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. By then, the Italian traders controlled much of it, which meant that the price of black pepper in Europe became very high, likely meaning it was not commonly consumed as it may have been even in the Roman period. Arab traders also 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. Pepper was one of the most important products in the Silk Road. To keep prices artificially high, traders even made stories such as black pepper being guarded by poisonous serpents.  In fact, it was the rise of prices of pepper and other products that put greater impetus to find new routes to India. European powers wanted to avoid having to have their trade to the east controlled by the Italian and Middle Eastern middlemen. This prompted the eventual discovery of the New World, which was initially thought by Christopher Columbus to be a new route to India rather than a new continent all together.