Paper short abstract:

The impact of early modern empire on European markets can be assessed by the integration of market prices across political boundaries. The pepper prices in London and Antwerp were linked by a web of market and political institutions. After 1450 these institutions included the growing Portuguese Empire.

Paper long abstract:

The early modern pepper markets in northwestern Europe were a product of the interaction of markets and empires, merchants and kings. By 1455, the growing Portuguese Empire entered the pepper market by supplying West African malaguetta pepper from their new colonial outposts and in 1501 expanded by supplying Indian pepper to Antwerp.

The impact of the Portuguese Empire on European markets can be assessed by the integration of market prices across political boundaries. The pepper prices in London and Antwerp were linked to each other by a web of market institutions. After 1501 the growing Portuguese Empire in India (Estado da Índia) rapidly expanded as a source of Europe's pepper. This challenged and for a time displaced the existing Venetian dominance of the European pepper market.

The paper investigates the role of technology and institutions in the changing balance of Portuguese and Venetian pepper supply to Europe. Venice and Portugal varied considerably in their sailing technology and their trading institutions. These differences will be examined to assess the changing balance of the pepper trade and the impact on pepper prices in London and Antwerp.