Medieval Academy of America

Spices and Late-Medieval European Ideas of Scarcity and Value

Author(s): Paul Freedman
Source: Speculum, Vol. 80, No. 4 (Oct., 2005), pp. 1209-1227
Published by: Medieval Academy of America
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20463498 .
Accessed: 19/10/2014 09:42
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Medieval Academy of America is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to
Speculum.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices andLate-MedievalEuropean
Ideas of Scarcity and Value
By Paul

Freedman

SPICES AND DANGER

In book 17 of Isidoreof Seville'sEtymologies,pepper is said to come from

grovesof treesin India "guarded" bypoisonous serpents.In order toharvestthe
pepper,the treeshave to be burned,drivingthesnakesaway and in theprocess
white fruitblack.1
Why theserpentsare so devotedto these
turningtheoriginally
particulartreesis not explained,but linkingan exoticproductwith dangerap
accounted forthefact
and thisstoryalso ingeniously
pealed to the imagination,
thatpepper isnormallyblack and shriveled(itwas vaguelyknown thata white
and smoothvarietyalso existed).
about pepper includePliny'sNatural History
Isidore'ssourcesof information
and Solinus's compendiumofmarvels,but thesnakesappear to be derivedfrom
a fictitiousletterto theemperorHadrian on themarvels of theEast, a textthat
interacted
with legendsaboutAlexander'sconquests.2Fascinationwith theorigins
of importedaromaticsubstancesand thesupposedperilof gatheringthemwere
at
Herodotus describesthedifficulties
commonplacesof theclassical tradition.
products.Frankincenseis guarded by
tendingthecollectionof severalfragrant
snakes;cassia ispatrolledbywinged batlikecreatures;and cinnamongrows in
gatheritfortheirnests.In
inaccessible
Arabianmountains,but birds,fortunately,
thislastcase thebirdsare temptedby pieces ofmeat leftout forthem,butwhen
theybring themback, theweight of themeat breaksapart thecinnamonnests

I am very grateful to Kathryn Reyerson,

Ilya Dines, John Friedman, Francesca Trivellato, Manu
and Peter Murray Jones for their advice. An earlier version of this article was presented
Radhakrishnan,
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 theNew

York

Public Library

and the American

Council

of Learned

Societies.

ed. and trans. Jacques Andr?

livre XVII,
Isidore of Seville, Etymologiae,
(Paris, 1981), 17.8.8,
in
in
montis
Caucasi
147:
nascitur
latere
arbor
p.
India,
"Piperis
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
rerum memorabilium,
ed. Theodor Mommsen
(Berlin, 1958), 52, p. 192;
Solinus, Collectanea
La lettre
Natural
12.14; Edmond Faral, "Une source latine de l'histoire d'Alexandre:
History
Pliny,
at p. 205 (version A): "Ibi
sur les merveilles de l'Inde," Romania
43 (1914), 119-215
and 353-70,
idem serpentes custodiunt; homines vero per industriam suam sic
piperis, quod
fuerit, incendunt eadem loca, et serpentes sentientes ignem fugiunt et sub terra
colligunt: cum maturum
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
nascitur multitudo

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
1982).
sity of London,
Speculum

80

1209

(2005)

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1210

and thestickscan thenbe collectedwhen theyfallto theground.3In his account

ofpicturesque
Greece,Pausanias saysthatinArabia vipersbuild theirnestsaround
balsam treesand have to be drivenawaywith sticksinorder fortheplants' pre
cious resinto be collected.4Pausanias isunusual inofferinga reasonwhy snakes
patrol theplants: thevipers favorbalsam above all other food.As ithappens,
according to Pausanias, balsam requireslessheroicmethods to obtain than the
spicesmentionedbyHerodotus: even iftheviperattacks,itsbite isnotpoisonous
because thedietof balsam has exerteda benignand soothinginfluence.
impede
Venerable thoughitwas, the idea thatserpentssurroundand therefore
theharvestof fragrantplantswas not universallyaccepted. Pliny,not usually
creditedwith skepticismabout marvels, ridiculedHerodotus's accounts of the
put forthby
dangersof gatheringcinnamonand cassia as deliberatefabrications
nativesof the regionswhere the spicesgrow in order to elevateprices.Pliny's
motive forsuchallegedmar
of a commercial
commentoffersthefirstintimation
botanical treatisealso dismissedthesesto
vels.Theophrastus inhis authoritative
riesas fables.S
Yet Plinyand Theophrastusare not consistentin theirskepticism,
with verysmall,very
forelsewheretheydescribeotheraromaticplants infested
poisonous serpents.6
On one levelthesnakesand theburningpepper treesformanotherenduring
bit of classical and medieval lore about theOrient as a place of luxuriesand
wonders. Indeed, such imagesof valuable exotica pairedwith frightening
phe
The difficul
nomena flourishedinmodern colonial discoursesabout thetropics.7
in textsfromtheninth
tiesof harvesting
pepper inIndia arementioned frequently
Marco
Other preciousgoodswould collectsimilarlegends.
to fifteenth
centuries.8
3
ismade
into birds' nests would
be ab
Histories
3.107 and 110-11.
That cinnamon
Herodotus,
for example, Pliny, Natural History
sorbed into the legend of the immortal phoenix:
10.2; De ave
inMinor Latin Poets, ed. and trans. J.Wight Duff
lines 83-84,
(attributed to Lactantius),
phoenice
and Arnold M. Duff, rev. ed., Loeb Classical
1935), p. 656; Ambrose,
Library (Cambridge, Mass.,
livre
5.23, ed. Karl Schenkl, CSEL 32/1 (Vienna, 1897), p. 198; and Isidore, Etymologiae,
ed. and trans. Jacques Andr? (Paris, 1986), 12.7.23, pp. 241 and 243. See M. Laurent, "Le ph?nix,
les serpents et les aromates dans une miniature du Xlle si?cle," L'antiquit?
classique 4 (1935), 375
401.
4
Pausanias, Description
of Greece 9.28.1.
5
into Plants 9.5.1.
12.85; Theophrastus,
Enquiry
Pliny, Natural History
6
in Laurent, "Le ph?nix," p. 381. In addition, Pliny (Natural History
12.81) says that
Examples
trees of Arabia by the burning of storax (Styrax offi
snakes are driven out of the perfume-bearing

Hexameron
XII,

resin.
cinalis), itself another fragrant Arabian
7
the Bittersweet Ethnology
James A. Boon, Affinities and Extremes: Crisscrossing
of East Indies
is
Allure
Culture, and Indo-European
1990). A specific example
History, Hindu-Balinese
(Chicago,
observers in the seventeenth and eighteenth
the upas tree of the East Indies, supposed by European
century to contain a deadly poison that killed everything within miles. The connection between this
inMichael
R. Dove and Carol Carpenter,
legend and the Dutch control of the spice trade is discussed
"The

and the Changing Vision of the Indo-Malay

in Environmental
inNative
and Colonial
Change

'Poison Tree'

forthcoming

(Leiden, 2005).
8
Some examples
East"

Realm:
Histories

17th Century-20th
Century,"
of Borneo, ed. Reid Wadley

the pepper plants: the Old English "Wonders of the

surrounding
Pride and Prodigies:
Studies in theMonsters
of the "Beowulf" Manuscript
de diversis generibus 3.6 (eighth century?
Eng., 1995], p. 188); the Liber monstrorum
to Aristotle
letter of Alexander
Pride and Prodigies, p. 308); the purported
(probably
of the snakes

(see Andy Orchard,

[Woodbridge,
see Orchard,

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1211

Spices

Polo says thatdiamonds in India have to be extractedfromdeep gorges infested

white eagles.The
by snakes.Pieces ofmeat are thrownintotheabyss,attracting
eitherby scaringtheeaglesaway or
diamonds stickto themeat and are retrieved
collectingthegems theyleavebehind.9
Inmore general terms,thealluringlyexotic and theperilouswere oftencon
Poison andmedicinewere conceptuallylinked:snakesentwinethewand
joined.10
ofMercury, thecaduceus,which became a medical symbol,while inmedieval
serpentsaccompanyvariousmedicallyusefulplants
pharmacologicalillustrations
Within thisassociativevocabulary Isidore's account of the
includingpepper.1"

critico in
ad codicum fidem edita et commentario
ad Aristotelem
ninth century; Epistola Alexandri
de
such as the Historia
structa, ed. W. W. Boer [The Hague,
1953], p. 53); histories of Alexander
source latine," pp. 199-200);
"Une
Histoire
d'Alexandre
and
Faral,
(cited
by
JeanWaquelin's
proeliis
Honorius

Augustodunensis,
litt?raire du moyen ?ge 57

I. J. Flint
(ed. Valerie
Imago mundi
works
derived
vernacular
53);
[1982],

in Archives

d'histoire

doctrinale

et

from the Imago mundi such as the

du monde de ma?tre Gossouin
1913], pt. 2,
(ed. O. H. Prior [Lausanne,
thirteenth-century L'image
a late-fifteenth-century English version is Caxton's Mirrour
of theWorld, ed. Oliver H.
2c[a], p. Ill;
Prior [London, 1913], p. 71); Gervase of Tilbury, Otia imperialia: Recreation
(ed. and
for an Emperor
trans. S. E. Banks
[pepper inArabia]);
prior Orientalis,

Binns [Oxford, 2002], 2.3, p. 187 [pepper in India], and 3.73, p. 697
libri duo quorum
86 (in lacobi de Vitriaco...
Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis
historiae nomine inscribitur [Douai, 1597;
alter Occidentalis
siue Hierosolymitanae,
and J.W.

