by Jack Turner
Roman 63–5, 67–70
spice trade 22–4, 35, 40, 49
Arab domination 101
beginnings 274–5
Biblical references 279
disapproval of 329–31
Dutch domination of 43, 351
early Middle Ages 105
Middle Ages 115–19, 148
Persia and 298
and plague 206–8
Roman 63, 68, 89–91, 95
and sexual medicine 223
sixteenth-century 347
waning of 344–6
Spice TV channel xxv
Spicer of Troyes: Contrefait de Renard 197
spicers 142–3, 182, 197–8, 215, 292–3, 356
spikenard 7, 98, 102, 114, 264
Sri Lanka 18fn, 29, 41, 93, 100–1, 344
Stafford, Humphrey, Duke of
Buckingham 120, 133
Stapleton, Thomas 179
Statius 171
Stephen, King of England 136
Stephen, St 293
storax 237, 299
Strabo 63, 66
Strauss, Richard: Der Rosenkavalier 132
Styrax officinalis 237fn
Suetonius 86, 170
sugar 348
Suger of Saint-Denis 319
Sulla, Lucius Cornelius 169
Sumatra 344
Sumeria 268
superstition, see magic
Swift, Jonathan: Gulliver’s Travels 204
Swinburne, Algernon Charles: Laus Veneris 353
Sydenham, Thomas 355
Sylvester, Pope 288, 297
Syria xxvii–xxviii, xxxi, 62, 116, 224, 263, 264
Syriac Book of Medicines 182, 194
Syzygium aromaticum xxv
Tabarî, at- 284fn
Tacitus 88, 169
Taillevant 127
Viandier 159
Taio, Bishop of Zaragoza 99
Tamara, Francisco de 345
TechnoDruid 304
Tennyson, Lord Alfred xxvi
terebinth 268
Terence 81
Ternate, Moluccas xxviii, 31–3, 37, 41, 42, 50, 336
Tertullian 79, 172, 285, 289, 296
Theodahad, King of Goths 103
Theodore of Tarsus 183
Theodoric, King of Ostrogoths 98
Theodosius II, Roman Emperor 97
Theodulfus, Bishop of Orléans 192
Theophrastus 63, 192, 267, 268
On Odours 201–2, 237
Theophylacias, archdeacon 300
Theosophical Society of America 304
theriac 185–6, 199
Thietmar of Merseburg 112
Thothraes IV, Pharaoh 273
thyme 76, 268
Tiberius, Roman Emperor 88
Tidore, Moluccas xxviii, 31, 32, 37, 38, 50, 336
Timor 340–1
Topsell, Edward 139, 194, 196
Tordesillas, Treaty of 27–8, 32–3
Toscanelli, Paolo dal Pozzo 6
Toussaint-Samat, Maguelonne: History of Food 221
toxicity xxxiv, 257–8
Trajan, Roman Emperor 70
Trémignon, Evrard de 341
Trésor de Evonime 122
Trojan War 276
Tulle monastery 112
Tutankhamen, Pharaoh 168
Uberti, Fazio degli 233
Udalric of Cluny 319
Ulrich, St 299
Ulrich of Cluny 316
Ur of the Chaldees 18
Urban II, Pope 114
Urban V, Pope 149
Valencia, archbishop of 35fn
vanilla 12
Varthema, Ludovico 26, 31
Vaucresson, Guiot de 129
Venette, Nicolas 220
Venice 5, 23, 24, 53
in Byzantine Empire 107–8
crusaders 115
in Dark Ages 101–2
decadence 254
merchants 22, 112–13, 115, 330
Vere, Schele de: Americanisms xxxvi
Vespasian, Roman Emperor 265
veterinary medicine 191, 196
Villon, François 329
Testament 217, 231
Vincent of Beauvais 187
Vindolanda 62
Vinidarius 98, 99
Virgil 264
Aeneid 240
Visigoths 96, 99
Vivaldi brothers 67fn
VOC, see Dutch East India Company
Voltaire 13
Warmington, E.H. 91
Watson, Lyell 269fn
Weber, Max 148
weddings 216, 237, 241, 266
West Indies 7–8, 12, 348
Whitman, Walt xxvi
Wicbert, St 176
William IX, Duke of Aquitaine 113–14
William of Malmesbury 294
William of Saint-Thierry 309
William the Spicer 116
wine, spiced 142, 169
as aphrodisiac 211, 216
disapproval of 316, 328
early Middle Ages 128–9
masking poor wine 129–32
nectar 270
preparation of hippocras 129, 155
religious symbolism 293
Woodstock 49
Wooley, Leonard 18
Wycliffe, John 328
Yadihk-Abu, King xxviii
Yemen 284, 298
Zamora, Juan Gil de 191, 194–5, 196 242
Zanzibar xxxv, 344
Zaragoza, Treaty of 38
zedoary 51, 111, 151, 206
Ziani, Sebastiano, Doge of Venice 118
Zingiber officinale xxxvii
Zurara, Gomes Eanes de 327
Account of the Capture of Ceuta 147–8
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Many people have contributed to this book, wittingly and unwittingly. I owe a special debt to the Ternatean villager who led me to the mile-high summit of Gamalama volcano, through its clove-scented jungle to the crater’s sulphurous brim. From the top we surveyed the handful of islands that had long been the sole home of the clove and for the sake of which great historical forces had been set into motion. The experience imparted a sudden insight into the global implications of botanical happenstance, and a sense of wonderment that has only grown with time.
