CLOVES. MACE. NUTMEGS. CINNAMON. 66 1 



occasionally during the dear period, now several times referred 

 to, the price was nearly as high as it was after all money values 

 had been raised. 



MACE. This kind of spice is frequently coupled with cloves, 

 the entry indicating that it is sold at nearly the same rate. 

 But on the whole, mace is, as the separate entries indicate, 

 rather dearer than cloves in the earlier period, though in three 

 of the decades it is bought at a slightly lower price. The 

 rise in 1531-1540 is even greater than that of cloves, being 

 more marked than in any other commodity of Eastern origin. 

 The price remains high, for when the rise occurs, the average 

 is more than double that of the earlier time. Towards the 

 conclusion of the period which these volumes embrace, the 

 price falls slightly. At no time do cloves reach the prices 

 at which they are found in the fourteenth century, and mace 

 does so rarely. 



NUTMEGS. It is singular that while the arillus in which 

 the nutmeg is enclosed is so frequently introduced by com- 

 merce into Europe, the nutmeg itself is found rarely and very 

 late, and then under circumstances which suggest that it is a 

 recent importation. I find it for the first time in 1527, when 

 a < mark ' of nutmegs and cloves is bought for a royal feast at 

 Windsor, the price being is. 6d. The weight indicates the 

 foreign, probably Flemish, origin of the purchase. I do not 

 profess to interpret the measure. It cannot possibly, I think, 

 be two-thirds of a pound, for cloves and mace are bought on the 

 same occasion and for the same feast at an average of i$s. the 

 pound, cloves alone at 6s. The next appearance is in 1554, 

 when nutmegs are 14^. the pound, the highest price at which 

 I have found them. In 1557 they are 6s. 8d. ; in 1559, $s. and 

 6s. ; in 1573, 6s.] in 1576, 9^-. ; and in 1578, IQS. the pound. 



CINNAMON. This is a much less frequent spice. I have not 

 discovered a single entry for the first thirty years of the fif- 

 teenth century. I found it only twice in the fourteenth. It 

 will be found in forty-one entries or averages for the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries. Cinnamon is not so dear as either 



