SC - > So long as we are making assumptions on what the poorest folk did with cash

[Michael F. Gunter]

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From: Chris Stanifer <jugglethis at yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: SC - > So long as we are making assumptions on what the poorest folk did with cash
To: sca-cooks at ansteorra.org
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I am saying
>  simply that in no reference that I have encoutered
> have I read about peasant class 
> (non-gentry, non-noble, non-merchant, non-titled,
> often tenant-servant, lacking 
> significant disposable income beyond occasional
> seasonal harvest surplus) in any 
> region or time block making regular, large scale use
> of Imported exotic Spice from the 
> East.  Annecdote or single person aside, I would
> dearly love to find a reference about 
> spice use by the less ecomnomically developed
> classes anywhere

While I have no solid documentation to back this up, I
feel that it may be safe to assume that spice
merchants in our period of study did not make their
fortunes selling strictly to the nobility, and had to
supplement their income by selling in smaller
quantities to the "less fortunate" (read: peasantry). 
Did the peasants buy spices in large quantities? 
Doubtful.  Did they purchase a precious pinch of
pepper from time to time?  Perhaps.  Why is there so
much more literature and documentation regarding the
nobility than the peasantry?  The answer may be as
simple as "the peasants were boring".  Why write about
the peasantry, when there is so much gossip and
scandal going on in the noble houses?  Absence of
evidence is not evidence of absence.  I understand
that there may be no scholastic foundation on which we
may build our assumptions, and any assumptions we do
make are therefore muddy at best.  However, The fact
that a peasants life (and diet) did not make it into
the journals of the day does not mean that they did
not enjoy at least some of the same, simple pleasures
as the nobility.  Pepper may have been one of them.

Balthazar of Blackmoor

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