Changes

The role of Arabian and Middle Eastern traders continued through the early Medieval period. Increasingly, however, Italian traders from Genoa and Venice became important in the Medieval trade in pepper to Europe. After the disruptions of the fall of Rome, pepper only began to make a comeback in Europe by the later parts of the Medieval period. King Ethelred exacted pepper as a tax to allow European traders in Anglo-Saxon London. Arab traders controlled shipping in the Indian Ocean and trade across the Middle East, giving them a lot of power in trade activities in the Silk Road. By the late Medieval Period, the Italian traders from Genoa and Venice increasingly controlled much of the trade in pepper in Europe, where the price of black pepper in Europe became remained very high. This likely meant that it was not as commonly consumed as it may have been even in the Roman period. Arab traders also controlled shipping in Despite the Indian Ocean and trade across the Middle East, giving them a lot of power in trade activities in the Silk Road. All of the middlemen in the Middle East and Europe kept pepper prices far too high price for most people. Howeverblack pepper, pepper it was still one of the most important products in the Silk Road. In fact, it became the chief spice trade in the Silk Road. To keep prices artificially high, traders even made stories such as black pepper being guarded by poisonous serpents, indicating that it was difficult to get. The black color was suggested to be a result from the fires that traders had to make to scare the serpents away.<ref>For more on Medieval traders in spices and black pepper, see: Woolgar, C. M, T Waldron, and D Serjeantson. 2009. <i>Food in Medieval England: Diet and Nutrition.</i> Oxford: Oxford University Press, pg. 16.</ref>

In factTo a great extent, it was the rise of prices of pepper and other products that put greater impetus to find new routes to India. Slightly before this time, Portugal was a rising power and had aspired to control the trade routes to India, with black pepper being one of their main interests. The trip around Africa, although yielding many new discoveries, was difficult and long. Nearly 30% of the cargo brought back from India was lost. European powers wanted to avoid having to have their trade to the east controlled by middlemen and, so long as prices were very high, then the consumer market would be limited. This prompted the eventual discovery of the New World, which was initially thought by Christopher Columbus to be a new route to India , including its spice trade, rather than a new continent all together.<ref>For more on the role of trade and the discovery of the New World, see: Hunter, Doug. 2012. <i> The Race to the New World: Christopher Columbus, John Cabot, and a Lost History of Discovery.</i> 1st Palgrave Macmillan pbk. ed. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.</ref>

The Dutch were able to gain control of the pepper trade by the 17th century, creating strong links to India, Ceylon, Java, and other areas in southeast Asia (Figure 2). The rising power of the British East India Company in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the British Empire's fortunes increased, allowed them to eventually takeover the trade of black pepper. During this time, spices and pepper , in particular increasing , increasingly began to be under a near monopoly of control by British traders. During the time of the Dutch and British control of the spice and pepper trade, it was by then that black pepper, once again, became had increasingly become common and prices depreciated that led to its price depreciating considerably. By this time, middle class consumers were able to reasonably afford it and it was during the 17 and 18th centuries that black pepper began to emerge as a daily type of spice used to season meat mainlyand other foods.<ref>For more on the Dutch and their control of trade to India and southeast Asia, see: Jacobs, E. M. 2006. <i>Merchant in Asia: The Trade of the Dutch East India Company during the Eighteenth Century.</i> CNWS Publications 146. Leiden: CNWS Publications.</ref>

In the 20th century, with decolonization and the demise of major holding companies such as the British East India Company, the trade of black pepper is was once again in the hands of the countries that grow grew it, mainly being India and southeast Asia. Today, Vietnam is the leading exporter of black pepper, accounting for about 34-35% of the total in trade of black pepper. Because of its wide spread use that goes back to the Classical Period, when regions from Japan to Britain had developed tastes for black pepper, it has become the most common spice today.<ref>For more on the recent trade of black pepper, see: Prabhakaran Nair, K. P. 2011. <i>Agronomy and Economy of Black Pepper and Cardamom: The “king” and “queen” of Spices.</i> 1st ed. Elsevier Insights. Amsterdam ; Boston: Elsevier.</ref>