of Cantimpr?, Liber de natura rerum 8.39 and 11.28

repr. Farnborough,
Eng., 1971], p. 136); Thomas
(ed. H. Boese [Berlin, 1973], pp. 289 and 339); and Johannes Witte de Hese, Itinerarius (ed. Scott D.
"Itinerarius" and Medieval
Travel
A Study of Johannes Witte de Hese's
Westrem, Broader Horizons:
Narratives,
9
Marco
italiana,

2001], p. 138).
Academy Books 105 [Cambridge, Mass.,
toscana
Il Milione
neue redazioni
Le devisament
dou monde:
Polo, Milione,
This wonder
ed. Gabriella Ronchi, Biblioteca 45 (Milan, 1982), 175, pp. 562-63.
Medieval

e franco
is at least

description of gathering cinnamon, but it seems to originate with

potentially present inHerodotus's
near the end of the fourth century by Epiphanius
of Constantia
written
the first Christian
lapidary,
the gem "hyacinth"
in Cyprus) according to whom
(iacinthus, probably zircon)
(modern Famagusta
Con
is extracted from Scythian gorges by throwing pieces of lamb that eagles retrieve: Epiphanius
a sixth-century compen
stantiensis, "De gemmis," Latin version preserved in the Collectio Avellana,
35/2 (Vienna, 1898), pp. 753-54.
dium of mostly papal and imperial laws, ed. Otto G?nther, CSEL
Version and the Fragments of the Armenian Ver
de gemmis: The Old Georgian
See also Epiphanius
11 (London, 1934), English trans,
sion, ed. Robert P. Blake and Henri de Vis, Studies and Documents
the gorges being simply inaccesible. The first snakes
There are no snakes in Epiphanius,
in one of the legends of Alexander
that went under Aristotle's name. Versions of this story
their way to China and the Byzantine Empire and are featured in
snakes) made
(with and without
Arabic accounts of the wonders of India including the story of Sinbad in the Arabian Nights tales; see
vom fr?hen Chris
der Edelsteinallegorese
und Gebrauch
Christel Meier, Gemma
spiritalis: Methode
pp.

117-18.

appear

Mittelalter-Schriften
tentum bis ins 18. Jahrhundert, 1,M?nstersche
A Study in Chinese
and Berthold Laufer, The Diamond:
and 353-58;
Series
Museum
of Natural History Publication
184, Anthropological
is cited in the Catalan Atlas of 1376, which
Marco
Polo's account

(Munich, 1977), pp. 99-138

and Hellenistic
Folk-Lore, Field

34

15/1 (Chicago, 1915), pp. 6-28.

knew about this
says Alexander
marvel
[Barcelona, 1975], p. 135), and appears also inNiccol?
(L'Atlas C?tala de Cresques Abraham
as found in Poggio Bracciolini,
de' Conti's fifteenth-century account of "Bizangalia"
(Vijayanagar),
"
livre IV, ed. and trans.
de' Conti: "De varietate fortunae,
De l'Inde. Les voyages en Asie de Niccol?
lines 622-27,
pp. 155-56.
(Turnhout, 2004),
see Jean-Pierre Albert,
in connection with precious natural substances,
animals
dangerous
et de Sciences So
d'Histoire
chr?tienne des aromates, Recherches
Odeurs de saintet?: La mythologie
and Laurent, "Le ph?nix, les serpents et les aromates."
ciales 42 (Paris, 1990), pp. 185-91;
11
see Peter Murray
On snakes in materia medica
Jones, Medicina
antiqua: Codex Vindobonensis
4 (London,
inMiniature
93, Manuscripts
1999). Snakes guard pepper plants in the tenth-century

Mich?le
10
On

Gu?ret-Lafert?

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1212

Spices

snakesand thepepper treeshas theimplicitvirtueof explainingwhy pepper is so

costly.In addition to theexpenseof importationfromfaraway, thehighpriceof
pepperarises fromthedifficulties
of itsharvest.Because of thesnakes,thesupply
an enhancement
not onlyof itspricebut also of thestatus
of pepper is restricted,
of thoseable to acquire and consume it.
What followsisan effortto examinemedieval ideasof scarcityand abundance
by focusingon pepper and to some extentother spices thatwere luxuriesbut
to affectthehistoricalevents
important
sufficiently
economicallyand imaginatively
of thepastmillennium.Demand, rarity,and theculturalvalue of luxurycom
modities revealaspectsof themedieval imaginationand theoriginsofmodern
European overseasexpansion.12
The rarityof pepperaccordingto Isidoreof Seville isnot absolute (afterall, the
watch over entirepepper silvae) but circumstantial.
serpents
There isplentyof
pepper in India,but itsacquisition involvesdangerand requireslaborand skill.
A modern example of absolute rarityis the truffle,
which isdifficultto findand
has a very limitedhabitat.Saffron,on theotherhand, is a reasonablycommon
plant thatwill grow inmany climates,but thedelicatestigmasof theflowerrequire
effortto collect.Saffronis rareand expensivebecause of thecircum
tremendous
stancesof itsharvesting.
Not everythingthat is rare,however,is expensive.Mastic, a resinousgum, is
produced by plants thatgrow only on theAegean islandof Chios.13Used as a
medicine and cosmeticin theMiddle Ages,masticwas at thattimean extremely
valuable commodityand was cited by Columbus in his firstexultant letterto
Ferdinand and Isabella as among the treasureshe was (wrongly)sure he had
found.14
Today mastic stillgrows only inChios, but ithas lost itsallure as a
market forit,and so rarethough
healthfuland luxurioussubstance.There is little
itmay be, itsrelativeprice isnow incomparablylowerthan in thefourteenth
or
fifteenth
century.
Conversely,certainthingsare not all thatrarebut nevertheless
veryexpensive.
The fashionindustry
dependson an appearanceof exclusivity
coupledwith ample
supply.Everyairportduty-free
store,afterall, has Cartierwatches andHermes
more ordinarythantheirrep
scarves.Diamonds are anothermodern commodity
of Dioscorides'
handbook, Munich,
pharmacological
Bayerische Staats
vervain in a late-eleventh-century herbal produced at
fol. 64r. They accompany
1431, fol. 15r, and dragonwort
(Arum dracun
Canterbury, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Ashmole
nationale de France, MS
lat. 6823, fol. 143r, the
culus), known as serpentaria, in Paris, Biblioth?que
illustrated Latin

bibliothek,

Clm.

latter illustrated
p. 259.
12
On

translation

337,

inMinta

Collins,

Medieval

Herb?is:

The

Illustrative

Traditions

(Toronto,

2000),

see
demand, rarity, and the cultural value ascribed to commodities,
to
The
in
his
edited
Social
Commodities
volume,
Arjun Appadurai's
Life of Things:
Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge, Eng., 1986), pp. 3-63. On luxury and fashion in the early-modern
(London, 1996).
world, see Lisa Jardine, Worldly Goods: A New History of the Renaissance
13
in its historical setting, see Andrew Dalby,
"Mastic
On mastic
for Beginners," Petits propos cu
the interrelations

among
introduction

linaires 65 (2000), 38-45.

14
First Voyage, ed. Francesca Lardicci et al., Reper
A Synoptic Edition of the Log of Columbus's
over
torium Columbianum
6 (Turnhout, 1999), pp. 67, 86, and 224. Other examples of Columbus's
of Chris
optimistic identification of spices are given inValerie I. J. Flint, The Imaginative Landscape
(Princeton, N.J., 1992), pp. 133-35.
topher Columbus

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1213

utation suggests.They are expensivebecause ofmonopolisticpractices,highde

mand, and effectiveimagemarketingratherthanon accountof anygreatrarity.
In theMiddle Ages, spices (alongwith precious stonesand suchcuriositiesas
unicornhorns)were objects of considerablefascination.1'
The actual price of
spices inEuropeanmarkets fluctuated
butwas consistently
quite high,theresult
of voracious demand encouraged by an elaborate and authoritativetradition
about theirexotic origins(India,or even theearthlyparadise),virtues(asmedi
cinesnot justfood flavorings),
and rarity.
Spicesmay not have dominatedEuro
pean trade in quite theway once ascribed to them in old-fashionedeconomic
histories,but theirsignificance
goes beyond theirstatisticalplace in international
commerceto encompass ideas about theirvalue and about the reasons fortheir
highprice.16
When KingManuel ofPortugalauthorizedVasco da Gama's voyage
in 1497, itwas "in searchof spices."When theshipsarrivedinCalicut inJuly
1498, da Gama's first
messengeron shorewas asked (in Spanish) byMuslim
merchantsfromTunis, "The devil takeyou,what broughtyou here?"The succinct
reply
was, "We came to look forChristiansand spices."'17
This tellsus something
in
the
about
demand forspices Europe and, likeIsidore'stheory,impliesa reason
fortheirhighprice,not, in thiscase, due toeitherabsoluteor circumstantial
rarity
but ratherto unexoticeconomicfactorsof transport
andmonopoly.
Fewer thanhalfof da Gama's crew survivedthevoyage,and similarlevelsof
mortalitywould continueforover two centuries.Between 1500 and 1634, 28
percentof all ships thatsetout fromPortugalbound forIndiawere lostat sea.18
The anticipatedprofitopportunities,
therefore,
had tobe surpassingly
high,enough
to offsetthe terriblerisks.Da Gama and his backersexpected to findsomething
more than a merely adequate pepper supply limitedby poisonous
substantially
guardians.By thistimepepperand otherspiceswere regardedas abundantintheir
nativelands,theirhighcost inEurope causednot by rarity
butby themonopolistic
controlof supplybyEgyptor otherMuslim powers.

