Twentieth-century London's Spitalfields district was a commercial area, with broad shopping streets and a shopping center converted from a vegetable market. If not for an old pub said to be frequented by Jack the Ripper, it would have been hard to associate that glittering, golden-lit neighborhood with poverty, evil, and crime.
This was what it looked like after "redevelopment." In The Wealth of Nations, Spitalfields was described as a silk-manufacturing district as famous as Lyon. It had introduced worsted wool weaving in the early Elizabethan era. After Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes, he soon got his wish: there were almost no Protestants left in France. But many Huguenot silk workers from Lyon came to London and settled in Spitalfields, bringing advanced silk-weaving techniques with them.
Silk had not arisen from egalitarianism. Ancient Rome's astronomical spending on Eastern fabrics was rooted in its "pragmatism." They were not even willing to devote effort to improving the textile industry they already had.
Justinian of the Byzantine Empire discovered that everyone, from the upper classes to the lower classes, was obsessed with silk. Even the Church used it. So he tried every possible way to develop a domestic silk industry, but the first problem he had to solve was the supply of raw materials.
Like cotton textiles, Spitalfields silk goods required imports from abroad, such as Sicily and the Levant. Once there was a cold summer, silk prices remained high, because such weather would hinder the growth of Italian mulberry leaves. Without mulberry leaves, silkworms could not be fed; without silk, the quantity of silk cloth would decrease.
Silk had not arisen from egalitarianism. Those who could afford silk would always be able to afford it. No matter how high the price rose, they did not need to sacrifice their quality of