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A spice is a dried seed, root, bark or fruit used as a food additive for flavouring and indirectly for preventing putrefaction and the growth of pathogenic bacteria.

Spices, such as cloves, have been used to flavour foods since ancient times. The Bible tells, in Genesis, how Joseph was sold into ‘the slavery of spice merchants’ by his brothers. There are frequent references to the use of clove oil in Roman literature, where it was used to mask body odours and for religious rituals. However, until the Middle Ages, the practice of using spices in the preparation of food was largely restricted to the Middle East. In these countries, cinnamon, black pepper, cloves, saffron, cassia and ginger were used by those wealthy enough to afford them.

It is probable that the taste for these spices was brought to Europe by the Crusaders. At first they were used mainly by the rich merchants of France and Spain, but eventually their use spread to England. By the fifteenth century the demand for these spices had spread throughout the whole of northern Europe, although they were always too expensive to be used in everyday cooking. In spite of their cost, the demand for pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger was huge.

By the end of the fifteenth century it was estimated that about 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of other spices were imported into the Port of London each year. Pepper was widely used to disguise the flavour of meat from animals that had been slaughtered before the onset of winter and kept from going bad by salting and pickling. Without the addition of a spice the meat was invariably so salty that it had to be soaked in water to make it eatable.

So it was that, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, shops selling pepper and other spices and merces were commonplace in the streets and alleys of towns such as London. The trade in pepper was so important that it led to the establishment, by Royal Charter, of the Company of Pepperers. It eventually became a part of the newly formed Grocers Company.

Unfortunately, by the second half of the fifteenth century, pepper was in short supply and the price had escalated, putting it out of reach of all but the very wealthy. Part of the increase in cost was due to a growth in demand, as it became more and more fashionable, but most of the price rise was due to the insecurity and expense of its transportation to England from the Orient and the Far East, where it was produced.

Almost all the spices came from the Moluccan (or Maluku) Islands of the East Indies – known as the Spice Islands – and from the southern coastal areas of India and Serendip (Sri Lanka). At its source in these countries a bale of pepper would cost less than one guinea (£1.05) but, by the time it reached the shops in London, it would sell for more than a hundred times that amount. This was due to the long and hazardous journey necessary to bring the spices to Europe.

Originally, most of the spices travelled by the Silk Route across Asia to Constantinople (Istanbul), but this route, largely exploited by the traders from the Republic of Venice, became increasingly difficult after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Caliphate. The alternative route started in the Orient, where bales of spices were loaded onto boats and carried by Arab traders across the Red Sea. They then travelled overland to the ports of the Mediterranean, such as Alexandria. A large part of this land route was controlled by Arab warlords, who either extracted a toll or required a duty to be paid when goods passed through their lands.

There was a particularly sharp rise in the price of all the spices following the fall of Egypt to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. This gave them control of the all the Mediterranean ports of the Levant and Egypt. The problem was made worse because at this time the Ottoman Empire was at war with Catholic Europe.