15
Stefan Halikowski
view of History/Revue

of Spices in theWestern Tradition,"

Smith, "The Mystification
European
d'histoire 8 (2001), 119-35;
Jack Turner, Spice: The History

europ?enne

Re
of a

(New York, 2004).

Temptation
16
trans. Heather Karolyi
Robert Henri Bautier, The Economic
Development
of Medieval
Europe,
historians exaggerate
the economic
role of spices.
1971), p. 142, says that "traditional"
(London,
to Peter Spufford, Power and Profit: The Merchant
inMedieval
(New York, 2003),
According
Europe

pp. 309-16,
Europe played a small role in the international spice trade, but he notes the importance
of spices for European merchants and the high unit value of these products. Michel Balard, "Du navire

La vente des ?pices ? G?nes au XlVe si?cle," Asian and African Studies 22 (1988), 203
the
esp. pp. 203-4,
cargo notwithstanding
regards spices as the most valuable Mediterranean
such as textiles, wool,
salt, and cereals.
significance of bulkier commodities
17
no mundo do s?culo XVI: Espa?os
e produtos
Joaquim Romero Magalh?es,
(Lisbon,
Portugueses
e a econom?a mundial, 2nd ed.
1998), pp. 24-25; Vitorino Magalh?es
Godinho, Os descobrimentos

? l'?choppe:
26,

chronicle attributed to Alvaro Velho. See also Sanjay

(Lisbon, 1985), 2:159, quoting the anonymous
The Career and Legend of Vasco da Gama
Subrahmanyam,
(Cambridge, Eng., 1997), p. 129. The
conversation
between the crewman and the merchant
of Tunis is also reported in the Lusiadas
of

canto 7, but although the poem is full of information about spices, here it is only Christianity
Cam?es,
that motivates
the voyagers.
18
Trade inWorld History
Philip D. Curtin, Cross-Cultural
(Cambridge, Eng., 1984), p. 142.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1214

Spices

Inmedieval as well as modern times,economic theoriesand behaviorwere

influenced
by notionsof scarcityand abundance.These interact,so that inour
daywe have seenwide fearsof both intrinsic
andmanipulated scarcity(ofpetro
leum,forexample) alternate
with utopian expectationsofplenitude(theInternet/
"dot-com"mania, cold fusion).Economic assumptionsand theirpoliticalconse
quencesflownotonlyfromrationalcalculationsof suchthingsasmarkets,distance,
and cost but also fromrecklessoptimism,
withoutwhich riskwould tendmore
oftento outweighopportunity.19
THE PRICE OF PEPPER

How expensivewas pepper in the

Middle Ages?Of all spicesitwas thecheapest,
in
and it is likelythatitspricewas
factdecliningduringthecourseof thefifteenth
century.20
Ginger (whichcame in several typesof varyingquality) rangedfrom
were anywhere
nearparitywith pepper to threetimesitsprice.Cloves and nutmeg
fromfiveto twentytimesas expensiveas pepper.The most extravagantprices
were obtained forambergris,aloewood, and camphor,all especiallyvaluable as
timesthe
medicines,whose wholesale costwas usuallyon theorderof thirty-five
priceof pepper.21
In termsof supplyand consumption,however,pepperwas thepredominant
spice.Michel Balard has foundthatpepperaccountedfor41 percentof themon
Alexandria between1367 and 1371,
etaryvalue ofGenoese cargoescomingfrom
comparedwith 18 percentforgingerand 12 percentforsugarduringthe same
with Syria and Egypt in 1376 and 1377 carried
period.Genoese ships trading
spicesofwhich 50 percentbyvalue consistedof pepper,24.5 percentginger,and
6 percentsugar.22
The quantitiesof spices importedintoEurope were impressive.In the late fif
teenthcenturyVenice acquired in an averageyear412 tonsof pepper fromAl

19
Peter Musgrave
discusses the risks of the spice trade, but his article deals with the postmedieval
in the Spice Trade, 1480-1640,"
of Uncertainty: The Structural Revolution
period: "The Economics
inMemory
in Shipping, Trade and Commerce:
ed. P. L. Cottrell and D. H.
Essays
of Ralph Davis,
pp. 9-21.
"Pepper Prices before da Gama,"
Journal of Economic History 28 (1968), 590
97; Eliyahu Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J., 1983), pp. 167-69,313
and 463. These articles deal with the wholesale
15, 421-23,
ports.
price of pepper inMediterranean
At the retail level there is some indication that pepper and other spices became more expensive over

Aldcroft (Leicester,
20
Frederic Lane,

1981),

van Uytven, "Herbes et ?pices dans les

the course of the fifteenth century; see, for example, Raymond
villes des Pays-Bas du sud," in Saveurs de paradis: Les routes des ?pices (Brussels, 1992), pp. 77-78.
21
On the comparative
per la storia
prices among different spices, see Federigo Melis, Documenti
F. Datini, Pubblicazioni,
econ?mica
Istituto Internazionale
di Storia Econ?mica
dei secoli XIII-XVI,

des prix et des salaires dans l'Orient

1972), pp. 298-320;
Eliyahu Ashtor, Histoire
8 (Paris, 1969), pp. 138-41,
and 409-27; Magalh?es
Monnaie,
Prix, Conjoncture
323-39,
et le grand commerce d'Orient
Damien Coulon,
"Barcelone
2:183-220;
Godinho, Os descobrimentos,
au moyen ?ge: Un si?cle des relations avec l'Egypte et la Syrie-Palestine
(1330-1430
environ)"
(doc
and Spufford, Power and Profit, pp. 313-15.
toral dissertation, University of Paris 1,1999), 2:512-46;
22
tables 1 and 2 (pp. 207 and 208).
Balard, "Du navire ? l'?choppe,"
1/1 (Florence,

m?di?val,

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1215

exandria and another104 tons fromBeirut.23Some estimatesforspecificyears

surpasseven thoseamounts. InNovember 1496, on the eve of thePortuguese
discoveryof thesea routeto India,fourgalleysarrivedinVenice from
Alexandria
with at least2 million kilogramsof spices,ofwhich 1,363,934were pepperand
288,524 ginger.In thesameyear anotherconvoyof fourshipscame fromAlex
andriawith over a million kilogramsof spices,ofwhich halfwas pepper.24
Althoughpepperwas no longeras costlyas ithad been inpreviouscenturies,
considerableprofitsaccrued to fifteenth-century
merchantswho broughtitand
otherspicesfromeastern
MediterraneanportsintowesternEurope.PeterSpufford
estimatestheVenetiansmarked up theprice of spicesan averageof 40 percent
duringthefifteenth
while EliyahuAshtor foundan evengreaterprofitfor
century,
cloves in theperiod 1418-20 (72 percent)and nutmeg in 1496-98 (220 per
For Barcelonamerchantsin thefourteenth
cent).25
century,
profit
marginsranged
from20 percentforcloves to 41.35 percentforcinnamon.Pepper fetchedabout
25 percentmore inBarcelona than in theLevant.26
Relative to otherspices,pepper lostsomeof itsprestigetowardtheend of the
Middle Ages. In themost widely circulated
medieval cookbook, theViandierat
tributedtoTaillevent,gingerand grainsofparadise figure
more prominently
than
pepper.27
A fifteenth-century
medicalwritercommenting
on theRegimensanitatis
Salernitanumreferred
topepperas a seasoningappropriateforpeasants,an opin
ion sharedby thepoet EustacheDeschamps,who complainedabout rural inns
where one could eat onlycoarsepeasant comestiblessuchas leeksor cabbage, all
with black pepper.28
flavored
Notwithstandingsuch remarks,
pepperenjoyedthe
statusof a necessaryluxurythroughout
the
Middle Ages and beyond,an expensive
condiment,but one within reachof a substantialproportionof thepopulation.
However cheap pepperwas in comparisonwith otheraromaticproducts,itac
counted fora great shareof theprofitsof thespice trade.Above all, pepper re
mained inverygreatdemand.

23
Eliyahu Ashtor, "The Volume ofMediaeval
Spice Trade," Journal of European Economic History
9 (1980), 753-63,
esp. p. 757, reprinted inAshtor, East-West Trade in theMedieval Mediterranean,
ed. Benjamin Z. Kedar, Collected
Studies Series 245 (London, 1986). On this question see also C. H. H.
"The Changing
Pattern of Europe's
Wake,
Pepper and Spice Imports, ca. 1400-1700,"
Journal of
Economic History
8 (1979), 361-403;
and Wake,
"The Volume of European
European
at the Beginning and End of the Fifteenth Century,"
ibid. 15 (1986), 621-35.
24
K. S. Mathew,
Portuguese Trade with India in the Sixteenth Century (New Delhi,
25
Spufford, Power and Profit, p. 312; E. Ashtor, "Profits from Trade with the Levant

Spice Imports
1983), p. 22.
in the Fifteenth

Century," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 38 (1975), 257, reprinted inAshtor,
Studies on the Levantine Trade in theMiddle Ages, Collected
Studies Series 74 (London, 1978).
26
et le grand commerce," p. 540; Josep Plana i Borras, "The Accounts of Joan
"Barcelone
Coulon,
to Famagusta,
Benet's Trading Venture from Barcelona
1343," Epeteris 19 (1992), 105-18.
27
The Viandier of Taillevent: An Edition of All Extant Manuscripts,
ed. Terence Scully (Ottawa,

1988).

