Comerţul cu mirodenii al oraşelor Braşov şi Sibiu în prima jumătate a secolului al XVI-lea
The Trade in Spices of Brasov and Sibiu in the First Half of the XVI th century

Summary/Abstract: The present study deals with the trade of spices on the basis of the extantcustoms registers of the two most important Saxon towns of Transylvania in the MiddleAges and the Early modern period, Braşov and Sibiu. These towns were importanttrading centres, acting as intermediaries in the long-distance trade between Western andCentral Europe and the Ottoman Empire. Spices were a major element in the transit tradeof oriental goods. Data is available from the beginning and from the fifth decade of thesixteenth century.The first part of the article presents the potential and the limitations of thecustoms registers as primary sources for reconstructing commercial traffic, as well assome methodological aspects of their interpretation.The main part of the study consists of tables that illustrate in a comparativeapproach the amounts of different spices that reached Transylvania through the customsof Braşov and Sibiu. Although Braşov attracted a far larger amount of goods and numberof traders than Sibiu, the latter surpassed Braşov in the trade with saffron and otherspices. Apart from pepper, the quantities of spices brought to the Saxon towns viaWallachia are not very impressive. The trade in spices declined sharply throughout thefirst half of the century and never recovered the weighty traffic registered at the beginning of the sixteenth century. "A scrie despre mirodenii nu este atât de simplu pe cât pare la prima vedere. Mirodeniile fac parte din dieta noastră zilnică, sunt uşor de procurat şi accesibile pentru oricine. Dar lucrurile nu au stat la fel dintotdeauna. Mirodeniile şi-au pierdut în timp aura mistică, de simboluri ale luxului şi condiţiei sociale. În Evul mediu în schimb, comerţul cu mirodenii era o întreprindere nu numai foarte profitabilă, ci şi foarte prestigioasă."[...]

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