History of Saffron - Post-Classical European

Post-Classical European

Saffron cultivation in Europe declined steeply following the fall of the Roman Empire. For several centuries thereafter, saffron cultivation was rare or non-existent throughout Europe. This was reversed when Moorish civilisation spread from North Africa to settle the Iberian peninsula as well as parts of France and southern Italy. One theory states that Moors reintroduced saffron corms to the region around Poitiers after they lost the Battle of Tours to Charles Martel in AD 732. Two centuries after their conquest of Spain, Moors planted saffron throughout the southern provinces of Andalucia, Castile, La Mancha, and Valencia.

Saffron demand skyrocketed when the Black Death of 1347–1350 struck Europe. It was coveted by plague victims for medicinal purposes, and yet many of the farmers capable of growing it had died off. Large quantities of non-European saffron thus was imported. The finest saffron threads from Muslim lands were unavailable to Europeans because of hostilities stoked by the Crusades, so Rhodes and other places were key suppliers to central and northern Europe. Saffron was one of the contested points of hostility that flared between the declining landed gentry and upstart and increasingly wealthy merchants. The fourteen-week-long "Saffron War" was ignited when one 800 lb (363 kg) shipment of saffron was hijacked and stolen by nobles. The load, which was en route to the town of Basel, would at today's market prices be valued at more than US$500,000. That shipment was eventually returned, but the wider 13th–century trade was subject to mass piracy. Thieves plying Mediterranean waters would often ignore gold stores and instead steal Venetian- and Genoan-marketed saffron bound for Europe. Wary of such unpleasantness, Basel planted its own corms. Several years of large and lucrative saffron harvests made Basel extremely prosperous compared to other European towns. Citizens sought to protect their status by outlawing the transport of corms out of the town; guards were posted to prevent thieves from picking flowers or digging up corms. Yet ten years later the saffron harvest had waned. Basel abandoned the crop.

The pivot of central European saffron trade moved to Nuremberg. The merchants of Venice continued their rule of the Mediterranean sea trade, trafficking varieties from Sicily, France and Spain, Austria, Crete and Greece, and the Ottoman Empire. Adulterated goods also made the rounds: those soaked in honey, mixed with marigold petals, or kept in damp cellars—all to add quick and cheap bulk. Irritated Nuremberg authorities passed the Safranschou code to de-louse the saffron trade. Adulterators were thus fined, imprisoned, and executed—by immolation. England was next to have its turn as a major producer. One theory has it that the crop spread to the coastal regions of eastern England in the 14th century AD during the reign of Edward III. In subsequent years saffron was fleetingly cultivated throughout England. Norfolk, Suffolk, and south Cambridgeshire were especially affected with corms. Rowland Parker provides an account of its cultivation in the village of Foxton during the 16th and 17th centuries, "usually by people holding a small amount of land"; an acre planted in saffron could yield a crop worth a kingly GB£6, making it "a very profitable crop, provided that plenty of unpaid labor was available; unpaid labor was one of the basic features of farming then and for another two centuries."

Cultivation persisted only in the light, well-drained, and chalk-based soils of the north Essex countryside. The Essex town of Saffron Walden got its name as a saffron growing and trading centre; its name was originally Cheppinge Walden, and the culinary name change was effected to punctuate the importance of the crop to the townsfolk; the town's arms still feature blooms from the eponymous crocus. Yet as England emerged from the Middle Ages, rising puritanical sentiments and new conquests abroad endangered English saffron's use and cultivation. Puritanical partisans favoured increasingly austere, unadorned, and unspiced foods. Saffron was also a labor-intensive crop, which became an increasing disadvantage as wages and time opportunity costs rose. And finally, an influx of more exotic spices from the far East due to the resurgent spice trade meant that the English, as well as other Europeans, had many more—and cheaper—seasonings to dally over.

This trend was documented by the Dean of Manchester, a Reverend William Herbert. He collected samples and compiled information on many aspects of the saffron crocus. He was concerned about the steady decline in saffron cultivation over the course of the 17th century and the dawn of the Industrial Revolution; the introduction in Europe of easily grown maize and potatoes, which steadily took over lands formerly flush with corms, did not help. In addition, the elite who traditionally comprised the bulk of the saffron market were now growing increasingly interested in such intriguing new arrivals as chocolate, coffee, tea, and vanilla. Only in the south of France or in Italy and Spain, where the saffron harvest was culturally primal, did significant cultivation prevail.