28
The medical

in early printed editions

commentary was wrongly attributed to Arnau de Villanova
nuperrime revisa una cum ipsius vita .. . [Lyons, 1520], fol. 137ra) and was
(e.g., Opera
of the University
by a fifteenth-century German writer. (I am grateful toMichael McVaugh
see
Carolina
for his advice on this passage.) On Eustache Deschamps,
uvres compl?tes,

of his works
probably
of North

ed. Marquis
Dropick,

de Queux

my colleague

de Saint-Hilaire

at Yale University,

and Gaston

7 (Paris, 1891), pp.

Raynaud,
out the two poems to me.)

kindly pointed

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

88-90.

(Anne

Spices

1216

European demand forpepper goes back to theRoman Empirewhose cuisine

was characterizedby thepiquant flavorsof fishpaste, asafetida,and pepper.29In
Roman cookbook,which purportsto be byApicius, fully80
the sole surviving
Plinyexpressedan exasperatedperplexity
percentof therecipescall forpepper.30
as towhy pepper,which ismerelypungentratherthanpleasant tasting,should
Who was thefirstto decide thatfood requiredsuch ad
excite such enthusiasm.
over and above normalhunger?he asked. It's all verywell
ditional inducement
forgingerand pepper to be consumed in Indiawhere theygrowwild, but in the
Recent ar
Roman Empire theiruse requirestheexpenditureof gold and silver.31
an active
shows
of
southern
Egypt
Sea
coast
on
the
Red
chaeological research
as
and
Myos
Berenike
ports
such
Roman tradewith India fromnow-obliterated
flour
no
longer
Hormos.32By the timeIsidorewas writing,thisdirectexchange
ished;nevertheless,a not-inconsiderableamount of pepper and otherEastern
way toEurope.33
spicesstillfoundtheir
with
century,thespice tradegrew exponentially
From the tenthto fourteenth
Usually thespiceswere obtained
theaccelerationofEurope's economic tempo.34
Med
Genoese,Catalan, Provencal)ineastern
byMediterranean traders(Venetian,
iterraneanports: fromOutremerbefore the fallofAcre in 1291, and thereafter
fromEgyptand Syria.During
fromCyprus,Constantinople,butmost frequently
centu
and early fourteenth
theperiod ofMongol hegemony(the late thirteenth
Westernmerchantsventuredas faras theBlack Sea and PersianTabriz for
ries),
were restricted
by the resurgenceof
spices,but after1350, theseopportunities

29
Gastronomy
(Chicago, 1999),
Phyllis Pray Bober, Art, Culture and Cuisine: Ancient and Medieval
inMensch
und Umwelt
van Winter, "Kochen und Essen imMittelalter,"
pp. 145-92;
Johanna Maria
ed. Bernd Herrmann
imMittelalter,
(Stuttgart, 1986), pp. 88-92.
30
Le moyen ?ge ? table (Paris, 1989), p. 39.
Bruno Laurioux,
31
Loeb Classical
12.14, ed. and trans. H. Rackham,
Library (Cambridge,
Pliny, Natural History

1960), p. 20: "Usum eius adeo placuisse mirum est: in aliis quippe. suavitas cepit, in aliis species
est aliqua. sola placer? amaritudine, et hanc in Indos
invitavit, huic nec pomi nec bacae commendatio
non fuit satis? utrumque
aut
cui
in
voluit
cibis
ille
appetendi aviditate esurire
primus experiri
peti! quis
InNatural History 6.101
silvestre gentibus suis est et tarnen pondere emitur ut aurum vel argentum."
a
in India.
Pliny estimates that exotic products in general sold in Rome for hundred times their price
32
The Periplus Maris Erythraei, ed. and trans. Lionel Casson
(Princeton, N.J., 1989), pp. 11-43,
in the Erythra Thalassa,
30
Roman Economic
Steven E. Sidebotham,
and 283-91;
Policy
94-97,

Mass.,

and Willemina
91 (Leiden, 1986); Steven E. Sidebotham
B.C.-A.D.
217, Mnemosyne
Supplementum
Incense
and
Port on the Ancient Maritime
Z. Wendrich,
"Berenike: A Ptolomaic-Roman
Route,"
Spice
Field
"Berenike: Archaeological
and Wendrich,
Sidebotham
Minerva
13/3 (May-June 2002), 28-31;
10 (1998),
Sahara
Port on the Red Sea Coast of Egypt, 1994-1998,"
work at a Ptolomaic-Roman
and Imperial Policy, 31 BC
85-96; Gary K. Young, Rome's Eastern Trade: International Commerce
AD 305 (London, 2001), pp. 27-89.
33
On the trade in drugs and spices, see Michael McCormick,
Economy:
Origins of the European
Thecookbook
and Commerce, A.D. 300-900
Communications
(Cambridge, Eng., 2001), pp. 708-10.
a Greek writing in the early sixth century for a Frankish king, includes pepper as well
of Anthimus,
ciborum: On the Observance
as ginger and cloves in a few recipes: De observatione
of Foods, ed. and

trans. Mark Grant (Totnes, 1996), pp. 50, 52, 54, and 60.
34 In
du commerce du Levant au moyen ?ge, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1885
general, seeW. Heyd, Histoire
Revolution
S.
The
Commercial
Robert
(Englewood Cliffs,
of theMiddle Ages, 950-1350
86);
Lopez,
in the Middle
Ages, trans.
N.J., 1971); and Jean Favier, Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce
Caroline

Higgitt

(New York,

1998).

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1217

dividedand oftenhostilepowers.35
During thefifteenth
centurytheVenetianswon
out over theirrivalsand came todominate,althoughnot completely
monopolize,
the lastpart of the longand complex journeyof spices importedintoEurope.
were launchedtoobtaindirectcontactwith southern
Severalquixoticattempts
India or to establisha ChristianEuropean naval forcein theIndianOcean that
mightoutflanktheshipsof the
MuslimMiddle East. In1182 ReynalddeChatillon
capturedEilat at thehead of theGulf ofAqaba in an effortto disruptEgypt's
tradewith India,but Saladin dislodgedhimwithin a year.The mysterious
Vivaldi
in
1291 may have intendedto circumnavigate
expeditionfromGenoa
Africaor
finda western route to India,andWilliam Adam in 1318 proposed a Christian
blockade in theRed Sea andGulf ofAden, but nothingcame of theseschemes.36
Yet itispreciselysuchvisionaryand even fantasticideas thatchangedtheoutlook
ofEuropeans fromthenotionof scarcityimpliedby theserpentsand thepepper
treestowhat Timothy
Morton has called the"cornucopia" imageof spontaneous
plenitude:thatinfaraway(butnot necessarilyinaccessible)places extremely
valu
able commoditiesabound. They growwild (as Pliny surmisedof pepper) or are
so common that thenativesdon't know theirtruevalue or even that theyare
valuable at all.37
Perceptionsof scarcityand plenitudecould coexist: it isnot thatone replaced
motivation forexploration
theotherbut that inorder for thereto be sufficient
and expansion,thebeliefinfabulouswealth indistantplaces had tobecomemore
powerfulthannotionsof dangerousexoticproducts,or evenof rationallyhigh
pricedgoods. Iwill firstlook at thefortunes
of thepepper-and-snakes
themeand
thendiscuss the articulationof an irrationalexuberance that saw theEast as
with valuable substances
more or less thereforthetaking.
overflowing
How

Is PEPPER HARVESTED?

The associationof pepperwith snakes ispart of a variedand reasonablycom

plicatedsetof ideasabout theEast imaginedas both fortunate
and strange,
where
monstersand valuable substancesproliferate.38
We shouldnot assume thiswas an
exclusivelyorientalizingdiscourse inwhich themarvelous crowdedout theordi
naryor inwhich theEast was regardedas simplyalien.Nor is it thecase that
good knowledgetendedtodriveout bad, thatthegradual increaseingeographical
35
Robert

S. Lopez, "Nouveaux
documents sur lesmarchands
italiens en Chine ? l'?poque mongole,"
at pp. 453-55.
Acad?mie
des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres:
(1977), pp. 445-57,
Comptes-rendus
36 R.
S. Phillips, The Medieval
J.
(Oxford, 1988), pp. 122-40.
Expansion
of Europe
37
The Poetics of Spice: Romantic Consumerism
and the Exotic, Cambridge
Stud
Timothy Morton,
ies in Romanticism
42 (Cambridge, Eng., 2000), pp. 53-54.
38
On the riches and wonders
of the East, see Rudolf Wittkower,
"Marvels of the East: A Study in
the History ofMonsters,"
Institutes 5 (1942), 159-97; Witt
Journal of theWarburg and Courtauld
kower, "Marco
E. Balazs et al.

in Oriente poliano,
of theMarvels
of the East,"
ed.
both reprinted inWittkower, Allegory and theMigration
155-72,
and 75-92; Mary B. Campbell,
The Witness and the Other
(London, 1977), pp. 45-74
of Symbols
World: Exotic European
Travel Writing, 400-1600
(Ithaca, N.Y.,
1988); and Joan-Pau Rubies, Travel
in the Renaissance:
and Ethnology
South India through European Eyes, 1250-1625
(Cambridge, Eng.,
2000),

Polo

and

(Rome,

the Pictorial Tradition

1957),

pp.

