636 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



Balducci a , which passed from China to Astrachan, and thence 

 to the mouth of the Don. 



Others, as almonds, rice, raisins, currants, figs, sugar, and 

 perhaps dates, liquorice, sanders, galingale, cumin, anise, and 

 pomegranates, are European produce. One is occasionally 

 grown at home, for saffron has given its name to a town in 

 Essex, and was certainly cultivated at Lewes in the year 1345. 

 (vol. ii. p. 546. i.) It is possible, too, that anise, cumin, and 

 liquorice were sometimes English produce. 



PEPPER. This is by far the most important kind of foreign 

 spice. I regret, however, that the evidence which I shall be 

 able to offer my reader is scanty, and I regret it the more 

 because it might, owing to the general prevalence of pepper- 

 rents, have been abundant. But, as I have observed before, 

 the immediate purpose with which this enquiry was com- 

 menced was that of determining the prices of corn, of other 

 food, and of labour, with those of the primary necessaries and 

 conveniences of life. Hence I neglected many of these entries 

 of pepper, and it was only when I recognized some singular 

 fluctuations in the later prices of the article that I collected 

 facts. Enough however has been gathered to supply such in- 

 formation as will be sufficiently accurate for the purposes of 

 inference. 



The general prevalence of pepper-rents, (the term has sur- 

 vived to our time, but in the altered meaning of a nominal 

 payment,) indicates how great was the desire on the part of 

 the wealthier classes to secure this favourite condiment. An 

 obligation laid at that time upon the tenant to supply his 

 lord with a certain quantity (generally a pound) of pepper at 

 a given day, would never have been imposed, one would think, 

 except the demand was very great and the market not always 

 certain. 



& Pratica Mercantil, Luca 1766. This author, who writes on the trade of Florence at 

 about the end of the fourteenth century, makes no mention of Russia, Scandinavia, Den- 

 mark, the Hanse Towns, Germany, the Baltic, Scotland and Ireland, nor of any among 

 the Flemish towns except Bruges and Antwerp. See Capmany, Annales de Barcelona, 

 torn. iii. Preface. 



