Voyages to the spice islands

In order to describe the role played by spices during the late Middle Ages and the beginning of the Modem Age, we consider the use of the reports written by merchants, travellers, geographers and government officials to be of great interest. Their voices emerge powerfully and incisively in any recreation of this topic as the most important interpretative elements.

The reason for our decision to focus on these sources, which cover the period from the Muslim merchants' monopoly over the Eastern seas to the sudden arrival of the Portuguese naval power in the area lies in the variety of geographical origins of the authors whose works we review. They include the Ceutan al-Idrîsî, the Persian Abd Errazzak, the Chinese Ma Huan and Fei Xin, the Portuguese João de Barros and Duarte Barbosa, the Flemish Eustache de la Fosse, and the Bolognese Ludovico de Varthema. The book by the Chinese customs inspector Chau Ju-kua, which we might describe for our purposes as a geographical and botanical guide to the world of « special goods », which remained unaltered for many years, is of particular interest to us. Their stories all revolve around the same products (aloe from the island of Socotra, incense from Arabia, Indian pepper, Ceylonese cinnamon, camphor from Borneo, and cloves and nutmeg from the Moluccan and Bandan archipelagos, to name just a few), and they lead us back into the complex world of spices, in which activities that have a close association with people's everyday lives go hand in hand with an indefinable fascination for the physical and mental wellbeing we believe the use of these products makes possible.