pp. 35-124.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1218

information
and actualEuropean travelto IndiaorChinamarginalizedor under
mined thefabulous.That snakesguard thepeppergroveswas doubted,even rid
was quite durable.
iculed,froman earlydate, but the legendnonetheless
In Platearius'spharmacologicalmanual Circa Instans,which dates fromthe
century,thelogicalproblem israisedthatwhen thefires
secondhalfof thetwelfth
burnup,
are set,not only are theserpentsdrivenaway,but the treesthemselves
making futureharvestsimpossibleforyears.39
presumably
Marco Polo, the firstknownmedievalWestern visitorto India, remarksthat
He states that it is a domesticated
May throughJuly.
pepper is harvestedfrom
ForMarco Polo
crop but doesn't commenton thematterof thesnakesor fire.40
towrest fromserpents.
it isdiamonds,not pepper,thatrequireingenuity
Odoric of PordenonevisitedsouthernIndia in 1321. He
The Franciscan friar
describespepperas a vinewith leaveslike ivythatisplantedbetweentrees(in the
Odoric assertsthattherivers
manner of grapevines). Its fruitresemblesgrapes.41
in thepeppergrovessupportcrocodiles (whichhe considersa typeof serpent),42
manuscriptversionshe adds thatthesecreatures
and inone of themost important
The
fire.43
have to be drivenoffby
fire,however,isnot used to explain theshriv
eled, black appearanceof peppercorns.In all themanuscriptsOdoric accurately
Odoric
reportsthatpepper isdried in thesun.44In an Italianversionofhis travels,
ignoresboth serpentsand firebut says thatpepper is as abundant in "Minabar"

39
Circa Instans in einer Fassung des XIII.
Das Arzneidrogenbuch
Jahrhunderts aus der Universi
ed. Hans W?lfel
t?tsbibliothek Erlangen,
1939), p. 91: "Cum enim d?bet colligi propter
(Hamburg,
ignis inter arbores ut serpentes comburantur aut fugiant,
copiam serpencium ibi existencium opponitur
sed eadem ratione comburerentur arbores ipse." The late-thirteenth-century Herbal
ofRufinus quotes
but prefaces itwith the statement "Dicunt etiam quidam quod piper sit nigrum per ex
ed. Lynn Thorndike
The Herbal
(Chi
of Rufinus, Edited from the Unique Manuscript,
cago, 1946), p. 238.
40
. . il hi [i.e.
Marco
Coast] naist encore pevre
Polo, Milione
176, p. 579: ".
Quilon, on theMalabar
this passage
coctionem":

e se recuile dou mois de may et de jugn et de jugnet, e vos di que les arbres que
en grant abondance;
font le pevre se plantent e le enaiguent et sunt arbres domesces."
41
1 (1929),
van den Wyngaert
in S?nica Franciscana
of Pordenone, Relatio, ed. Anastasius
Odoric
nam
in folia
nascitur
autem
contrata
istum
modum:
"In
habetur
439-40:
hac
primo
9, pp.
piper per
de elere, que folia iuxta magnos arbores plantantur, sicut hic nostre ponuntur vites. Hec folia producunt

in tanta autem producuntur

racemi producuntur;
quantitate quod quasi videntur
est, viridis est coloris. ..."
frangi. Cum ipsum autem maturum
42
sunt multe male cocodrie,
id est
Ibid., p. 440: "In hoc etiam nemore sunt ilumina, in quibus

fructum ut uvarum

serpentes."
43
The passage

noted in the Yule-Cordier

the fires is in a British Library manuscript
edition,
2
Henri
Yule
and
ed.
Thither,
Cordier,
(London, 1913), p. 295, n. 8: "Et
Henry
Cathay
sunt etiam in isto nemore multi alii serpentes quos homines per stupam et paleas comburunt, et sic ad
colligendum piper secure accedunt."
44
et sic vindemiatur
sicut hic vindemiantur uve, po
of Pordenone, Relatio 9, p. 440: "...
Odoric
cum desiccatum
nendo illud in sole ut desiccetur. Quod
est, ipsum in vasis colocatur." Cf. Ibn Battuta,
and

on

the Way

who

says that pepper

country suppose that
become crinkled, but
Travels of Ibn Batt?ta,
by the Hakluyt

grape vines and is planted beside trees and that "most people in our
they roast them [the pepper fruit] with fire and that it is because of that they
it is not so since this results only from the action of the sun upon them": The
trans. H. A. R. Gibb with C. F. Beckingham, 4,Works
Issued
A.D.
1325-1354,

resembles

Society, 2nd

ser., 178

(London,

1994),

p. 807.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1219

(Malabar) as grain is "in our land."45This is an important(butnotwidely cir

culated) conclusion thatpepper is easy to harvestand thatthereisno dearthof
supplywhere itgrows.
accountof travelsinAsia by theDominican
Inanotherearly-fourteenth-century
Jordanof Severac,pepper issaid togrow froma vine thatwinds around treeslike
thewild grape.The fruitis greenwhen unripebut eventuallyturnsblack and
wrinkled (nothingis said about dryingin the sun). Long pepper is similar,ac
plant from
cordingto Jordan(in factthisspice,Piper longum,is a verydifferent
black roundpepper,Piper nigrum).AlthoughJordanwas partial to storiesof the
Mirabilia descripta),he contemptuously
marvelous (hisbook is in factentitled
that
lie
the
dismissesas a
pepper isburnedor cooked.46
story
The mysteriousJohnMandeville, who embarkedon an impressiveiffictional
voyage, is famousforthemany derivativeas well as originalmarvels inhis nar
rative.He, too,however,doubts theveracityof theburningpeppergroveson the
would destroytheplants.Mandeville doesn't
grounds thatsuch conflagrations
denythepresenceof serpentsbut assertsthata simpleointmentcontaininglemon,
to cause
or snails,"and other things"smearedon thehands and feetis sufficient
thesnakes to flee.47
Mandeville accountprobablywrote around themiddle of the
The authorof the
At about thesame time,in1353, theFranciscanJohnofMa
fourteenth
century.
rignollireturnedtoEurope aftera longstay in India and China. He reportsthat
thetownofQuilon on theMalabar coast is thesourceof all theworld's pepper.
pepper trade,but India
Quilon was certainlya greatcenterof the international
was not theonlyplacewhere thespicewas cultivated.John is themedieval ob
who most extensively
and clearlydescribespepperas an ordinaryand not
server
He
begins by echoing thedescriptionof Jordanof
particularlyscarceproduct.
Severac,thatpeppergrows froma grapelikevine.He thensays itdoes not require
routineto requireneithercourage,training,
burningand itsharvestis sufficiently
nor special tools.Pepper grows in regularorchards,not in thedesertas some

45
"E ivi cosi grande abondanza
di pepe come qui in nostra
Cathay and the Way Thither, 2:342:
terra di grano."
46
merveilles de l'Asie par le p?re Jourdain Catalani de S?v?rac, ed. Henri
Mirabilia
descripta?Les
hederae quae
Cordier
(Paris, 1925), p. 116: "Piper est fructus herbae et semen quae est ad modum
ascendit super arbores, et facit ad modum
lambruscae, quasi uuam; quod est primo viride; deinde cum

efficitur totum nigrum et rugatum, prout potestis videre. Sic etiam nascitur
ad maturitatem,
ignis ubi est piper, vel quod coquatur, sicut alicui volunt
piper longum; nec credatis quod ponatur
dicere mendose."
47
on pepper (chapter
Mandeville's
Travels exists inmany languages and versions. For Mandeville
pervenit

Sources d'Histoire
du monde,
ed. Christiane Deluz,
18 of his travels), see Le livre des merveilles
31 (Paris, 2000), pp. 318-20; Mandeville's
Travels, ed. M. C. Seymour (Oxford, 1967),
Issued by theHakluyt Society,
and Mandeville's
Travels, ed. Malcolm
Letts, 2 vols., Works
pp. 123-24;
The English
2nd ser., 101-2
(London, 1953), Egerton version in 1:121, Paris version in 2:324-25.

M?di?vale

metrical

version

place: Rosemary

states that the pepper forests are enchanted in such a way that no thievery can take
Audiences: A Study on the Reception
Medieval
Mandeville's
of the "Book"

Tzanaki,

Eng., 2003), p. 107.

of SirJohnMandeville (1371-1550) (Aldershot,

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1220

Spices

authoritiesbelieved.Johnemphasizesthathe himselfhas seenthepepperharvest.48

Finally,theinhabitants
of thislandare so farfrombeing"other" thatin factthey
areChristians.According to JohnofMarignolli, theworld's pepper supplymay
be limitedto theextentthatitall has to come fromone part of India,butwithin
itsharvestisunremarkable;hence itsprice inEurope
thisfairlyextensiveterritory,
incultivation.
isnot theresultof some fundamental
difficulty
FABULOUS AND PRACTICAL ABUNDANCE

