Changes

==Modern Later Development==

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. By thenthe late Medieval Period, the Italian traders from Genoa and Venice controlled much of itthe trade in pepper in Europe, which meant that where the price of black pepper in Europe became very high, . This likely meaning meant that 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 All of the middlemen in the Middle East and Europe kept pepper prices far too high for most people. However, pepper was still 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. 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 Italian and Middle Eastern middlemenconsumer 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 rather than a new continent all together. 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. The rising power of the British East India Company in the 18th and 19th centuries, when the British Empire's fortunes increased. During this time, spices and pepper in particular increasing 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 common and prices depreciated considerably. By this time, middle class consumers were able to reasonably afford it and it was during the 17 and 18th centuries that pepper began to emerge as a daily type of spice used to season meat mainly.