Spices were used by the people in the medieval age not just to improve the taste of the food but also to preserve food and as the base for medicines. Spices were as valuable to people at that time as crude oil is to us today. The Arabian countries and the city state of Venice became very rich by trading in spices. Rome, followed by Spain and Portugal, established a direct trade with India via the Red Sea. When the Portuguese explorers found the sea route to India around the southernmost tip of Africa in the 1497, it started a new spice route as well as the colonization of remote countries.
No comments:
Post a Comment