margin \"Ordenanza 3.\", whose text reads \"TODA la xarcia que se labrare en Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz no se pueda alquitranar, sin ser primero visitada por los Diputados de la Universidad de Mareantes, conforme se ordena por la ley antecedente, pena de perdimiento de la xarcia, y mas quinientos ducados para nuestra Cámara, y gastos de Justicia de la Casa de Contratacion, y Denunciador por tercias partes.\" Ley iiij, rubric \"Que los Curadores del cáñamo lo labren á dos puntas\", margin \"Ordenanza 4.\", whose text reads \"LOS Curadores del cáñamo lo labren á dos puntas para poderlo vender, como se hace en Loja, Tarragona, Nápoles, y otras partes, pena de que si así no se beneficiare, sea perdido, y mas pague el que lo labrare quinientos ducados, con la misma aplicacion.\" Ley v, rubric \"Que ninguno trayga á Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz cáñamo de Chorva, so la pena de esta ley\", margin \"Ordenanza 5.\", whose text reads \"MAndamos que los Extrangeros de estos Reynos, y otras qualesquier personas, no sean osados á traer, ni traygan cáñamo de Chorva en pelo á Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz, porque los que labran xarcia Sevillana la entretexen con el cáñamo de Sevilla, y su tierra, y hacen la xarcia, y cuerda para la artillería de nuestras Armadas, y Flotas, cosa de muy gran daño, y el que lo traxere incurra en pena de el cáñamo, y en quinientos ducados, aplicados por tercias partes, conforme á las leyes antecedentes, y que el cáñamo, xarcia, y cuerda se queme luego.\" Ley vj, rubric \"Que los que labraren cáñamo no puedan meter entre los canales lumpicas, ni prenados\", margin \"Ordenanza 6.\", whose text reads \"LOS Cordoneros, que labraren xarcia no puedan meter entre los canales lumpicas, ni prenados ningunos, por ser gran daño, y los prenados que ellos tienen para meter entre los canales, solo sirvan de cáñamo torcido para calafatear las Naos, y no puedan usar de él, sino para venderlo por convenir, que el cáñamo que está debaxo del agua sea bueno, y no se pudra con facilidad, y es parte para que las Naos hagan agua, pena que lo que en otra forma se hiciere, se queme, y la persona que contraviniere, pague quinientos ducados, con la misma aplicacion que las leyes antecedentes.\" Ley vij, rubric \"Que ninguno que labre xarcia, tenga, ni compre cables viejos, ni la haga de ellos\", margin \"Ordenanza 7.\", whose text reads \"NInguno que labrare cáñamo en xarcia nueva, deshaga cables, ni calabrotes viejos, ni los compre, ni tenga en su casa, ni haga xarcia de ellos, pena de perdido lo que así se aprehendiere, y de docientos ducados, aplicados en la forma antecedente.\" Ley viij, rubric \"Que en Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz se puedan exâminar Oficiales de labrar xarcia\", margin \"Ordenanza 8.\", whose text reads in full \"EN Sevilla, Sanlúcar, y Cádiz se puedan exâminar los Oficiales que quisieren, para labrar xarcia.\" Ley viiij, rubric \"Que los Visitadores en la primera visita tasen la xarcia, y aparejos á las Naos, y en la segunda vean si los llevan\", margin \"El Emperador D. Cárlos, y el Príncipe Gobernador. Ordenanza 217. de la Casa\", whose text reads \"LOS aparejos, árboles, y vergas, velas y xarcias, anclas, y cables, y todas las otras cosas necesarias, que han de llevar las Naos para su navegacion, se remitan al Visitador, que de esto tenga cargo, el qual en la primera visita mande á los dueños, y Maestres, y á los demas á cuyo cargo fuere, que lo lleven: y los vuelva á visitar, para ver si lo han cumplido, en la última visita, que se hace en Sanlúcar.\" Ley x, rubric \"Que los Maestres de vuelta de viage entreguen la xarcia al Tenedor, el qual guarde distinta la de cada Galeon\", margin \"D. Felipe III en el Pardo á 20 de Noviembre de 1608\", whose text reads \"QUando de vuelta de viage llegaren los Maestres de xarcia entreguen la de Galeones, y otros Baxeles de Armada, al Tenedor, por peso, cuenta, y razon, declarando el género de ella; y el Tenedor tenga separada la de cada Galeon, para que se conozca, y no se trueque al tiempo de volverla á enxarciar.\" The running head printed at the head of folio 373, which carries leyes iij to vij of this título, reads \"De los Fabricadores, y Calafates\" — the running head of the preceding título XXVIII — while the folio number line of folio 374 reads correctly \"Libro VIIII. Título XXVIIII.\"",
        "url": "https://books.google.com/books?id=t5EbF6Y1EM4C&pg=PA373"
      }
    ],
    "@type": "Article",
    "headline": "Ten laws on rope: the cordage code of the Carrera de Indias — libro VIIII título XXIX"
  }
}