Such
matters were of course left for the Gypsies themselves to settle.
In this edict, a class of individuals is mentioned in conjunction
with the Gitanos, or Gypsies, but distinguished from them by the
name of foreign tinkers, or Calderos estrangeros. By these, we
presume, were meant the Calabrians, who are still to be seen upon
the roads of Spain, wandering about from town to town, in much the
same way as the itinerant tinkers of England at the present day. A
man, half a savage, a haggard woman, who is generally a Spaniard, a
wretched child, and still more miserable donkey, compose the group;
the gains are of course exceedingly scanty, nevertheless this life,
seemingly so wretched, has its charms for these outcasts, who live
without care and anxiety, without a thought beyond the present
hour, and who sleep as sound in ruined posadas and ventas, or in
ravines amongst rocks and pines, as the proudest grandee in his
palace at Seville or Madrid.
Don Carlos and Donna Juanna, at Toledo, 1539, confirmed the edict
of Medina del Campo against the Egyptians, with the addition, that
if any Egyptian, after the expiration of the sixty days, should be
found wandering about, he should be sent to the galleys for six
years, if above the age of twenty and under that of fifty, and if
under or above those years, punished as the preceding law provides.
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