As the Northumbrian theologian and historian, the Venerable Bede, lay dying in 735 CE, he had called for his ‘treasures’ that he wished to distribute to his fellow monks. What was first to come out of his treasure chest?
Answer: Pepper. With food heavily salted as a preservative, pepper and the other spices were prized enormously as a food flavoring and enhancer. The pepper, grown in the East Indies, would have travelled tens of thousands of miles by mule train and ships to reach England, via Baghdad and the Mediterranean. Accordingly, pepper was very expensive.
Source: The Year 1000 by Robert Lacey & Danny Danziger
