Barcelona was one of the most important centers of cotton manufacture In Catalonia before the fifteenth century. But its cotton industry had declined In numbers of workshop from more than 300 at its zenith to only 8 or 10 in the middle of the fifteenth century. According to the council's deliberations, the rush of foreign fustian, mixed textile woven with linen warp and cotton weft, brought about the decline. However, it is necessary to consider not only the massive importation of foreign fustian but also other factors in order to explain the reasons of the decline more accurately. Especially, the supplies of raw materials represented one of the most essential factors to determine the rise and fall of cotton industry, considering that cotton was cultivated more and more in distant eastern Mediterranean regions, first of all, Syria and Asia Minor, and therefore had to be transported from the distant regions of cultivation to the fabrication centers in Europe. The first introduction of foreign, mainly Italian, products into the market of Barcelona dated from the late thirteenth century when the cotton industry was still fledgling. The second invasion, more massive and more diversified of foreign fustian, in the late fourteenth century, caused severe damage to the cotton industry of Barcelona. But the intense competition with the foreign industry centers did not always result in the decline. Two ancient Italian manufacture centers, Milan and Cremona, had overcome difficulties caused by the importation of German products, by concentrating on the manufacture of luxury cloth with fine quality raw material from Syria and high techniques. Barcelona had difficulties in obtaining raw materials approaching the Later Middle Ages. Trade of Syrian cotton was increasingly in control of the Venetian merchants, and that of Turkish cotton monopolized by the merchants of Genoa. Sicily was the first accessible producer for the merchants of Barcelona because the island was geographically close and conquered in the late thirteenth century by the Aragon. However Sicily witnessed the decline of cotton cultivation since the fourteenth century. The expansion of cotton culture in Malta, a small island near Sicily, somewhat compensated for the Sicilian reduction. But the total import of raw materials was insufficient to stimulate a massive fabrication of cotton textile. Moreover the merchants of Barcelona had more profit in reexporting raw materials or semi-finished cotton yarn than furnishing raw cotton to their artisans.