PEPPER. 637 



Pepper was the common seasoning for all made dishes, and 

 was introduced even into pastry b . Its use is universal enough 

 now, but as most of the meat in the Middle Ages was, we 

 may conclude, lean and hard, the need of spices as a flavouring 

 to such viands was even more urgent at that time. Still more 

 necessary was it for the salt diet of the winter months. But 

 it did not come within the means of the poorer classes. The 

 flavouring for their dishes was no doubt found in such native 

 plants as are pungent and sapid, and particularly in the coarser 

 kinds of onions. Many names indicative of the practice of 

 employing wild herbs in cookery linger in the rustic flora. 

 One of the commonest of these, Jack by the Hedge, or Sauce 

 Alone, the AlUaria offic'malis of modern botanists, was a 

 favourite condiment. 



The price of pepper varies very little up to the occurrence 

 of the Plague. It is found occasionally at low prices, as 

 generally between 1281 and 1290. But on the whole it will 

 be found to stand at about is. the pound. But it is very early 

 affected by the Plague, probably in consequence of the effects 

 of this calamity on the region through which it was imported. 

 Thus while a rise to is. 6d. is effected in it as early as 1337, 

 which is followed by a reaction, it again rises as high as is.iod. 

 in 1347, and to %s. 6d. in 1350; about which it seems to oscil- 

 late till 1360, when it falls again, though not quite to the old 

 rates. In one year (1371) a pound of pepper is bought in 

 Oxford at 4*. 



It is plain that the average, if. i\d. before and is. ^\d. after 

 the Plague, is very high, and that this condiment must have 

 been used sparingly. The spices possessed by any collegiate 

 or monastic house were entered in a particular schedule of 

 account, and delivered to the custody of some domestic officer, 

 as for instance the sacristan or cellarer, by indenture. 



Another kind of spice, of the same nature, it seems, as 

 pepper, is quoted by the name of c cubebae/ It is, however, 



b See Forme of Cury, Receipts 83, 93, 99. 

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