Spices and Late-Medieval European Ideas of Scarcity and Value

Author(s): Paul Freedman

Source: Speculum , Oct., 2005, Vol. 80, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), pp. 1209-1227
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Medieval Academy of
America

Stable URL: http://www.jstor.com/stable/20463498

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 Spices and Late-Medieval European
Ideas of Scarcity and Value

By Paul Freedman

SPICES AND DANGER

In book 17 of Isidore of Seville's Etymologies, pepper is said to come from

groves of trees in India "guarded" by poisonous serpents. In order to harvest the
pepper, the trees have to be burned, driving the snakes away and in the process
turning the originally white fruit black.1 Why the serpents are so devoted to these
particular trees is not explained, but linking an exotic product with danger ap
pealed to the imagination, and this story also ingeniously accounted for the fact
that pepper is normally black and shriveled (it was vaguely known that a white
and smooth variety also existed).
Isidore's sources of information about pepper include Pliny's Natural History
and Solinus's compendium of marvels, but the snakes appear to be derived from
a fictitious letter to the emperor Hadrian on the marvels of the East, a text that
interacted with legends about Alexander's conquests.2 Fascination with the origins
of imported aromatic substances and the supposed peril of gathering them were
commonplaces of the classical tradition. Herodotus describes the difficulties at
tending the collection of several fragrant products. Frankincense is guarded by
snakes; cassia is patrolled by winged batlike creatures; and cinnamon grows in
inaccessible Arabian mountains, but birds, fortunately, gather it for their nests. In
this last case the birds are tempted by pieces of meat left out for them, but when
they bring them back, the weight of the meat breaks apart the cinnamon nests

I am very grateful to Kathryn Reyerson, Ilya Dines, John Friedman, Francesca Trivellato, Manu
Radhakrishnan, and Peter Murray Jones for their advice. An earlier version of this article was presented
at the Department of History of the University of Pennsylvania, where I received very helpful com
ments. I acknowledge with sincere thanks the support of the Dorothy and Lewis Cullman Center for
Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and the American Council of Learned Societies.

1 Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae, livre XVII, ed. and trans. Jacques Andr? (Paris, 1981), 17.8.8,
p. 147: "Piperis arbor nascitur in India, in latere montis Caucasi quod soli obuersum est, folia iuniperi
similitudine. Cuius siluas serpentes custodiunt, sed incolae regionis illius, cum maturae fuerint, ince
dunt et serpentes igni fugantur, et inde ex flamma nigrum piper efficitur."
2 Solinus, Collectanea rerum memorabilium, ed. Theodor Mommsen (Berlin, 1958), 52, p. 192;
Pliny, Natural History 12.14; Edmond Faral, "Une source latine de l'histoire d'Alexandre: La lettre
sur les merveilles de l'Inde," Romania 43 (1914), 119-215 and 353-70, at p. 205 (version A): "Ibi
nascitur multitudo piperis, quod idem serpentes custodiunt; homines vero per industriam suam sic
colligunt: cum maturum fuerit, incendunt eadem loca, et serpentes sentientes ignem fugiunt et sub terra
se mittunt m?rito propter flammam: piper ipsum nigrum efficiet et sic eligitur, verumtamen natura
piperis alba est." On the relation between this text and Isidore of Seville, see pp. 354 and 358-59. On
the complex history of the letter, see Ann Knock, "Wonders of the East: A Synoptic Edition of the
Letter of Pharasmanes and the Old English and Old Picard Translations" (Ph.D. dissertation, Univer
sity of London, 1982).

Speculum 80 (2005) 1209

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 1210 Spices
and the sticks can then be collected
of picturesque Greece, Pausanias say
balsam trees and have to be driven
cious resin to be collected.4 Pausani
patrol the plants: the vipers favor
according to Pausanias, balsam requ
spices mentioned by Herodotus: even
because the diet of balsam has exert
Venerable though it was, the idea t
the harvest of fragrant plants was
credited with skepticism about ma
dangers of gathering cinnamon and
natives of the regions where the s
comment offers the first intimatio
vels. Theophrastus in his authoritat
ries as fables.S Yet Pliny and Theoph
for elsewhere they describe other a
poisonous serpents.6
On one level the snakes and the bu
bit of classical and medieval lore
wonders. Indeed, such images of va
nomena flourished in modern colon
ties of harvesting pepper in India are
to fifteenth centuries.8 Other prec

