[Sca-cooks] 14th Century Food Imports

[Judith L. Smith Adams]

Mille grazie, Signore Bear,
   
  And double that for the link and additional comments.  I'm the veriest beginner at this and didn't know/wouldn't have been looking for the two trade routes...  Cool text.  "Irregularities" being practiced against Franks during Tatar? interregnum particularly caught my eye, as did the bit about bringing along a woman (any woman will do), for "comfort."  
   
  Thanks,
  Judith

Terry Decker <t.d.decker at worldnet.att.net> wrote:
  La practica della mercatura by Francesco Balducci Pegolotti in the first 
half of the 14th Century. A partial text is available at 
http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/silkroad/texts/pegol.html . A full version 
of the manuscript text was published in 1936 under the titel La practica 
dell mercatura edited by Allen Evans.

Pegolotti was a factor for the Florentine merchants Bardi. While he does 
give instructions for a trip to Cathay, it is by the Steppes route to 
Beijing rather than on the main silk road and it actually for the reign of 
Kublia Khan rather than Kublia's successors, if I have all of the facts 
right.

The goods mentioned are for everything entering the region of Constantinople 
from all sources and not just that from the China trade.

Bear

> Source(s)???
>
> Terry Decker wrote:
> In the early 14th Century, the following items were being bought and 
> sold in
> the markets of Constantinople. The containers were usually considered tare
> to be subtracted from the gross weight of the sale. Bear
>
> SNIP

		
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