662 ON THE PRICE OF FOREIGN PRODUCE. 



cloves or mace. Like them it is affected by the events which 

 accompanied or followed on the conquest of Egypt, the rise 

 being fully fifty per cent. But it is not affected so con- 

 siderably as cloves and mace are. The use of the article, I 

 conceive, was new and occasional, and therefore the depriva- 

 tion of it, or at least its scarcity, was met by abstention or 

 economy of use. 



It is possible, as I suggested in my first volume, that 

 * cannel ' and cinnamon are to be identified. If this be the 

 case, the few entries of the first-named spice point to great 

 fluctuations in price. Cannel is bought at is. \\d. in 1406. 

 I find no other entry till 1514. In this year, and in 1515, 

 1516, and 1518, it is bought at Hickling Priory at 55-., 4^., 

 and 8s. the pound. In 1514 cinnamon is 2s. 6d. at Cam- 

 bridge. It does not occur in the other years. In 1519 it is 

 6s. 8d., the highest point which it reaches during the early dear 

 period. It seems clear, then, that this spice is not inferior in 

 value to cinnamon, and that the cheap article now known by 

 the name can hardly be that which is quoted in these accounts 1 . 



GINGER. This spice is commoner than cinnamon, less 

 frequent than cloves and mace. I have found it forty-six 

 times in the accounts. It is a product, like the rest of these 

 spices, of the East Indies. But for some reason or other it 

 is not so markedly affected by the political events of 1511-30 

 as other spices are, for, though in 1521-40 the price is higher 

 than it had been during any part of the fifteenth century, the 

 rise is not very considerable, being about twenty-five per cent, 

 above the average. It is dearest after the general rise of 

 prices, as indeed all spices are in the years 1561-70, a result 

 which is probably due to the efforts made to resist Spanish 

 monopoly in the Old World, and to the buccaneering ex- 

 peditions, which were most energetic and most successful 

 under Drake, whose own voyage, however, began in 1577. 



GRAINS OF PARADISE. These seeds, the origin of which 

 appears to be Central Africa, were conveyed to Tripoli by 



1 The French name for cinnamon is ' cannelle tic Ceylan. 1 