3 Herodotus, Histories 3.107 and 110-11.

sorbed into the legend of the immortal ph
phoenice (attributed to Lactantius), lines 83
and Arnold M. Duff, rev. ed., Loeb Classic
Hexameron 5.23, ed. Karl Schenkl, CSEL 32/
XII, ed. and trans. Jacques Andr? (Paris, 198
les serpents et les aromates dans une min
401.
4 Pausanias, Description of Greece 9.28.1.
5 Pliny, Natural History 12.85; Theophrastus, Enquiry into Plants 9.5.1.
6 Examples in Laurent, "Le ph?nix," p. 381. In addition, Pliny (Natural History 12.81) says that
snakes are driven out of the perfume-bearing trees of Arabia by the burning of storax (Styrax offi
cinalis), itself another fragrant Arabian resin.
7 James A. Boon, Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing the Bittersweet Ethnology of East Indies
History, Hindu-Balinese Culture, and Indo-European Allure (Chicago, 1990). A specific example is
the upas tree of the East Indies, supposed by European observers in the seventeenth and eighteenth
century to contain a deadly poison that killed everything within miles. The connection between this
legend and the Dutch control of the spice trade is discussed in Michael R. Dove and Carol Carpenter,
"The 'Poison Tree' and the Changing Vision of the Indo-Malay Realm: 17th Century-20th Century,"
forthcoming in Environmental Change in Native and Colonial Histories of Borneo, ed. Reid Wadley
(Leiden, 2005).
8 Some examples of the snakes surrounding the pepper plants: the Old English "Wonders of the
East" (see Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the "Beowulf" Manuscript
[Woodbridge, Eng., 1995], p. 188); the Liber monstrorum de diversis generibus 3.6 (eighth century?
see Orchard, Pride and Prodigies, p. 308); the purported letter of Alexander to Aristotle (probably

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 Spices 1211
Polo says that diamonds in India hav
by snakes. Pieces of meat are throw
diamonds stick to the meat and are
collecting the gems they leave behin
In more general terms, the allurin
joined.10 Poison and medicine were
of Mercury, the caduceus, which b
pharmacological illustrations serpen
including pepper.1" Within this ass

ninth century; Epistola Alexandri ad Aristot

structa, ed. W. W. Boer [The Hague, 1953],
proeliis and Jean Waquelin's Histoire d'Alex
Honorius Augustodunensis, Imago mundi (ed
litt?raire du moyen ?ge 57 [1982], 53); verna
thirteenth-century L'image du monde de m
2c[a], p. Ill; a late-fifteenth-century English
Prior [London, 1913], p. 71); Gervase of Tilb
trans. S. E. Banks and J. W. Binns [Oxfor
[pepper in Arabia]); Jacques de Vitry, Histor
prior Orientalis, siue Hierosolymitanae, alter
repr. Farnborough, Eng., 1971], p. 136); Thom
(ed. H. Boese [Berlin, 1973], pp. 289 and 339)
Westrem, Broader Horizons: A Study of Joh
Narratives, Medieval Academy Books 105 [
9 Marco Polo, Milione, Le devisament do
italiana, ed. Gabriella Ronchi, Biblioteca 45
potentially present in Herodotus's descriptio
the first Christian lapidary, written near the
(modern Famagusta in Cyprus) according to
is extracted from Scythian gorges by throw
stantiensis, "De gemmis," Latin version pres
dium of mostly papal and imperial laws, ed
See also Epiphanius de gemmis: The Old Geor
sion, ed. Robert P. Blake and Henri de Vis, S
pp. 117-18. There are no snakes in Epiphaniu
appear in one of the legends of Alexander t
(with and without snakes) made their way
Arabic accounts of the wonders of India inclu
Christel Meier, Gemma spiritalis: Methode
tentum bis ins 18. Jahrhundert, 1, M?nster
and 353-58; and Berthold Laufer, The Diamo
Museum of Natural History Publication 184
Marco Polo's account is cited in the Catalan
marvel (L'Atlas C?tala de Cresques Abraham
de' Conti's fifteenth-century account of "B
De l'Inde. Les voyages en Asie de Niccol? de'
Mich?le Gu?ret-Lafert? (Turnhout, 2004),
10 On dangerous animals in connection wit
Odeurs de saintet?: La mythologie chr?tienn
ciales 42 (Paris, 1990), pp. 185-91; and Laure
11 On snakes in materia medica see Peter M
93, Manuscripts in Miniature 4 (London, 1

