FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRL 577 



highly esteem pepper, which was neither a sweet taste nor attractive 

 appearance, or any desirable quality besides a certain pungenc}^ 



In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about a.d. 64, it is 

 stated that pepper is exported from Barake, the shipping place of 

 Nelkunda, in which region, and there only, it grows in great quantity. 

 These have been identified with places on the Malabar Coast between 

 Mangalore and Calicut.^ 



Long pepper and Black pepper are among the Indian spices on 

 which the Romans levied duty at Alexandria about a.d. 176.- 



Cosmas Indicopleustes,^ a merchant, and in later life a monk, who 

 wrote about a.d. 540, appears to have visited the Malabar Coast, or at 

 all events had some infoiination about the pepper-plant from an eye- 

 witness. It is he who furnishes the first particulars about it, stating 

 that it is a climbing plant, sticking close to high trees like a vine. Its 

 native country he Ciills Male* The Arabian authors of the middle ages, 

 as Ibn Khurdadbah {circa A.D. 869-885), Edrisi in the middle of the 

 12th, and Ibn Batuta in the 14th century, furnished nearly similar 

 accounts. 



Among Europeans who described the pepper plant with some exact- 

 ness, one of the first was Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Malabar 

 Coast in a.d. 1166. Another was the Catalan friar, Jordanus,^ about 

 1 330 ; he described the plant as something like ivy, climbing trees and 

 forming fruit, like that of the wild vine. " This fruit," he says, " is at 

 fii"st green, then, when it comes to maturity, black." Nearly the same 

 statements are repeated by Nicolo Conti, a Venetian, who at the 

 beginning of the 15th century, spent twenty-five years in the East. 

 He observed the plant in Sumatra, and also described it as resembling 

 ivy.6 



In Europe, pepper during the middle ages was the most esteemed 

 and important of all spices, and the very symbol of the spice trade, to 

 which Venice,^ Genoa, and the commercial cities of Central Europe 

 were indebted for a large part of their wealth ; and its importance as a 

 means of promoting commercial activity during the middle ages, and 

 the civilizing intercourse of nation with nation, can scarcely be 

 overrated. 



Tribute was levied in pepper,^ and donations were made of this 

 spice, which was often used as a medium of exchange when money 

 was scarce. During the siege of Rome by Alaric, king of the Goths, 

 A.D. 408, the ransom demanded from the city included among other 

 things 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and 3000 pounds 



'Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of solem." — 'KxaoBimasai, Kenntniss Indiens im 



the Ancients, ii. (1807) 45S. xv. Jahrhundert, Munchen (1863) 40. 



* Vincent, op. cit. ii. 754 ; also Meyer, ^ In the beginning of the loth century 

 Oeschichte der Botanik, ii. (1865) 167. the great emporiunx of the trade in pepper 



' Migne, Patrolofjice Cursu^, series Graeca, appears to have been the ^-icinity of the 



Ixixviii. (1860) 443. 446. Church S. Giacomo de Rialto at Venice. 



* j?ar (as in Malafear) merely signifies in In the "capitolare dei Visdomini del 

 Arabic, coast. fontego dei Todeschi (German court) in 



^ Mirabilia descripta by Friar Jordanus, Venezia," edit, of Thomas, Berlin, 1874, 



translated by Col. Yule. London, Hakluyt the chapter 228, page 116, is devoted to 



Society, 1863. 27. " La mercadantia del pevere." 



* *' Piperis arbor persimilis est edene, * For some examples of this, see Histoire 

 grana ejus viridia ad formam grani juniperi, de la vie pi-ivee des Francis, par le Grand 

 qua; modico cinere aspersa torrentur ad d'Aussy, nouvelle 6d,, iL (1815) 182. 



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