Black pepper Plants Postclassical Europe

The value of pepper was so high that it was often used as collateral and even currency.A fondness for pepper (or an appreciation for its monetary value) was passed on to those who would witness the fall of Rome.When the Visigoth king Alaric besieged the city in the 5th century, he gave 3,000 pounds of pepper as part of the ransom he demanded from Rome.After the fall of Rome, others took over the mainstay of the spice trade, first the Persians, then the Arabs; Innes Miller cites Cosmas Indicopleustes, who traveled east to India, as "in the sixth century India was still exporting pepper" evidence.By the end of the early Middle Ages, the center of the spice trade was firmly under Islamic control. Once in the Mediterranean,trade was largely monopolized by the Italian powers, especially Venice and Genoa.The rise of these city-states is largely due to the spice trade.

A riddle written by Saint Aldhelm, bishop of Sherborne in the seventh century, reveals the role of black pepper in England at the time:

I was black in appearance, with a rumpled coat,

Yet within me there is a burning marrow.

I season the delicacies, the king's feasts, and the luxury of the table,

Sauces and tender meats in the kitchen.

But you'll find me devoid of any worthwhile qualities,

Unless your guts are rattling with my glistening bone marrow.

It is widely believed that in the Middle Ages, pepper was often used to mask the taste of partially rotting meat.There is no evidence to support this claim, and historians consider it extremely unlikely; in the Middle Ages, pepper was a luxury item only afforded by the wealthy, who certainly had unspoiled meat.In addition, people at the time certainly knew that eating spoiled food would make them sick.Likewise, the notion that pepper was widely used as a preservative is questionable; indeed, piperine, the compound that gives pepper its pungent taste, has some antimicrobial properties, but at the concentrations at which pepper is used as a spice, the effect is minimal.Salt is a more effective preservative, and salt-cured meat is common, especially in winter. However, pepper and other spices do play a role in improving the flavor of long-term preserved meat. Its high price in the Middle Ages and Italy’s monopoly on trade was one of the incentives for the Portuguese to seek a sea route to India.In 1498 Vasco da Gama became the first person to go around Africa and reach India the Arabs in Calicut (speaking Spanish and Italian) asked why they came and his representative replied"We Seek Christians and Spices".Although the first voyage to India via the southern tip of Africa was somewhat successful, the Portuguese returned quickly and eventually gained greater control over the Arabian Sea trade.The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain granted Portugal exclusive rights to half the world where black pepper originated.

However, the Portuguese proved unable to monopolize the spice trade.Earlier Arab and Venetian trade networks succeeded in importing large quantities of the spice, and pepper again flowed through Alexandria and Italy, and across Africa.In the 17th century, the Portuguese lost nearly all of their valuable Indian Ocean trade to the Dutch and the British, who took advantage of Spanish rule over Portugal during the Iberian Union (1580-1640) by force The Portuguese had almost all interests in the region.Between 1661 and 1663 the pepper port of Malabar began an increasing trade with the DutchAs pepper supplies into Europe increased, pepper prices fell (although the value of the import trade generally did not).Pepper, once the preserve of the wealthy in the early Middle Ages, is now an everyday condiment for the middle-income population.Today, pepper accounts for a fifth of the world's spice trade.