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 1212 Spices
snakes and the pepper trees has th
costly. In addition to the expense o
pepper arises from the difficulties o
of pepper is restricted, an enhance
of those able to acquire and consu
What follows is an effort to exa
by focusing on pepper and to som
sufficiently important economically
of the past millennium. Demand,
modities reveal aspects of the me
European overseas expansion.12
The rarity of pepper according to
serpents watch over entire peppe
pepper in India, but its acquisitio
A modern example of absolute rar
has a very limited habitat. Saffro
plant that will grow in many climat
tremendous effort to collect. Saff
stances of its harvesting.
Not everything that is rare, how
produced by plants that grow on
medicine and cosmetic in the Midd
valuable commodity and was cited
Ferdinand and Isabella as among
found.14 Today mastic still grow
healthful and luxurious substance.
it may be, its relative price is now
fifteenth century.
Conversely, certain things are no
The fashion industry depends on
supply. Every airport duty-free s
scarves. Diamonds are another mo

illustrated Latin translation of Dioscoride

bibliothek, Clm. 337, fol. 64r. They accom
Canterbury, Oxford, Bodleian Library, M
culus), known as serpentaria, in Paris, Bib
latter illustrated in Minta Collins, Medi
p. 259.
12 On the interrelations among demand, rarity, and the cultural value ascribed to commodities, see
Arjun Appadurai's introduction to his edited volume, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in
Cultural Perspective (Cambridge, Eng., 1986), pp. 3-63. On luxury and fashion in the early-modern
world, see Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance (London, 1996).
13 On mastic in its historical setting, see Andrew Dalby, "Mastic for Beginners," Petits propos cu
linaires 65 (2000), 38-45.
14 A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's First Voyage, ed. Francesca Lardicci et al., Reper
torium Columbianum 6 (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 67, 86, and 224. Other examples of Columbus's over
optimistic identification of spices are given in Valerie I. J. Flint, The Imaginative Landscape of Chris
topher Columbus (Princeton, N.J., 1992), pp. 133-35.

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 Spices 1213
utation suggests. They are expensiv
mand, and effective image marketin
In the Middle Ages, spices (along
unicorn horns) were objects of con
spices in European markets fluctuat
of voracious demand encouraged
about their exotic origins (India, o
cines not just food flavorings), and
pean trade in quite the way once a
histories, but their significance goe
commerce to encompass ideas abou
high price.16 When King Manuel o
in 1497, it was "in search of spices
1498, da Gama's first messenger
merchants from Tunis, "The devil t
reply was, "We came to look for Ch
about the demand for spices in Eur
for their high price, not, in this case
but rather to unexotic economic fac
Fewer than half of da Gama's crew
mortality would continue for ove
percent of all ships that set out fro
The anticipated profit opportunities,
to offset the terrible risks. Da Gam
substantially more than a merely
guardians. By this time pepper and ot
native lands, their high cost in Europ
control of supply by Egypt or othe

15 Stefan Halikowski Smith, "The Mystific

view of History/Revue europ?enne d'histoir
Temptation (New York, 2004).
16 Robert Henri Bautier, The Economic De
(London, 1971), p. 142, says that "tradition
According to Peter Spufford, Power and Pr
pp. 309-16, Europe played a small role in th
of spices for European merchants and the hig
? l'?choppe: La vente des ?pices ? G?nes au
26, esp. pp. 203-4, regards spices as the m
significance of bulkier commodities such as t
17 Joaquim Romero Magalh?es, Portuguese
1998), pp. 24-25; Vitorino Magalh?es Godinh
(Lisbon, 1985), 2:159, quoting the anonymo
Subrahmanyam, The Career and Legend o
conversation between the crewman and the
Cam?es, canto 7, but although the poem is fu
that motivates the voyagers.
18 Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural Trade in

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1214 Spices
In medieval as well as modern ti
influenced by notions of scarcity
day we have seen wide fears of bot
leum, for example) alternate with u
"dot-com" mania, cold fusion). Eco
quences flow not only from rational c
and cost but also from reckless op
often to outweigh opportunity.19

THE PRICE OF PEPPER

How expensive was pepper in the M

and it is likely that its price was in f
century.20 Ginger (which came in s
near parity with pepper to three tim
from five to twenty times as expe
were obtained for ambergris, aloe
medicines, whose wholesale cost was
price of pepper.21
In terms of supply and consumpt
spice. Michel Balard has found that
etary value of Genoese cargoes com
compared with 18 percent for gin
period. Genoese ships trading wit
spices of which 50 percent by value
6 percent sugar.22
The quantities of spices imported
teenth century Venice acquired in

19 Peter Musgrave discusses the risks of the

period: "The Economics of Uncertainty: Th
in Shipping, Trade and Commerce: Essays i
Aldcroft (Leicester, 1981), pp. 9-21.
20 Frederic Lane, "Pepper Prices before d
97; Eliyahu Ashtor, Levant Trade in the La
15, 421-23, and 463. These articles deal with
At the retail level there is some indication
the course of the fifteenth century; see, for
villes des Pays-Bas du sud," in Saveurs de p
21 On the comparative prices among diffe
econ?mica dei secoli XIII-XVI, Istituto Inter
1/1 (Florence, 1972), pp. 298-320; Eliyahu
m?di?val, Monnaie, Prix, Conjoncture 8 (P
Godinho, Os descobrimentos, 2:183-220; Dam
au moyen ?ge: Un si?cle des relations avec
toral dissertation, University of Paris 1,199
22 Balard, "Du navire ? l'?choppe," tables 1

