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| Representative Medieval Woman at Her Writing Table. |
I had been leery to accept the common claim that a Venetian
had received 100,000 crowns, in 1420, for inventing a higher quality process to
make sugar product. Still, for all I
could not find a precise citation for the claim, it was to be found in nearly
every history of sugar written in the past two centuries. In my own rendition, I asserted that:
A very important obstacle was removed in 1420. It was in this year that Venice learned to
process sugar into blocks referred to by all as “sugar-loaves”. The purity level was so high that the whole
idea of sugar was changed. The block
form allowed much easier handling and prevented the common problem of infestation
from insects.
But scholarship should not depend upon faith and I have since
found myself embarrassed to have to admit, foremost, that sugar loaves had
already existed for centuries.
Between the Octave of Epiphany[1]
and the beginning of Pentecost, in 1290, servants of Richard de Swinfield,
Bishop of Hereford, purchased “sugar loaves”[2]
on three occasions. According to
MacPherson’s Annals of Commerce, so early as the year 1329, loaves of
sugar were sold in Scotland at the price of 1s. 9 1/2 d. No information is available on the purity or
the granularity of the product.[3]
Moreover, a few days of searching on this matter revealed
that the 1420 claim flowed from a single source: Peter Heylyn’s Cosmographie.[4] I have quoted Heylyn’s delightful work
before but always careful to inform the reader that he cited no sources for any
of his claims. If he made a claim that
could not be cross-checked, the only choice was to take his word for it. Or not, for, while he generally proved to be
right when he could be checked, he was by no means always so.
But I had checked the 1420 claim after a fashion. Circumstantial historical evidence does
indeed show, time and again, that sugar was first consumed in quantity in
England sometime in the mid-to-late 15th century. And, until Antwerp could wheedle the formula
out of one or another Venetian merchant, in the mid-16th century, Venice
dominated refined sugar sales to all of Europe.
No other manufactory competed with Venice according to commercial
records, for quality of product, and subsequent sales, unless it was Cyprus which the Venetians occupied at the time.
Far more to the point, in his Opera domini Joannis de
Vigo in chyrurgia,[5]
Lyon, 1521, the surgeon Giovanni da Vigo, was the first in history to describe
drilling and filling teeth by way of treatment of cavities. In 1548, Walter Hermann Ryff, of Strasburg,
published his Useful Instruction on the Way to Keep Healthy, to
Strengthen and Reinvigorate the Eyes and the Sight. With Further Instruction on
the Way of Keeping the Mouth Fresh, the Teeth Clean, and the Gums Firm.[6] While some limited portion of earlier anatomy
books had made observations about the mouth and teeth, Ryff’s books were
collections of practical knowledge from past and present. A considerable portion of the text dealt with
mouth, teeth, care and extractions. The
book was in German rather than Latin.
Vigo’s was the first of an explosion of books about
practical dentistry.[7] The tools of dental surgery were depicted and
their operation explained. By the end of
the century, Peter van Foreest of Alkmaar’s,
Complete Works in Four Volumes,[8]
Antwerp, 1597, shows us that, during the late 16th century, he was strongly recommending patients avoid sweets
and sugar in order to save themselves the pain of repeated dental surgery.
While sugar had been around for centuries, and available, at
least from the 13th century, to those in England willing to make
arrangements for special shipment of small quantities and to pay an enormous
price, rather than sweeten their food with honey, something clearly changed at
around the end of the 15th century. That
something seems to have begun around 1420 in Venice.
First, of course, the price came down precipitously. Secondly, the facts suggest, the refining of
sugar may first have reached the point in Venice, during the 15th
century, at which the purity improved the experience and the method of
granulation allowed for sugar loaves that would be able to be broken into
grains, for cooking and sprinkling, rather than into chunks or heated into a
syrup or cut into slabs.
Be all of this as it may, Margaret Paston has still left us
the first record of sugar loaves that were able to be regularly purchased from
merchant’s shelves. It was an expensive
luxury but a wealthy commoner could afford it.
[1]
See my “A Thousand Years of English Terms” for an explanation of octaves,
etc. https://gilbertwesleypurdy.blogspot.com/2019/06/a-thousand-years-of-english-terms.html
[2] A
Roll of the Household Expenses of Richard de Swinfield, Bishop of Hereford
(1854). John Webb, ed. 115-6.
“sucur~ pond [.liij. libr~],” “j paner~ ad sucur~” and “xxix libr~
sucur~ in duob~ panib~ .xvj.s. xj.d.” on trips to London. Webb seems to think that the loaves were
purchased in little Hereford and theorizes that sugar was common if it was sold
in such an insignificant marketplace.
See note 115-6.
[3] East-India
Sugar Papers Respecting the Culture and Manufacture of Sugar (1822). III.95.n. Citing MacPherson’s Annals of Commerce. “It appears by the Accounts of the Chamberlain of Scotland, published
from the original in the Exchequer, by John Davidson, Esq., that so early as
the year 1329, loaves of sugar were sold in Scotland at the price of 1s. 9 1/2d.
(above an ounce of standard silver) by the pound. So Dr. Heylin is surely mistaken,
at least in the date of the invention of sugar-baking.”
[4]
The edition quoted is always shown as the “first edition” of 1624 the existence
of which has proven impossible to verify.
"The boiling and baking of sugars as it is now used, is not above
200 years old; and the refining of it more new than that first found out by a
Venetian in the days of our forefathers, who got 100,000 crowns by the
invention; before which art of boiling and refining it, our ancestors made use
of it rough as it came from the canes. But they most commonly used honey
instead of it.” The rest of the
bibliographical world seems to think that the first edition was published in
1652. No available edition, however,
includes the quote that appears invariably in sugar history after sugar
history.
[5] An
English translation by Bartholomew Traheron entitled The moste Excellent
Workes of Chirurgerye made and set forth by maister John Vigon, heed chirurgien
of our tyme in Italie was published in London in 1543
[6] Nuetzlicher
Bericht, wie man die Augen und das Gesicht schaerfen und gesund erhalten, die
Zaehne frisch und fest erhalten soil. Wurzburg, 1548.
[7]
Guerini, Vincenzo. A History of
Dentistry from the Most Ancient Times…
This excellent history has been my roadmap on the subject here.
- A Thousand Years of English Terms. June 2, 2019. ‘One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”. There was no clock to be o’. But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.’
- Shakespeare’s Barnacles. March 3, 2016. “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
- A Medieval Hodge-Podge. March 17, 2019. “The hogge pot had already existed for centuries, however. Many who fail to realize this have given spurious derivations to the name.”
- The King's Esnecce. January 13, 2019. “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
- Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
- Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time.
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