VIII 



PEPPERS 251 



White pepper is mentioned first by Dioscorides, and, 

 generally speaking, it was supposed in the early days 

 that white pepper was produced by a different plant from 

 that which produced the black pepper. Pliny states 

 that in his time long pepper was worth 15 denarii a 

 pound, white pepper 7 denarii, and black pepper 4. 



In the Periplus of the Erythroean Sea, dated A.D. 64, 

 we find it stated that pepper was exported from Barake, 

 a shipping port of Net Kunda, where it is said to grow 

 in great abundance, and where alone it occurs. These 

 places are identified with localities between Mangalore 

 and Calicut in Madras. 



In about 540, Cosmas Indicopleustes visited the 

 Malabar coast, and gives an account of the plant as a 

 climber, sticking to high trees like a vine. This appears 

 to be the first account of the plant producing the spice. 

 ^ Marco Polo mentions pepper as being produced in 

 Java in 1280, and Nicolo Conti, a Venetian traveller, 

 saw it in Sumatra in the fifteenth century, but there is 

 no evidence of its being in the Malay region earlier, and 

 the supplies were mainly, it seems, brought from the 

 Malabar coast before this. Garcia da Orta says that in 

 his time it grew on the Malacca coast, and in the islands 

 near, Java and Sunda and Cuda (? Kedah). The pepper 

 of these parts was inferior to that of Malabar, where it 

 was widely spread from Cape Comorin to Cannanore. 

 During the Middle Ages pepper was the most valued 

 spice, and Venice, Genoa, and other European cities owe 

 much of their wealth to the importation of the spice. 

 Taxes and tributes were often paid in pepper. Thus in 

 the siege of Eome by Alaric, king of the Goths, the 

 ransom of the city was 5,000 Ibs. of gold, 30,000 Ibs. of 

 silver, and 3,000 Ibs. of pepper, and after the capture of 

 Cesarea by the Genoese in 1101, each of the conquering 

 army received 2 Ibs. of pepper and 48 soldi as a share 

 of the spoils. 



The first mention of pepper in England is in the 

 Statutes of Ethelred (978 to 1016), where the Easterlings 

 coming to trade with London were required to pay a tax 



