Anthony makes a fair point. Perhaps symbolic would be a better word than
trivial.
Richard
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Richard Coates
Professor of Linguistics ~ Professor of Onomastics and
Director of the Bristol Centre for Linguistics at UWE
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/llas/bcl/index.shtml
Hon. Director, Survey of English Place-Names
(w: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/english/ins/epns/)
Contact details:
e: [log in to unmask]
t: +44 (0)117 328 3278 (internal 83278)
f: +44 (0)117 328 2295
h: Room 5E26
Dept of Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies
University of the West of England (Frenchay campus)
Bristol BS16 1QY, UK
w: http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/llas/staff_coates_r.shtml
-----Original Message-----
From: The English Place-Name List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf
Of Anthony Appleyard
Sent: 19 August 2009 05:54
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [EPNL] Pepper Corn
On Tue, 18 Aug 2009 17:19:47 +0100, Richard Coates
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The earliest peppercorn rent reference I can find in Anglo-Norman
> sources is about 1285.
How trivial was a peppercorn rent then? Now, pepper can be bought easily
anywhere. Then, before Vasco da Gama's voyage, pepper and other spices
had to be brought thousands of miles by sailing ship, and overland at
packhorse or camel pace, from what we now call Indonesia, changing hands
for profit several times on the way, and in England spices were
expensive.
Another so-called trivial rent that I have heard of was a red rose at
Christmas - ask any gardener about availability of rose flowers around
that time of year.
This incoming email to UWE has been independently scanned for viruses by
McAfee anti-virus software and none were detected
This email was independently scanned for viruses by McAfee anti-virus software and none were found
|