252 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
of cloth, 5 pairs of gloves, 2 barrels of vinegar, and 10 lbs. 
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 lb. 
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 lb., and between 1250 and 
1360 it rose to 2s. per lb. In France, in 1370, it cost 
21 francs 30 cents, and in 1542, 11 francs per lb. 
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 