John'saccountof thepepperharvestdid notput an end to thebeliefthatsnakes

block access tovaluable commodities,including
pepper.The authorof theCatalan
de'
Atlas and themerchant traveler
Niccolo
Conti, bothwritingafterJohnof
Marignolli, stillbelievedthatdiamonds,at anyrate,had tobe extractedfromsnake
infested
gorges.49
Pierred'AillyandAeneas SylviusPiccolomini(PopePius II)men
tionedserpentsinconnectionwith pepper.50
AlthoughColumbuswas greatlyat
tached to thegeographicalworks of both these latterauthors,51
he and others
discountedtraditions
involvedinenterprisesto findrealmsof spicesand treasures
implying
scarcityor limitationsin thesupplyof exoticproductsinfavorofmyths
of plenitude(whichalso figurein theworks of d'Aillyand Pius II).
Columbus's annotationsto books he read in advance of his voyages deal re
peatedly,almost obsessivelywith preciousmetals, gems,and spices. In his esti
mation thesearen't foundmerelyhere and therebut abound in theexotic lands
of theEast.52Obstacles to acquiringand profitingfromspices,accordingto this
on theirsupplybutwith
view,have nothingto do with any intrinsicrestrictions
distanceand theexploitativepracticesof thoseprofiting
fromtheexcessivelyfrag
mented supplyroute.Pepper isexpensiveinEurope because India is faraway and
middlemen(theArabs inparticular).Finding
also becauseof themarkup tobenefit
a directrouteto Indiawould not only reducethetimeinvolvedintradebutwould
also circumventthe intermediaries.
48
1 (1929), 530 (also in "Kro
ed. Wyngaert,
S?nica Franciscana
Relatio Fr. Johannis de Marignolli,
3 [Prague, 1882], p. 496): "A
ed. Joseph Emier, Fontes rerum Bohemicarum,
nika Jana zMarignoly,"
olivarum per mare Indicum pervenimus ad nobilis
festo autem sancti Stephani usque ad dominicam

autem in vitibus,
simam civitatem Indie, nomine Columbum
ubi nascitur piper tocius orbis. Nascitur
que plantantur ad modum vinearum omnino, et facit vitis primo racemos quasi labruscas viridis coloris,
post facit quasi racemos et est intus vinum rubeum quod manu mea pro salsa expressi in scutellam.
et exsiccantur
in arbore et arescit pre nimio calore et siccum excutitur parvo b?culo
Post maturantur
cadens super linteamina et recollitur. Ista oculis vidi et manibus
contrectavi mensibus XIV, nec com
buritur, ut menciuntur
scriptores, nec nascitur in desertis sed in orris."
49
See above, n. 9. Niccol?
de' Conti does, however, offer a naturalistic description of pepper, which
grows like ivy, produces berries like those of the juniper, and is dried in the sun after being sprinkled

with ashes: De l'Inde, lines 138-42,

p. 96.
50Pierre
Indie"),
d'Ailly, Ymago mundi, ed. Edmond Buron, 1 (Paris, 1930), 16 ("De mirabilibus
incendio
p. 264: "Apud hos crescit piper colore quidem albo sed tarnen serpenta qui ibi habitant
rerum ubique gestarum,
in Aeneae
trahit"; Aeneas
nigredinem
Sylvius Piccolomini, Historia
Sylvii
. . opera quae extant omnia (Basel, 1551; repr.
. . serpentes
Piccolominei.
Frankfurt, 1967), p. 288: ".
assos in cicum pro deliciis habere, rubeasque
formicas pipere conditas, paruulis gammaris similes."
51
pp. 47-64.
Flint, Imaginative Landscape
of Christopher Columbus,
52
Ibid., pp. 202-5.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1221

Economic theoriesare a prominentfeatureof theannotatedglobemade by

Martin Behaim ofNuremberg in 1492. In one of the textsplaced on theglobe,
we readonce again thatin Indiadiamondsand othergemsabound inmountains
havewhat I have called circum
thatare guardedby snakes.53If jewels,therefore,
stantialrarity,thesame isnot trueforspices,which are not rareat all.Behaim is
aware that spicesgrow inmany places besides India-Java, "Ciamba" (Indo
theNicobar Islandsand Japan.The transaction
china),Sumatra,even (fancifully)
of supplyat thesource.
costsdriveup thepriceof spices inEurope, not difficulty
In the longestof theglobe's texts,Behaim discusses the twelvesteps thatspices
must pass throughfromtheirorigin in theEast Indian islandsuntil theyreach
of "JavaMajor" (Borneo,perhaps)collectspicesfrom
The inhabitants
Germany.54
other islands,which are boughtbymerchantsfromCeylon. In Ceylon theyare
sold to tradersfrom"theGolden Khersonese" (theMalay Peninsula?)and then
in turntomerchantsof "Taprobana" (Sumatra?).This implausibleeasternme
and sixth
westward in the fifth
anderingshiftssuddenlyand more realistically
Aden buy
Mohammedans" ("heydenmachmet") from
stageswhen the"heathen
Cairo. The remainingsteps involvethedis
the spices,which thenpass through
Bruges,and finally
Europe via Venice,Frankfurt,
tribution
of spices throughout
to retailersinGermany.
Customs and profitsadd greatlyto thecost.Justthetwelvecustomsleviesalone
at 10 percentper step,on average)accountfora substantial
(whichBehaim figures
markup.Martin Behaim concludes that spicesproliferatein theOrient,where
theyare cheap, but that theirEuropean price is extremelyhigh because of the
theretailprice
nor distancejustifies
Neither rarity
intervening
profitsand taxes.55
of spices inGermany.This is due, rather,to thingsone could avoid by dealing
with thecultivators.
directly
Although he endorses the legendabout snakes guardingdiamonds,Behaim
seems to have a realistic,or at leastnaturalistic,conceptionof the spice trade.
with such rationalcalculationsweremore exciting,euphorichopes
Simultaneous
of limitlesssupply.According to thismore vigorousoptimism,spices,gold, and
gemswere produced in such extravagantabundance inAsia thattheywere not
regardedthereas unusuallyvaluable.
wealthy lands
There are, of course,many storiesabout blessedand fabulously
lyingto theEast or in theWesternOcean. Medieval observerswere sufficiently
53E. G.
(London, 1908), p. 84: "In vil von de
Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe
um der schlangen willen sind sie verkumen."
gebirg find man edelgestein und deamant aber
54
Ibid., p. 89: "item ess ist zu wissen dass die specerey die in den inseln in indien in orienten in
hendt verkauf ftw?rdt ehe sy heraus kumpt in unser landt." The translation of this com
manicherley
(as above, n. 12), pp. 296-97.
mentary is also given in Jardine, Worldly Goods
55
"... dabey soll jederman vermerkhen die grosen zoll und
Ravenstein, Martin Behaim, pp. 89-90:
von zehen pfundten eins muess geben
den gewin. die 12 malen auf die specerey geht und zu mermalen
zu zoll darbey zu verstehen ist das in den landt inorienten fast vil miss wachsen
und wolfeil muss sein
sy by enss den goldt geleich. ..." In the lateMiddle
Ages, northern
trade directly with the Levant, bypassing
such as Jacques C ur did occasionally
but this was a risky project. See Jacques Heers, Jacques C ur, 1400-1456
(Paris, 1997),

und das nit wunder

wer man wis

merchants

European
the Venetians,
84-126;
pp. 168-82.

pp.

au XVe si?cle (Paris, 1988),

and Michel Mollat,
Jacques C ur ou l'esprit d'entreprise
Of course, none of this affected the markup between East Asia and the Levant.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1222

Spices

aware of theappeal of such tales to elaborateacknowledgedfantasiesabout the

Land of Cockaigne, a place where no work was necessary,
where houses and
landscapefeatures
were edible,evenprecooked.56
More serioushopes ofplenitude
with thecirculationof theLetterof
were givenan impetusin thetwelfth
century
PresterJohn.Beginningaround 1170, a letterpurportingto be fromthisgreat
Christianrulerof theEast arrivedinEurope.The haughtyand staggeringly
wealthy
monarch answered,or at leastevoked,hopes of a Christianallybeyond the ter
ritoriesof Islamand gave a specific,iffantastic,shape to the traditional
wealth
withAlexander's conquests.S7
of-the-Eastideasoriginating
The locationof PresterJohn'srealmchanged as the tendencyto place him in
Indiaor China yielded in thefifteenth
centurytoEthiopia, but rightup toVasco
da Gama (who carrieda letterto PresterJohn fromtheking of Portugal), the
existenceof thisgreatChristian rulerwas confidently
maintained. In his letter
PresterJohnclaimsthatallmannerofprecioussubstances(especially
gems)abound
inhis territories.
Precious stonesare emphasizedmore thanspices,foralthough
PresterJohn'sempireproducespepper in largequantities,thespice stillhas to be
takenfromgroveswatched over by snakes.Peppermay be plentifulbut not on
thesame fairy-tale
levelas gems.58
PresterJohnwas by no means the exclusivevehicle for fantasiesof Eastern
wealth.Marco Polo, generallycautious about conventionalmarvels, relegated
PresterJohn tomarginal significance,
but he put fortha numberof influential
wonders of his own such as the astoundingamount of gold on the island of
"Cipangu" (Japan) in theEasternOcean, which he nevervisitedbut heard of
while inChina. He reportsthatinCipangu thereisan abundanceof gold because
it is foundthereinmeasurelessquantities,that is,not because ofwealth gained
fromsomethinglike tradebut because of a marvelous naturalphenomenon.The
palace of theruleris roofedingold, justas lead isemployedforEuropean houses
and churches,and itschambersare paved ingoldmore thantwo fingersthick.59
who
This iscertainlya commonplaceofAsian plenitude,but unlikePresterJohn,
56
Herman

Pleij, Dreaming

of Cockaigne:

Medieval

Fantasies

of the Perfect Life, trans. Diane Webb

(New York, 2001).