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 Spices 1215
exandria and another 104 tons fro
surpass even those amounts. In N
discovery of the sea route to India
with at least 2 million kilograms
288,524 ginger. In the same year
andria with over a million kilogra
Although pepper was no longer
considerable profits accrued to fi
other spices from eastern Mediterra
estimates the Venetians marked
during the fifteenth century, while
cloves in the period 1418-20 (7
cent).25 For Barcelona merchants in
from 20 percent for cloves to 41.
25 percent more in Barcelona tha
Relative to other spices, pepper l
Middle Ages. In the most widely
tributed to Taillevent, ginger and g
pepper.27 A fifteenth-century med
Salernitanum referred to pepper
ion shared by the poet Eustache
where one could eat only coarse p
flavored with black pepper.28 Not
status of a necessary luxury throu
condiment, but one within reach
However cheap pepper was in com
counted for a great share of the
mained in very great demand.

23 Eliyahu Ashtor, "The Volume of Medi

9 (1980), 753-63, esp. p. 757, reprinted in
ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Collected Studies S
Wake, "The Changing Pattern of Europ
European Economic History 8 (1979), 361-
at the Beginning and End of the Fifteent
24 K. S. Mathew, Portuguese Trade with
25 Spufford, Power and Profit, p. 312; E. A
Century," Bulletin of the School of Orien
Studies on the Levantine Trade in the Mi
26 Coulon, "Barcelone et le grand comme
Benet's Trading Venture from Barcelona
27 The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition
1988).
28 The medical commentary was wrongly attributed to Arnau de Villanova in early printed editions
of his works (e.g., Opera nuperrime revisa una cum ipsius vita .. . [Lyons, 1520], fol. 137ra) and was
probably by a fifteenth-century German writer. (I am grateful to Michael McVaugh of the University
of North Carolina for his advice on this passage.) On Eustache Deschamps, see uvres compl?tes,
ed. Marquis de Queux de Saint-Hilaire and Gaston Raynaud, 7 (Paris, 1891), pp. 88-90. (Anne
Dropick, my colleague at Yale University, kindly pointed out the two poems to me.)

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1216 Spices
European demand for pepper goes
was characterized by the piquant fl
the sole surviving Roman cookbook
percent of the recipes call for pepp
as to why pepper, which is merely
excite such enthusiasm. Who was t
ditional inducement over and abov
for ginger and pepper to be consum
Roman Empire their use requires th
chaeological research on the Red Se
Roman trade with India from now
Hormos.32 By the time Isidore was
ished; nevertheless, a not-inconsid
spices still found their way to Euro
From the tenth to fourteenth cent
the acceleration of Europe's econom
by Mediterranean traders (Venetian
iterranean ports: from Outremer b
from Cyprus, Constantinople, but m
the period of Mongol hegemony (th
ries), Western merchants ventured
spices, but after 1350, these opport

29 Phyllis Pray Bober, Art, Culture and Cuis

pp. 145-92; Johanna Maria van Winter, "Ko
im Mittelalter, ed. Bernd Herrmann (Stuttg
30 Bruno Laurioux, Le moyen ?ge ? table (
31 Pliny, Natural History 12.14, ed. and tr
Mass., 1960), p. 20: "Usum eius adeo placuisse
invitavit, huic nec pomi nec bacae commend
peti! quis ille primus experiri cibis voluit aut
silvestre gentibus suis est et tarnen pondere
Pliny estimates that exotic products in gener
32 The Periplus Maris Erythraei, ed. and t
94-97, and 283-91; Steven E. Sidebotham,
B.C.-A.D. 217, Mnemosyne Supplementum
Z. Wendrich, "Berenike: A Ptolomaic-Roman
Minerva 13/3 (May-June 2002), 28-31; Sid
work at a Ptolomaic-Roman Port on the
85-96; Gary K. Young, Rome's Eastern Tra
AD 305 (London, 2001), pp. 27-89.
33 On the trade in drugs and spices, see M
Communications and Commerce, A.D. 300
of Anthimus, a Greek writing in the early si
as ginger and cloves in a few recipes: De ob
trans. Mark Grant (Totnes, 1996), pp. 50, 5
34 In general, see W. Heyd, Histoire du co
86); Robert S. Lopez, The Commercial Revo
N.J., 1971); and Jean Favier, Gold and Spi
Caroline Higgitt (New York, 1998).

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 Spices 1217
divided and often hostile powers.35 D
out over their rivals and came to d
the last part of the long and compl
Several quixotic attempts were lau
India or to establish a Christian Eu
might outflank the ships of the Mu
captured Eilat at the head of the G
trade with India, but Saladin dislod
expedition from Genoa in 1291 ma
find a western route to India, and
blockade in the Red Sea and Gulf o
Yet it is precisely such visionary an
of Europeans from the notion of sc
trees to what Timothy Morton has
plenitude: that in faraway (but not
able commodities abound. They gr
so common that the natives don't
valuable at all.37
Perceptions of scarcity and plenit
the other but that in order for the
and expansion, the belief in fabulou
powerful than notions of dangerou
priced goods. I will first look at the
then discuss the articulation of an
overflowing with valuable substance

How Is PEPPER HARVES

The association of pepper with sn

plicated set of ideas about the East
monsters and valuable substances p
exclusively orientalizing discourse
nary or in which the East was reg
good knowledge tended to drive out

35 Robert S. Lopez, "Nouveaux documents s

Acad?mie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres
36 J. R. S. Phillips, The Medieval Expansio
37 Timothy Morton, The Poetics of Spice:
ies in Romanticism 42 (Cambridge, Eng., 2
38 On the riches and wonders of the East,
the History of Monsters," Journal of the W
kower, "Marco Polo and the Pictorial Tradit
E. Balazs et al. (Rome, 1957), pp. 155-72, bo
of Symbols (London, 1977), pp. 45-74 and
World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 40
and Ethnology in the Renaissance: South In
2000), pp. 35-124.

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 1218 Spices
information and actual European tr
mined the fabulous. That snakes gu
iculed, from an early date, but the
In Platearius's pharmacological ma
second half of the twelfth century, t
are set, not only are the serpents d
presumably making future harvests
Marco Polo, the first known medi
pepper is harvested from May thr
crop but doesn't comment on the m
it is diamonds, not pepper, that requi
The Franciscan friar Odoric of Po
describes pepper as a vine with leav
manner of grape vines). Its fruit re
in the pepper groves support croco
and in one of the most important ma
have to be driven off by fire.43 The
eled, black appearance of pepperco
reports that pepper is dried in the su
ignores both serpents and fire but

39 Das Arzneidrogenbuch Circa Instans in

t?tsbibliothek Erlangen, ed. Hans W?lfel (H
copiam serpencium ibi existencium opponitur
sed eadem ratione comburerentur arbores ip
this passage but prefaces it with the statem
coctionem": The Herbal of Rufinus, Edited
cago, 1946), p. 238.
40 Marco Polo, Milione 176, p. 579: ". . . il
en grant abondance; e se recuile dou mois d
font le pevre se plantent e le enaiguent et s
41 Odoric of Pordenone, Relatio, ed. Anast
9, pp. 439-40: "In hac autem contrata habet
de elere, que folia iuxta magnos arbores plant
fructum ut uvarum racemi producuntur; in
frangi. Cum ipsum autem maturum est, vi
42 Ibid., p. 440: "In hoc etiam nemore sun
serpentes."
43 The passage on the fires is in a British Library manuscript noted in the Yule-Cordier edition,
Cathay and the Way Thither, ed. Henry Yule and Henri Cordier, 2 (London, 1913), p. 295, n. 8: "Et
sunt etiam in isto nemore multi alii serpentes quos homines per stupam et paleas comburunt, et sic ad
colligendum piper secure accedunt."
44 Odoric of Pordenone, Relatio 9, p. 440: "... et sic vindemiatur sicut hic vindemiantur uve, po
nendo illud in sole ut desiccetur. Quod cum desiccatum est, ipsum in vasis colocatur." Cf. Ibn Battuta,
who says that pepper resembles grape vines and is planted beside trees and that "most people in our
country suppose that they roast them [the pepper fruit] with fire and that it is because of that they
become crinkled, but it is not so since this results only from the action of the sun upon them": The
Travels of Ibn Batt?ta, A.D. 1325-1354, trans. H. A. R. Gibb with C. F. Beckingham, 4, Works Issued
by the Hakluyt Society, 2nd ser., 178 (London, 1994), p. 807.

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 Spices 1219
(Malabar) as grain is "in our land."4
culated) conclusion that pepper is e
supply where it grows.
In another early-fourteenth-century
Jordan of Severac, pepper is said to g
the wild grape. The fruit is green
wrinkled (nothing is said about dry
cording to Jordan (in fact this spice
black round pepper, Piper nigrum).
marvelous (his book is in fact entit
dismisses as a lie the story that pep
The mysterious John Mandeville, w
voyage, is famous for the many de
rative. He, too, however, doubts the
grounds that such conflagrations w
deny the presence of serpents but ass
or snails, "and other things" smear
the snakes to flee.47
The author of the Mandeville accou
fourteenth century. At about the s
rignolli returned to Europe after a
the town of Quilon on the Malabar
Quilon was certainly a great center
was not the only place where the s
server who most extensively and cl
particularly scarce product. He beg
Severac, that pepper grows from a
burning and its harvest is sufficientl
nor special tools. Pepper grows in

45 Cathay and the Way Thither, 2:342: "E

terra di grano."
46 Mirabilia descripta?Les merveilles de l'A
Cordier (Paris, 1925), p. 116: "Piper est fr
ascendit super arbores, et facit ad modum l
pervenit ad maturitatem, efficitur totum nig
piper longum; nec credatis quod ponatur ig
dicere mendose."
47 Mandeville's Travels exists in many lang
18 of his travels), see Le livre des mervei
M?di?vale 31 (Paris, 2000), pp. 318-20; Ma
pp. 123-24; and Mandeville's Travels, ed. Malco
2nd ser., 101-2 (London, 1953), Egerton v
metrical version states that the pepper forest
place: Rosemary Tzanaki, Mandeville's Medi
of Sir John Mandeville (1371-1550) (Alders

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1220 Spices
authorities believed. John emphasize
Finally, the inhabitants of this land
are Christians. According to John
be limited to the extent that it all
this fairly extensive territory, its h
is not the result of some fundamen

FABULOUS AND PRACTICA

John's account of the pepper harve

block access to valuable commodit
Atlas and the merchant traveler
Marignolli, still believed that diamon
infested gorges.49 Pierre d'Ailly a
tioned serpents in connection wit
tached to the geographical works
involved in enterprises to find realm
implying scarcity or limitations in
of plenitude (which also figure in
Columbus's annotations to book
peatedly, almost obsessively with
mation these aren't found merely
of the East.52 Obstacles to acquiri
view, have nothing to do with any
distance and the exploitative practic
mented supply route. Pepper is ex
also because of the markup to ben
a direct route to India would not o
also circumvent the intermediarie

48 Relatio Fr. Johannis de Marignolli, ed

nika Jana z Marignoly," ed. Joseph Emier
festo autem sancti Stephani usque ad dom
simam civitatem Indie, nomine Columbum
que plantantur ad modum vinearum omnino
post facit quasi racemos et est intus vinu
Post maturantur et exsiccantur in arbore
cadens super linteamina et recollitur. Ista
buritur, ut menciuntur scriptores, nec nasc
49 See above, n. 9. Niccol? de' Conti does, h
grows like ivy, produces berries like those
with ashes: De l'Inde, lines 138-42, p. 96
50 Pierre d'Ailly, Ymago mundi, ed. Edm
p. 264: "Apud hos crescit piper colore qu
nigredinem trahit"; Aeneas Sylvius Piccol
Piccolominei. . . opera quae extant omnia
assos in cicum pro deliciis habere, rubeasq
51 Flint, Imaginative Landscape of Chris
52 Ibid., pp. 202-5.

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 Spices 1221
Economic theories are a promine
Martin Behaim of Nuremberg in
we read once again that in India
that are guarded by snakes.53 If j
stantial rarity, the same is not true
aware that spices grow in man
china), Sumatra, even (fancifully)
costs drive up the price of spices in
In the longest of the globe's texts
must pass through from their or
Germany.54 The inhabitants of "J
other islands, which are bought b
sold to traders from "the Golden
in turn to merchants of "Taprob
andering shifts suddenly and mor
stages when the "heathen Moham
the spices, which then pass thro
tribution of spices throughout Eu
to retailers in Germany.
Customs and profits add greatly to
(which Behaim figures at 10 percen
markup. Martin Behaim conclude
they are cheap, but that their Eu
intervening profits and taxes.55 Ne
of spices in Germany. This is due
directly with the cultivators.
Although he endorses the lege
seems to have a realistic, or at le
Simultaneous with such rational c
of limitless supply. According to
gems were produced in such extr
regarded there as unusually valu
There are, of course, many stori
lying to the East or in the Weste

53 E. G. Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, His

gebirg find man edelgestein und deamant a
54 Ibid., p. 89: "item ess ist zu wissen da
manicherley hendt verkauf ft w?rdt ehe sy
mentary is also given in Jardine, Worldl
55 Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, pp. 89-90
den gewin. die 12 malen auf die specerey g
zu zoll darbey zu verstehen ist das in den l
und das nit wunder wer man wis sy by en
European merchants such as Jacques C ur
the Venetians, but this was a risky projec
pp. 84-126; and Michel Mollat, Jacques
pp. 168-82. Of course, none of this affect

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1222 Spices
aware of the appeal of such tales t
Land of Cockaigne, a place wher
landscape features were edible, even
were given an impetus in the twelfth
Prester John. Beginning around 11
Christian ruler of the East arrived in
monarch answered, or at least evok
ritories of Islam and gave a specifi
of-the-East ideas originating with
The location of Prester John's rea
India or China yielded in the fiftee
da Gama (who carried a letter to P
existence of this great Christian ru
Prester John claims that all manner o
in his territories. Precious stones a
Prester John's empire produces pep
taken from groves watched over b
the same fairy-tale level as gems.58
Prester John was by no means th
wealth. Marco Polo, generally cau
Prester John to marginal significa
wonders of his own such as the
"Cipangu" (Japan) in the Eastern
while in China. He reports that in
it is found there in measureless qu
from something like trade but bec
palace of the ruler is roofed in gol
and churches, and its chambers are
This is certainly a commonplace of

56 Herman Pleij, Dreaming of Cockaigne: M

(New York, 2001).
57 The letter is edited and commented on b
lungen der philologisch-historischen Classe
7 (Leipzig, 1879), pp. 827-1030 (edition at
Pr?ster John, the Letterand the Legend (Min
in his Between Islam and Christendom: Tr
Renaissance, Collected Studies Series 175
58 Ed. Zarncke, "Der Priester Johannes," p.
see Michael Uebel, "Imperial Fetishism: Pr?s
Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen (New York
realms there are no poisonous snakes, but
strange and venomous creatures abound: Istv
(Paris, 2001), pp. 98-99.
59 Marco Polo, Milione 159, p. 532: "... je v
que(l) est tout coverto d'or fin; tout en tel m
yglise, tout en tel mainere est cest palais co
Et encore vos di que tout le pavimant de se?
plus de II doies. ..."

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 Spices 1223
is boastful of his wealth, the inhab
at least European) value of gold.6
other chapters hunting whales for a
out of snake-infested gorges presu
difficult labors, but gold in Cipangu
normal economic calculation. Earlie
guarded by dangerous beasts that m
it may be in absolute terms. Accordin
and others), there are entire mount
because griffins, dragons, and mon
however, gold is found in an admitted
that if one ever reached the place, o
formulation of fantastic but natural a
out how to find the source seem wo
One could imagine the riches of A
ulous society or, alternatively, as a
the most part describes the productio
as good government, population den
the Great Khan appeared a just aut
ulated by ingenious and hardworkin
tales of the effortless profligacy o
things appear more conveniently. I
in Egypt, Joinville describes the rich
terrestrial paradise:
Before this river enters Egypt, the peop
evening into the water and let them l
their nets such things as are sold by
ginger, rhubarb,63 aloes, and cinnamon
paradise; for in that heavenly place th

60 Ideas of Asian realms of gold include the t

to be particularly rich in these metals, me
Collectanea rerum memorabilium (as above,
perhaps a dim notion of Malaya: Paul Whea
Geography of the Malay Peninsula before A
61 Jerome, Letter 125.3, in Epistulae, 3, e
. . . montesque aurei, quos adir? propter draco
nibus inpossibile est. . ."; Isidore, Etymologi
(Oxford, 1911), p. 113; Hrabanus Maurus,
todunensis in Imago mundi (as above, n. 8
appears on the Hereford Map: Scott D. Wes
2001), p. 33.
62 Folker E. Reichert, Begegnungen mit China: Die Entdeckung Ostasiens im Mittelalter, Beitr?ge
zur Geschichte und Quellenkunde des Mittelalters 15 (Sigmaringen, 1992), pp. 109-10.
63 Not the same as European and American rhubarb but the root of a different species, Rheum
officinale, native to Tibet and credited with great medicinal properties in the Middle Ages; see Andrew
Dalby, Dangerous Tastes: The Story of Spices (Berkeley, Calif., 2000), pp. 77-78.

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1224 Spices
wood in the forests of our own land;
thus falls into the river is sold to us by

The inhabitants of the lands just b

what they are taking out of the riv
it. According to Joinville, they mere
accounts for the status of Egypt as
disparity between the great cost of
ease of acquisition. Yet even though
there is a certain intrinsic limitatio
the particular rivers (the Nile, Gan
out of Paradise.65
There were, therefore, different t
the wealth of the East. The wonde
difficult to acquire even in the plac
pepper orchards implies. Alternativ
of its people and beneficent gover
extravagantly rich but closely gove
Great Khan. Finally, it may be a p
order of the golden roofs of Cipan
The interaction of commercial cal
throughout the Middle Ages and i
accurate geographical information
discovery.66 John of Marignolli and
of commerce in spices, but these w
one to undertake the frighteningly r
The impetus had to come from a c
maps, or navigational technique bu
point to facing the dangers and len

