Saffron was an article of traffic on the Red Sea in the first century; and the author of the Periplus remarks that Κρόκος is exported from Egypt to Southern Arabia, and from Barygaza in the gulf of Cambay.[2468] It was well known under the name kunkuma to the earlier Hindu writers.
It was cultivated at Derbend and Ispahan in Persia, and in Transoxania in the 10th century,[2469] whence it is not improbable the plant was carried to China, for according to the Chinese it came thither from the country of the Mahomedans. Chinese writers have recorded that under the Yuen dynasty (.d. 1280-1368), it became the custom to mix Sa-fa-lang (Saffron) with food.[2470]
There is evidence to show that saffron was a cultivated production of Spain[2471] as early as a.d. 961; yet it is not so mentioned, but only as an eastern drug, by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville in the 7th century. As to France, Italy, and Germany, it is commonly said that the saffron crocus was introduced into these countries by the Crusaders. Porchaires, a French nobleman, is stated to have brought some bulbs to Avignon towards the end of the 14th century, and to have commenced the cultivation in the Comtat Venaissin, where it existed down to recent times. About the same time, the growing of saffron is said to have been introduced by the same person into the district of Gâtinais, south of Paris.[2472] At that period, saffron was one of the productions of Cyprus,[2473] with which island France was then, through the princes of Lusignan, particularly related.
During the middle ages, the saffron cultivated at San Gemignano in Tuscany was an important article of exportation to Genoa.[2474] That of Aquila in the Abruzzi was also famous, and used to be distinguished in price-lists till the beginning of the present century; the culture of saffron is still going on there to a small extent.[2475] The growing of saffron in Sicily, which was noticed even by Columella, is carried on to the present day, but the quantity produced is insufficient even for home consumption.[2476] In Germany and Switzerland, where a more rigorous climate must have increased the difficulties of cultivation, the production of saffron was an object of industry in many localities.[2477]
The saffron crocus is said to have been introduced into England during the reign of Edward III. (a.d. 1327-1377).[2478] Two centuries later English saffron was even exported to the Continent, for in a priced list of the spices sold by the apothecaries of the north of France, a.d. 1565-70, mention is made of three sorts of saffron, of which “Safren d’Engleterre” is the most valuable.[2479] It was evidently produced in considerable quantities, for in 1682 we find in the tariff of the “Apotheke” of Celle, Hanover, crocus austriacus optimus, and Crocus communis anglicus.[2480]
In the beginning of the last century (1723-28), the cultivation of saffron was carried on in what is described by a contemporary writer[2481] as—“all that large tract of ground that lies between Saffron Walden and Cambridge, in a circle of about 10 miles diameter.” The same writer remarks that saffron was formerly grown in several other counties of England. The cultivation of the crocus about Saffron Walden, which was in full activity when Norden[2482] wrote in 1594, had ceased in 1768, and about Cambridge at nearly the same time.[2483] Yet the culture must have lingered in a few localities, for in the early part of the present century a little English saffron was still brought every year from Cambridgeshire to London, and sold as a choice drug to those who were willing to pay a high price for it.
Saffron was employed in ancient times to a far greater extent than at the present day. It entered into all sorts of medicines, both internal and external; and it was in common use as a colouring and flavouring ingredient of various dishes for the table,. The drug, from its inevitable costliness, has been liable to sophistication from the earliest times. Both Dioscorides and Pliny refer to the frauds practised on it, the latter remarking—“adulteratur nihil æquè.”
During the middle ages the severest enactments were not only made, but were actually carried into effect, against those who were guilty of sophisticating saffron, or even of possessing the article in an adulterated state. Thus at Pisa, in a.d. 1305, the fundacarii, or keepers of the public warehouses, were required by oath and heavy penalties to denounce the owners of any falsified saffron consigned to their custody.[2484] The Pepperers of London about the same period were also held responsible to check dishonest tampering with saffron.[2485]
In France, an edict of Henry II., of 18th March, 1550, recites the advantages derived from the cultivation of saffron in many parts of the kingdom, and enacts the confiscation and burning of the drug when falsified, and corporal punishment of offenders.[2486]
The authorities in Germany were far more severe. A Safranschau (Saffron inspection) was established at Nuremberg in 1441, in which year 13 lb. of saffron was publicly burnt at the Schönen Brunnen in that city. In 1444, Jobst Findeker was burnt together with his adulterated saffron! And in 1456, Hans Kölbele, Lienhart Frey, and a woman, implicated in falsifying saffron, were buried alive. The Safranschau was still in vigour as late as 1591: but new regulations for the inspection of saffron were passed in 1613.[2487] There was also in the same city a Gewürzschau, or Spice-inspection, from 1441 to 1797. Similar inspections were established in most German towns during the middle ages.