Long before then, I now realise, the seed of the idea was planted in a very different setting, in classes on the richly scented verse of Sappho and Martial taught by Peter Connor, a sorely missed friend and mentor. Whether in a seminar room or an Aleppo coffee-house he was an inexhaustible source of encouragement, inspiration and fun. There have been many others. Willy Dalrymple showed the way and called me a fraud when I dithered and turned to more mercenary pursuits. Jon Wright, Paul Kildea, Angus Trumble and Sam Miller were unfailingly generous with suggestions and criticism. Sandy Knowles and Scott Gilmore provided company, electricity and air-conditioning during a torrid year in Dili. Barbara Reis helped with my inadequate Portuguese, Hansjoerg Strohmeyer with the German, Flore de Préneuf with the Old French.
My immediate intellectual debts are acknowledged in the notes; however, several titles stand out. J. Innes Miller’s wildly idiosyncratic Spice Trade of the Roman Empire was an early inspiration; so too the writings of Henri Pirenne. Alain Corbin’s Le miasme et la jonquille revealed to me that it was possible to imagine history through the realm of the senses: to explore the past through smell and taste.
In the course of the research I have used many different libraries and archives. I owe a special debt to the librarians at the New York Public Library, the British Library, the New York Academy of Medicine and the New York Botanical Garden.
In terms of the more practical business of turning an idea into a book, my agents Giles Gordon and Russell Galen deserve special mention for their early faith and enthusiasm. I was in the process of applying the final touches to the manuscript when news came of Giles’s unexpected death. Without him I probably never would have started, and I will always be grateful.
My editors, Mike Fishwick and Jon Segal, were exemp
lars of professional excellence; they showed, besides, astonishing restraint in so seldom asking when I would finish. Robert Lacey’s copy editing of the manuscript saved me from embarrassment on many occasions. Vera Brice designed the book. My parents and parents-in-law provided a roof over my head, love, company and support.
Last but above all, my greatest debt is to Helena Fraser, who kept me going even when the attraction of spices seemed as elusive as it must have done to those who sought them across the globe, only to find themselves clutching at a will-o’-the wisp: a sense of frustration and despair I often shared, and inflicted on her. This book is dedicated to her, my spicy wife.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Formerly a MacArthur Foundation Research Fellow at Exeter College, Oxford, and a Rhodes Scholar, Jack Turner was educated at Melbourne and Oxford Universities. He lives in New York with his wife Helena and son Oscar.
PRAISE
‘A hugely enjoyable book, written with erudition, style and wit … tackled with an elegance that marvellously carries the reader on … The flavours of the book are as seductive as those of the spices themselves. It’s a feast’
New Scientist
‘Sumptuous … In telling this story, Turner is equally at ease in antiquity and the Middle Ages. He quotes well and widely from literature, and has a flair for anecdote’
Guardian
‘Stimulating … Spice is stuffed with memorable details … Turner writes with pace and intelligence’
New Statesman
‘Turner’s banquet … is, as he admits, a ramble, but it is a fascinating one – urbane, anecdotal and easily digestible’
Scotsman
‘Turner brings serious scholarship to bear on his subject, quoting from all manner of obscure texts in ancient languages. But his gentle, ironic wit makes him a light-hearted companion … The book shimmers with life, with real people springing from every page, some of them millennia old … Turner’s enthusiasm carries it all forward with terrific momentum’
The Tablet
‘In his fascinating new book … Jack Turner not only gives the reader a wonderfully vivid history of the quest for spices and the lucrative spice trade, but he also provides some intriguing insights into why spices once exerted such a hold over the human imagination – and how they catalysed the Age of Discovery’
New York Times
‘Turner impressively weaves a tremendous amount of information into a cohesive, pointed narrative … His study of spice illuminates modes of social behavior that are as prevalent now as they were centuries ago’
San Francisco Chronicle
‘Jack Turner handles his subject with discernment and confidence, his style appropriately brisk and animated … Impressive and reassuring is his combination of sympathetic understanding and toughminded rationalism. Although he never condescends to the past, neither does he ever blur the line that separates fascinating lore from the objective truths of science’
Los Angeles Times
COPYRIGHT
Harper Perennial
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First published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2004
Copyright © Jack Turner 2004
Jack Turner asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Maps by Leslie Robinson
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