252 SPICES 



CHAP. 



of, cloth, 5 pairs of gloves, 2 barrels of vinegar, and 10 Ibs. 

 of pepper, as a tribute at Christmas and Easter. 



' Later, in parts of England pepper rents were estab- 

 lished, by which the tenants had to supply their lord 

 with a stated quantity of pepper, usually 1 Ib. 



X A pepperer's guild existed in the time of Henry II. 

 (1154 to 1189), the traders being known as Pepperers 

 (Piperarii), or in French Poivriers or Pebrieres. This 

 guild was later incorporated with the Grocers. The 

 price of pepper was very high in the twelfth and 

 thirteenth centuries, being valued at Is. (equivalent to 

 8s. of modern times) per Ib., and between 1250 and 

 1360 it rose to 2s. per Ib. In France, in 1370, it cost 

 21 francs 30 cents, and in 1542, 11 francs per Ib. 

 i, The demand for this spice, and its costliness, were 

 the main inducements to the Portuguese to seek for a 

 sea passage to India. The Venetians and Genoese had 

 practically a monopoly of the spice, but when the 

 Portuguese found the sea route in 1498, the price of 

 pepper fell, and in spite of the efforts of the Venetians 

 to retain the traffic, it passed out of their hands into that 

 of the Portuguese, who retained it till the seventeenth 

 century. 



^ Under the Portuguese Malacca became the great 

 emporium for pepper. The cultivation spread to the 

 islands of the Malay Archipelago, and the trade on the 

 Malabar coast fell off. When the Dutch got control of 

 the Malay Islands, they attempted to control the export 

 and cultivation as they did with the other Oriental 

 spices, but pepper was cultivated to too large an extent 

 in countries not controlled by them, to permit them to 

 form a monopoly, as they could with nutmegs and cloves. 

 In 1801, Mr. Hogendorp gives the following returns, 

 from the head of the first commercial houses, of the 

 amount of pepper procurable from the Malay region 

 (Raffles, History of Java, vol. i. p. 238) : Sumatra, 

 Bencoolen, 1,200 tons per annum. Susu and Acheen, 

 2,000 tons. Palembang, 700 tons. Lampong, 500 tons. 

 Malay Peninsula, Penang, 100 tons; Tringanu and 