57
The letter is edited and commented

on by Friedrich Zarncke,
"Der Priester Johannes,"
inAbhand
Classe der K?nigl. S?chsischen Gesellschaft
der Wissenschaften,
lungen der philologisch-historischen
On the letter see also Vsevolod
7 (Leipzig, 1879), pp. 827-1030
Slessarev,
(edition at pp. 909-24).
Pr?ster John, the Letterand
the Legend
collected
1959); and articles of C. F. Beckingham
(Minneapolis,
in the Middle
in his Between
Islam and Christendom:
Travellers, Facts, and Legends
Ages and the
Collected
Studies Series 175 (London, 1983).
Renaissance,
58
"Der Priester Johannes," p. 912. On the reiterated exaltation of gems in the letter,
Ed. Zarncke,
seeMichael
in The Postcolonial Middle
Uebel, "Imperial Fetishism: Pr?ster John among theNatives,"
In the central part of Pr?ster John's
(New York, 2000), pp. 264-65.
Ages, ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen
the pepper groves are situated,
there are no poisonous
snakes, but at the periphery, where
creatures abound: Istv?n Bejczy, La Lettre du Pr?tre Jean, une utopie m?di?vale
strange and venomous
(Paris, 2001), pp. 98-99.
59
Marco
159, p. 532: "...
Polo, Milione
je vos di tout voiramant que il ha un grandisme palais, les
e nostre
en telmainer corne nos covron nostre maison de plo(n)be
est
tout
tout
coverto
d'or
fin;
que(l)
est cest palais covert d'or fin: que ce vaut tant qu'a poine se poroit conter.
yglise, tout en tel mainere
Et encore vos di que tout le pavimant de se? canbres, que asez hi n'i a, sunt ausint d'or fin, bien gros
realms

plus de II doies.

..."

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1223

Spices

isboastfulof hiswealth, theinhabitants

ofCipangu don't appreciatethetrue(or
at leastEuropean) value of gold.60The peoplewhomMarco Polo describes in
otherchaptershunting
whales forambergrisor training
eagles topluckdiamonds
out of snake-infested
gorgespresumablyexpect a substantialreward for their
difficult
labors,butgold inCipangu has a literalElDorado qualitythattranscends
normal economic calculation.Earlier accountshad it thatgold, likepepper, is
guardedby dangerousbeasts thatmake itsacquisitiondifficult,
howeverplentiful
itmay be inabsolute terms.
AccordingtoSt.Jerome(followedby IsidoreofSeville
and others),thereare entire
mountainsof gold in India,but theyare inaccessible
because griffins,
dragons,and monstrous giants dwell there.61InMarco Polo,
however,gold is foundinan admittedly
distantpartof theworld insuchquantities
thatifone ever reachedtheplace, one could obtain itfornearlynothing.Such a
of fantastic
butnaturalabundancemakes theheroiceffort
formulation
of figuring
out how to findthesourceseemworthwhile.
One could imaginetherichesofAsia as theresultof an industrious
and pop
ulous societyor,alternatively,
as a seriesof spontaneous
wonders.Marco Polo for
themost partdescribestheproductionofwealth as based on suchmundane factors
as good government,
population density,and skill.FormostWestern travelers,
theGreatKhan appeared a justautocratwho ruled teeming,
wealthy citiespop
ulated by ingeniousand hardworkingartisans.62
On theotherhand,we also find
tales of theeffortless
profligacyof nature in privilegedlocaleswhere valuable
In his accountof thecrusadeofKing Louis IX
thingsappearmore conveniently.
inEgypt,Joinvilledescribestherichesbroughtby theNile fromitsoriginsin the
terrestrial
paradise:
Before this riverentersEgypt, thepeople who usually do suchwork cast theirnets of an
evening into thewater and let them lie outspread. When morning comes they find in
theirnets such things as are sold by weight and imported into Egypt, as for instance
ginger,rhubarb,63aloes, and cinnamon. It is said that these thingscome from theearthly
paradise; for in that heavenly place thewind blows down trees just as it does the dry

60
Ideas of Asian realms of gold include the twin islands of Chryse (gold) and Argyre (silver), thought
to be particularly
rich in these metals, mentioned
in Pliny, Natural History
and Solinus,
6.21-23,
rerum memorabilium
Collectanea
(as above, n. 2), 52.17, p. 186, and the so-called Golden Khersonese,
Paul Wheatley,
The Golden Khersonese:
Studies in the Historical
perhaps a dim notion of Malaya:
1500 (Kuala Lumpur, 1961).
Peninsula
before A.D.
Geography
of theMalay
61
56 (Vienna, 1918), p. 122: "ibi
3, ed. Isidor Hilberg, CSEL
Jerome, Letter 125.3, in Epistulae,
. . .
aurei, quos adir? propter dracones et gryphas et inmensorum corporum monstra homi
montesque
nibus inpossibile est. . ."; Isidore, Etymologiarum
sive originum libri xx 14.3.7, ed.W. M. Lindsay, 2
De universo 4.4, in PL 111:335;
also Honorius
(Oxford, 1911), p. 113; Hrabanus
Maurus,
Augus
in Imago mundi
custoditur"
?ureos, a draconibus
(as above, n. 8), 10, p. 53. "Montes
on the Hereford Map:
Scott D. Westrem, The Hereford Map, Terrarum Orbis 1 (Turnhout,
p. 33.

todunensis
appears

2001),
62
Folker E. Reichert, Begegnungen mit China: Die Entdeckung
imMittelalter, Beitr?ge
Ostasiens
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 theMiddle Ages; see Andrew
Dalby,

Dangerous

Tastes:

The

Story of Spices

(Berkeley, Calif.,

2000),

pp. 77-78.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1224
wood

Spices
in the forestsof our own land; and the drywood from the trees in paradise that

thus falls

into

the river

is sold

to us by merchants

in this

country.64

The inhabitantsof the lands justbeyondEgyptknow somethingof thevalue of

what theyare takingout of theriver,but theydo not have towork veryhard at
it.AccordingtoJoinville,they
merelyspreadout thenetsandwait.His description
accounts for thestatusof Egypt as an entrepotforspicesbut also points to the
disparitybetweenthegreatcostof thesespiceswhen "sold tous" and theiractual
ease of acquisition.Yet even thoughthe spices in Joinvilleare simpleto gather,
thereis a certainintrinsiclimitationin a supplythatrelieson flotsamcarriedby
theparticularrivers(theNile, Ganges, Tigris,and Euphrates) thoughtto stream
out of Paradise.65
Therewere, therefore,
different
theoriesabout thenatureand circumstances
of
thewealth of theEast. The wonderfulproductsofAsia may be rareor at least
to acquire even in theplace of theirorigin,as thestoryof thedangerous
difficult
pepperorchards implies.
Asia might be richbecause of theindustry
Alternatively
of itspeople and beneficent
government,as inMarco Polo's China. It could be
extravagantlyrichbut closelygovernedas with PresterJohnor thecourtof the
Great Khan. Finally,itmay be a place of grotesqueand effortless
wealth on the
orderof thegolden roofsofCipangu.
The interaction
of commercialcalculationand fantasticspeculationcontinued
throughouttheMiddle Ages and into themodernworld. It is not simplythat
accurategeographicalinformation
replacedfable,paving theway fortheage of
JohnofMarignolli andMartin Behaimhad practical,unmagicalviews
discovery.66
of commercein spices,but thesewere not in themselves
enough tomotivateany
one toundertakethefrighteningly
riskyvoyage to obtain suchmaterialsdirectly.
The impetushad to come froma confidencefoundednot only on betterships,
maps, or navigationaltechniquebut on a belief inwild plenitude.Therewas no
point to facingthedangersand lengthof a voyage to achievemodest profitsfrom

64
Chronicles

trans. M. R. B. Shaw
(Harmondsworth,
of the Crusades,
Eng., 1963), p. 212. St.
Jerome, in Letter 125.3, writes of India where, "it is said," the Ganges carries spices ("pimentorum")
from Paradise.
Precious botanical
substances brought by rivers from Paradise
in Circa
also appear
86
Instans, ed. W?lfel, Arzneidrogenbuch
(as above, n. 39), p. 4; Jacques de Vitry, Historia Orientalis
von Eschenbach,
Bartholomaeus
(as above, n. 8), p. 173; Wolfram
Parzifal 8.845-50;
Anglicus, On
the Properties
of Things: John Trevisa's Translation
of Bartholomaeus
Anglicus De proprietatibus
books
rerum, a Critical Text, ed. M. C. Seymour et al., 2 (Oxford, 1975), 17.5, p. 905; Mandeville,
8 and 25: Le livre des merveilles du monde, pp. 163 and 398; Travels, ed. Seymour, pp. 41 and 174;

Mandeville's
Travels, ed. Letts, Egerton version,
65
see Alessandro
On the location of Paradise,
Paradise,"

inMappings,

ed. Denis

1:41 and

1:167,

(London, 1999),
Cosgrove
History
of Paradise: The Garden

Paris version, 2:258

Eden: Cartographies

and 2:365.

of the Earthly
pp. 50-70. On the Garden of Eden in
trans.
of Eden inMyth and Tradition,

Scafi, "Mapping

general, see Jean Delumeau,

Matthew
O'Connell
(New York, 1995).
66
and geographical
D. Phillips, Jr., and Carla
progress are emphasized
Technological
by William
Rahn Phillips, The Worlds
Columbus
Pierre
of Christopher
(Cambridge, Eng., 1992), pp. 64-84;
in the Later Middle Ages, trans. Katarine Bertram, Europe in theMiddle
Chaunu, European
Expansion
10 (Amsterdam, 1979); Ingrid Baumg?rtner,
"Weltbild und Empire: Die Erweiterung des karto
durch die Asienreisen
des sp?ten Mittelalters,"
History 23
graphischen Weltbilds
Journal ofMedieval
and Phillips, The Medieval
(as above, n. 36), pp. 187-253.
(1997), 227-53;
Expansion
of Europe