64 Chronicles of the Crusades, trans. M.

Jerome, in Letter 125.3, writes of India wh
from Paradise. Precious botanical substance
Instans, ed. W?lfel, Arzneidrogenbuch (as a
(as above, n. 8), p. 173; Wolfram von Esch
the Properties of Things: John Trevisa's T
rerum, a Critical Text, ed. M. C. Seymour
8 and 25: Le livre des merveilles du monde
Mandeville's Travels, ed. Letts, Egerton ver
65 On the location of Paradise, see Alessan
Paradise," in Mappings, ed. Denis Cosgrov
general, see Jean Delumeau, History of Par
Matthew O'Connell (New York, 1995).
66 Technological and geographical progres
Rahn Phillips, The Worlds of Christophe
Chaunu, European Expansion in the Later M
Ages 10 (Amsterdam, 1979); Ingrid Baumg?
graphischen Weltbilds durch die Asienreisen
(1997), 227-53; and Phillips, The Medieval

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 Spices 1225
a rare commodity.67 What was
the conviction that spices, gems,
great quantities. It would be even
for nearly nothing and in hyper
the gems of Prester John's realm.
Of course, attemps were made t
in Europe. Silk, after all, had bee
in the late Middle Ages was gro
discovered Atlantic islands. We d
plant pepper or other spices, bu
ample of attempted domestic pro
must have failed. Most precious i
Therefore it is not just that Co
quated, unreliable (if learned) inf
were necessary motives for the v
encouragement to seek spices in t
ulous stories of abundance as we
marvelous and what might be
presented in certain ways. A pro
harvest without snakes was a sti
golden roofs of Cipangu. In 1474
Toscanelli outlined a theory of a
to the king of Portugal. Toscane
describes Cipangu as an island w
Recruiting for Columbus's initia
Pinta) put forth a popularized ver
of his listeners with the golden-ro
coming voyage.68
It is not too functionalist to ask w
lore, and even genuine new know
schemes of expansion or led Eur
projects. Much has to do with ho
to the ordinary and how this pairi
Michele Gueret-Laferte describe
literatureas the description of for
the relativistic observation that w
Marco Polo says that gold is used

67 The presence of Venetian and Genoese

century does show a willingness to make
generally for silk rather than for good
fronti?re du commerce de l'Europe m?
documents," pp. 445-57 (as above, n. 3
68 Cited in John Larner, Marco Polo an
pp. 141-44. See also Folker Reichert, "
turgeschichte der Entdeckungen," Zeitsc
69 Mich?le Gu?ret-Lafert?, Sur les route
voyages aux XlIIe et XlVe si?cles, Nouve

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1226 Spices
lead is employed for churches at
namon fall into the Nile in Parad
European rivers. Odoric of Porden
pepper in Malabar is as plentiful a
observed that a familiar and inex
is a prized rarity in China.70 Acco
Etymologies), the common Europe
expensive than pepper in India. W
this slightly to say that the price
Europe.71 That pepper might be gu
of nature, but it is also marvelous in
if this wonderful and (in Europe
snakeless orchards.
Notions of the marvelous and th
other, producing various represent
pepper or gold was not globally s
from effective exploitation. Difficu
products was somewhere available.
places where spices, gold, or jewe
pation of Europeans on the eve of
to think that from the first momen
Europeans thought in terms of co
dent in their technological superiori
cally and economically well organ
tivated or gold being mined than t
Columbus found. Columbus's palp
stead of officials of the Great Khan
The ease of taking things from un
sate for the difficulty of setting up
or so it seemed.
Whether civilized or uncivilized,
shared, in European eyes, a useful

70 In his historical survey La flor des esto

Armenia says that in Cathay olive oil is rar
and wealthy: Recueil des historiens des cr
et illud fere quod in illis partibus carius e
magnates illud, quando modo aliquo repe
faciunt custodiri." According to some ma
Cathay to have medicinal value (The Defec
Early English Text Society, O.S., 319 [Oxf
Mandeville's Medieval Audiences, p. 275)
71 Jerome, Letter 146.2, CSEL 56 (as abov
puleium apud Indos pipere pretiosius est
p. 197; Walafrid Strabo, De cultura hor
Indorum tanti constare peritos / Fertur a
McCormick, Origins of the European Ec
72 Columbus's expectations and disappoint
Christopher Columbus, pp. 157-70.

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 Spices 1227
their current and potential possessi
did understand the price structure
Muslim) who were regarded as pro
tance, intermediaries, the political
discouraging if the bottom line was
Curiously enough, as it turned out, t
fulfilled, if not quite in the ways a
for example, reaped a 400 percent
unfindable, but the gold and silver
to satisfy the most extravagant dream
in the long run benefit Portugal or
terms of the imagination of riches th
contemporary world. Wealth is tem
vantageous position in the spice tr
nanced futile European wars with
wrong people, but it is real nevert
tendant disastrous consequences mo
The realization of these profits was
itude that combined ancient and me
tical wisdom of experience.

73 Pierre Delaveau, Les ?pices: Histoire, des

diments (Paris, 1987), p. 72; Jardine, Worl

Paul Freedman is Chester D. Tripp Pro

CT 06520 (e-mail: paul.freedman@ya

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