Ages

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Spices

1225

a rarecommodity.67
What was requiredto encouragesuch an undertaking
was
theconvictionthatspices,gems,or preciousmetalswere available cheaplyand in
greatquantities.Itwould be evenbetterifsuchvaluable productswere to be had
fornearlynothingand inhyperbolicquantities,as with thegold ofCipangu or
thegemsof PresterJohn'srealm.
Of course,attempsweremade to cultivateor re-createexoticEasternproducts
inEurope. Silk, afterall, had been successfully
established,as had saffron.
Sugar
in the lateMiddle Ages was grown inCyprus,Sicily,Andalusia, and thenewly
We don't know of specific
medieval effortsto trans
discoveredAtlantic islands.
plant pepperor other spices,but as with alchemicalgold, thequintessentialex
ample of attempteddomesticproductionof a valuable import,any such scheme
must have failed.
Most precious itemswere to be foundonly indistantplaces.
Thereforeit is not just thatColumbus and othershappened to relyon anti
but thatthe fantasticand inaccurate
quated, unreliable (if learned)information
were necessarymotives forthevoyagesof discovery.In thefifteenth
centurythe
native landscame fromfab
encouragementto seek spices in theirstill-mysterious
ulous storiesof abundance as well as frombettergeographicalknowledge.The
marvelous and what might be called the "nonmarvelous"were combinedand
presentedincertainways. A prosaic (thatis,nonmarvelous)accountof a pepper
harvestwithout snakeswas a stimulusto exploration,but sowere themarvelous
golden roofsofCipangu. In 1474 theFlorentineastrologerand physicianPaolo
Toscanellioutlineda theoryof a westward routeto India ina letterto an adviser
to thekingof Portugal.Toscanelli,whose ideasprobably influenced
Columbus,
describesCipangu as an islandwhose templesand palaces are coveredwith gold.
RecruitingforColumbus's initialvoyage,Martin Alonso Pinzon (captainof the
Pinta) put fortha popularizedversionof thissame image,contrastingthepoverty
with thegolden-roofed
of his listeners
houses of theland tobe foundin theforth
comingvoyage.68
It isnot too functionalist
to askwhat specifically
among theplethoraof stories,
lore,and evengenuinenew knowledgeof natureand geographyencouragedsuch
schemesof expansionor ledEuropeans beyond isolatedspeculationto concrete
projects. Much

has to do with how what was deemed wonderful might be linked

to theordinaryand how thispairingaffectedconceptsof scarcityand availability.

Michele Gueret-Lafertedescribesthe rhetoricaltropeof "parallelism" in travel
literature
as thedescriptionof foreignpracticesin lightof thefamiliar,including
therelativistic
observationthatwhat iscommon inone place is rare inanother.69
Marco Polo says thatgold isused as roofing
material inCipangu in theway that
67
The presence of Venetian and Genoese
to make
century does show a willingness

merchants

in the early tomid-fourteenth

journeys, but on a small scale and

resident in China

extremely long trading

See Robert Lopez,
"L'extr?me
generally for silk rather than for goods that were rare in theWest.
Le moyen ?ge 69 (1963), 479-90,
fronti?re du commerce de l'Europe m?di?vale,"
and "Nouveaux
pp. 445-57
(as above, n. 35).
documents,"
68
Cited in John Larner, Marco
Polo and the Discovery
(New Haven, Conn.,
1999),
of theWorld
See also Folker Reichert, "Columbus
in Amerika: Zur Litera
und Marco
Polo?Asien
pp. 141-44.

15 (1988), 45-46.
turgeschichte der Entdeckungen,"
Zeitschrift f?r historische Forschung
69
Sur les routes de l'Empire Mongol:
Mich?le
Ordre et rh?torique des relations de
Gu?ret-Lafert?,
et XlVe si?cles, Nouvelle
voyages aux XlIIe
Biblioth?que du Moyen Age 28 (Paris, 1994), pp. 241-44.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1226

Spices

lead is employedforchurchesat home. Joinvillestatesthataloe wood and cin

namon fall into theNile inParadise just as ordinarytreesdrop branches into
European rivers.
Odoric ofPordenone's Italianversionofhis travelsremarksthat
pepper inMalabar isas plentifulas grain inEurope.Conversely,itwas sometimes
observed thata familiarand inexpensive
European commoditysuch as olive oil
is a prized rarityinChina.70According to St. Jerome(and repeatedin Isidore's
Etymologies),thecommonEuropean herbpennyroyal(Menthapulegium)ismore
expensivethanpepper in India.Walafrid Strabo inhis poem on gardensvaried
thisslightlyto say thatthepriceof pennyroyalin India equals thatof pepper in
Europe.71That peppermightbe guardedby serpentsinIndia isobviouslyamarvel
of nature,but it isalsomarvelous ina different
way ifpepper iscommon inIndia:
if thiswonderfuland (inEurope) expensive spice proliferatesthereinnormal,
snakelessorchards.
Notions of themarvelous and theordinarycomplementedor succeededeach
other,producingvarious representations
of scarcity,
and abundance. If
difficulty,
pepper or gold was not globally scarce,one could imaginetremendousprofits
Difficulties
fromeffective
exploitation.
could be surmountedifa floodof treasured
productswas somewhereavailable.Problemsmightbe posed by thenativesof the
placeswhere spices,gold, or jewelsoriginated,but thiswas not a greatpreoccu
pationofEuropeans on theeveof expansion.It is logicalbutmisleading,however,
to thinkthatfromthefirst
momentsof contactwith East Asia or theNew World,
Europeans thoughtin termsof colonial empiresor thatthey
were serenelyconfi
At firsttheypreferredto treatwith politi
dent in theirtechnologicalsuperiority.
well organizedstateswhere pepperwas alreadybeingcul
callyand economically
tivatedor gold beingmined thantodealwith thesortof "primitive"peoples that
Columbus found.Columbus's palpable frustration
at findingonly "savages" in
steadof officialsof theGreatKhan was relatedtoan estimationof relativeprofit.72
The ease of takingthingsfromunsophisticatednativeswas not going to compen
of settingup an infrastructure
sate forthedifficulty
of exploitationfromscratch,
or so itseemed.
Whether civilizedor uncivilized,thenativesof the realmsof gold and spices
shared,inEuropean eyes,a usefullyunderdevelopedappreciationofhow valuable
70 In

of
survey La flor des estoires de la terre d'Orient, written in 1307, King Hetoum
says that in Cathay olive oil is rare, costly, and treasured as a sovereign medicine by the great
and wealthy: Recueil des historiens des croisades: Documents
arm?niens, 2 (Paris, 1906), p. 261: ". . .
et illud fere quod
in illis partibus carius emitur et habetur est oleum olivarum, quoniam
reges et
his historical

Armenia

cum magna
reperitur, quasi precipuum medicamen
aliquo
diligentia
to some manuscripts
of Mandeville's
in
Travels, olive oil is believed
value (The Defective
Version of Mandeville's
Travels, ed. M. C. Seymour,

magnates
illud, quando modo
faciunt custodiri." According
Cathay

to have medicinal

319 [Oxford, 2002], p. 105), or at least its price is high (Tzanaki,

Early English Text Society, O.S.,
Mandeville's
Medieval
Audiences,
p. 275).
71
56 (as above, n. 61), p. 311: "omne, quod rarum est, plus adpetitur;
Jerome, Letter 146.2, CSEL
livre XVII
(as above, n. 1), 9.59,
puleium apud Indos pipere pretiosius est"; Isidore, Etymologiae,

inMGH
Poetae 2:346:
"Hoc puleium, apud
p. 197; Walafrid
Strabo, De cultura hortorum 302-4,
Indorum tanti constare peritos / Fertur apud Gallos quanti valet Indica nigri / congeris piperis." See
(as above, n. 33), pp. 709-10.
McCormick,
Origins of the European
Economy
72
are outlined in Phillips and Phillips, The World of
Columbus's
and disappointments
expectations
Christopher

Columbus,

pp. 157-70.

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1227

Spices

theircurrentand potentialpossessionswere ina global context.Competitors

who
were those(consideredto be forthemost part
did understandtheprice structure
Muslim) who were regardedas profitinginordinately
fromthestatusquo. Dis
tance,intermediaries,
thepoliticalorderof an imaginedIndia-none of these
were
discouragingifthebottom linewas a tremendous,
preferablyfantasticsupply.
were
Curiouslyenough,as itturnedout, themost fanciful
expectationsofprofit
ifnot quite in theways anticipated.
Da Gama's secondvoyage in1502-3,
fulfilled,
The gleamingroofsofCipanguwere
forexample,reapeda 400 percentprofit.73
and
Peru
Mexico proved to be of a quantity
silver
of
and
unfindable,
but thegold
of
to satisfythemost extravagantdreams avarice.That suchgood fortune
did not
in the long runbenefitPortugalor Spain all thatmuch isno more significant
in
termsof the imaginationof richesthanthemaldistributionof oil revenuesin the
contemporary
world.Wealth is temporary(thePortuguesewere losingtheirad
vantageousposition in the spice tradeby the1530s), orwasted (theSpanish fi
nanced futileEuropean wars with theirNew World revenues),or goes to the
wrong people, but it is realnevertheless.
European colonial profitsand theirat
tendantdisastrousconsequencesmovedmuch ofworld historyinthemodern era.
was theresultof peculiar ideasof rarityand plen
The realizationof theseprofits
itudethatcombinedancientandmedieval legendsof themarvelouswith theprac
ticalwisdom of experience.
73
Pierre Delaveau,
diments

Les

(Paris, 1987),

?pices: Histoire,

description
Goods

p. 72; Jardine, Worldly

et usage des diff?rents ?pices, aromates

(as above, n. 12), pp. 289-90.

et con

Paul Freedman isChester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University,New Haven,

CT 06520 (e-mail: paul.freedman@yale.edu).

This content downloaded from 150.214.230.47 on Sun, 19 Oct 2014 09:42:08 AM

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions