I agree with what the others have said.

Subject: I agree with what the others have said.
Author: Huinesoron
Posted on: 2016-01-05 14:33:00 UTC

If your story desperately requires an intricate knowledge of the trade-networks of late Third Age Middle-earth... then, actually, I'd love to read it, but I don't think it does. ^^

That said, someone asked questions, and you all know what I'm like. ^^

A lot of the answers are 'we don't really know', but since when has that stopped me? I took a few minutes to sketch out the known or inferred trade landscape of Middle-earth:

The first thing to note is that the continent is divided cleanly in two. Gondor and Rohan form a cohesive whole - they have masses of trade up Anduin, and a major road leading from the capital into allied Rohan. With Dol Amroth by the sea and various towns near the mountains, if you're in Gondor and Rohan, you can probably get hold of most things.

But they don't trade with the north. We know how much trouble Boromir had making the crossing at Tharbad - he lost his horse - so there can't be regular trade up the Greenway. So why have I drawn a big red line west of the Misty Mountains?

Saruman. Saruman traded with the Shire, and was interested enough to place spies in Bree. Saruman definitely uses the Greenway (possibly he has a hidden crossing outside Tharbad proper). Given that he doesn't really have much trade with Rohan, he also presumably has economic ties to his neighbours to the west - the Dunlendings who end up in his armies. Isengard is part of the northern economic area; he's not tied into Gondor's trade networks.

So, to the north. Over in the east, we have the trade network laid out in The Hobbit - Mirkwood, Dale, and Dorwinion down by the Sea of Rhun (no, it doesn't come from Bree, I'm afraid). I've included the Iron Hills in that area, since I doubt the dwarves all returned to the Lonely Mountain.

Dwarves are actually a key component of the northern trade network - they cut through the Shire on their way from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills (and later Erebor). They were seen, I vaguely recall, as somewhere between tinkers and peddlers - it's not noted as unusual that Gandalf brings dwarves with him to Bilbo's Party, or that they bring goods with them (though the Dale-marking is unfamiliar to the Shire-folk).

Elves also pass through the Shire, heading to or from the Havens, but they don't do so as traders - they camp out in the hills, and folk like Sam never see them. The Big Folk are known of, but not often seen (though Gandalf didn't get given suspicious glares or anything); we can probably infer some trade with Bree-land, though it seems the hobbits in both regions didn't travel.

In general, the Shire is a pretty insular economy - they have a strong tradition of re-use (see: mathoms), and until Saruman stuck his nose in, there's no indication that they had much new stuff. It was all just... well cared-for.

Bree-land is basically a farming region; it probably sprang up around the Prancing Pony and the Forsaken Inn (a day's ride east of Bree), as a stopover point for dwarves from the Blue Mountains (but it did so waaaaay back in the Second Age). I suspect the main trade pattern is: Barliman buys from the farmers, the farmers buy from travellers (and each other), travellers stay with Barley. The 'product' is food and rest, not anything exciting.

Rivendell isn't on the trade-map: one of the most subtle charges against Clbr_n is that it has traders coming to Elrond's hidden valley refuge. Yeah, no. Elves go there, and Rangers; other folks don't.

Moving on to your specific questions now, keeping in mind everything I've said above:

Salt probably comes from dwarvish mines in the Blue Mountains. There's no trade with the South, and the Havens don't seem to trade. So Sam might've bought a little every time a party of dwarves came through (there's a ficlet for you).

Money is one we've looked at recently, in the Boozonomics thread. Gondorian currency features two coin names, the castar and the tharni. The tharni is worth a quarter of the castar, and is also used to mean 'farthing' (as in East-, West-, South-), so what we have is coin names for 'penny' and 'farthing'. (These are the Westron names; in Sindarin, they're mirian and canath.)

It's a reasonable guess that Gondorian money is the same as Arnorian - they were economically connected, and words like 'penny' aren't going to diverge too much when the language itself - Westron - remains cohesive. So Barliman's silver pennies were castar. Per <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mzkG-ImZWhzOdFJLYEmgazNjOMu-qdu0yMLNZ2phik/edit?usp=sharing">the Booze Standard spreadsheet, I've estimated them as being worth about £65, or somewhere between $70 and $90 (this is buying power, so the difference isn't the same as our exchange rate).

That makes a silver farthing worth about £15, which is far too high for the smallest currency unit - and silver is a precious metal anyway. Since a) I vaguely know that some old currencies had the same coin struck in different metals (for different values), and b) copper is a common metal for cheap currency, having copper pennies and farthings seems reasonable. Per the spreadsheet, copper is worth about 1/12 the value of silver (in the real world); given that Elves like the number 12, and Tolkien grew up with a system of 12 pennies to the shilling, 12 copper pennies to the silver penny works quite nicely. (This puts a copper farthing somewhere around the price of a drink in an inn, so yeah.)

The actual coins are probably a mix of different things - some Gondorian, some old Arnorian (probably the gold), possibly Isengard coinage, some dwarf- or even hobbit-minted coins. Barter would probably have been used in a lot of situations - rangers aren't going to be carrying much cash around, and Gaffer Proudfoot isn't going to force Gammer Bucklebey to scrape together some coins to buy potatoes when she can just promise him some of her eggs next time the hens lay some.

The Shire Post has a gorgeous line of Middle-earth coins, for what it's worth. They're not based on anything in the book (hilariously, they've turned the silver penny into a silver shilling, so they don't even have that!) but they're very nice. I have some. ^^

Paper is easy to make from wood pulp; I think it's fairly common. Bilbo was able to acquire a diary after setting off after the dwarves with nothing, for instance, and I think the majority of hobbits were literate (in the cirth, not the tengwar). Bree... well, if you say Barley was unusual, I'll accept that! Bree, Archet, Combe, and Staddle were basically inhabited by farmers, so they didn't need to read.

Bree-land's government is unknown. Bill Ferney doesn't get arrested for his assumed part in letting the horses out, so perhaps it's 'rule by the strong'. If Bree is a market-town for the other villages, it could be the leading merchants who run things. It's not the Rangers of Arnor - they're viewed as suspicious.

Sugar and spices... well, honey is a good source of sweetener if you don't have access to actual sugar. Do you have a quote for the spices? I can't think of anything, but if it's there, then I'd guess at Dorwinion, by way of Erebor. Maybe dwarves like curry. ^^

I think that covers most of it? And will take a few days to read? :D

hS

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The economy of M-e (also known as: where did they get salt?) by Alleb on 2016-01-05 01:38:00 UTC Reply

So I'm writing a Tenth Walker, and after wandering in the South Downs for a few days she winds up in Bree. She spends several months there, learning Westron and such, and I want to paint a realistic picture of the area, but it's hard due to lack of canon and some really odd details.

For example: salt. The books say that Sam had a little box of it that he "replenished when he could," but where on earth did he get salt? There's no mention of salt mines that I know of, and it's apparently common enough for a gardener to keep a box of it, so where does it come from? Is there ongoing salt trade with the Grey Havens, drying salt water and collecting the brine? Are there Haradrim merchants, or Gondorian salt mines?

Another example: money. "Penny-pieces" are mentioned in the first chapter, Bill Ferny's price for Bill was twelve silver pennies, and Butterbur offered Merry eighteen pence, but that's probably Tolkien "Anglicizing" everything for us. So what is this currency, and where did it come from? I've heard of a Gondorian coinage somewhere in the backstory, but it's unlikely those kinds of coins are abundant-- or even present --in Bree. Could they be old Arnorian coins? Does Eriador operate primarily on a barter system? Gold is some sort of standard, apparently, but even to well-off Mr. Butterbur "thirty silver pennies was a sore blow." So do they use silver? Could the dwarves mint coins for them? Such question. Much fanon. Wow, Tolkien Doge.

And what about paper and books? There's some paper in Bree (unless Gandalf wrote his letter elsewhere), but how common is it? Literacy is unusual (Butterbur is somewhat proud of his ability to read, if I remember correctly), so that's a bit of a clue. Which reminds me of something: How is Bree governed? The Shire has an elected mayor, but Bree has no clear leader. Is it all common law? Is there a mayor figure? Is there a sort of "board" of important men in town who decide these things? What about justice? So many questions.

There's also other things, like sugar (blackberry tarts and birthday cakes, man) and spices. Is there any trade between Bree and other places, like the Shire, Rohan, or even Gondor? The book says that the Men of Bree were familiar with Elves (and all other races); does that insinuate trade between them and Rivendell, or Mirkwood (random off the cuff headcanon: Bree is the producer of Dorwinion wine)? What does Bree produce (if anything) that would merit trade, and if they don't have anything, where do they get the rest of their stuff?

Perhaps all of these questions have been answered in the text and I didn't notice; if not, I'd really appreciate some input.

-Alleb

I agree with what the others have said. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-05 14:33:00 UTC Reply

If your story desperately requires an intricate knowledge of the trade-networks of late Third Age Middle-earth... then, actually, I'd love to read it, but I don't think it does. ^^

That said, someone asked questions, and you all know what I'm like. ^^

A lot of the answers are 'we don't really know', but since when has that stopped me? I took a few minutes to sketch out the known or inferred trade landscape of Middle-earth:

The first thing to note is that the continent is divided cleanly in two. Gondor and Rohan form a cohesive whole - they have masses of trade up Anduin, and a major road leading from the capital into allied Rohan. With Dol Amroth by the sea and various towns near the mountains, if you're in Gondor and Rohan, you can probably get hold of most things.

But they don't trade with the north. We know how much trouble Boromir had making the crossing at Tharbad - he lost his horse - so there can't be regular trade up the Greenway. So why have I drawn a big red line west of the Misty Mountains?

Saruman. Saruman traded with the Shire, and was interested enough to place spies in Bree. Saruman definitely uses the Greenway (possibly he has a hidden crossing outside Tharbad proper). Given that he doesn't really have much trade with Rohan, he also presumably has economic ties to his neighbours to the west - the Dunlendings who end up in his armies. Isengard is part of the northern economic area; he's not tied into Gondor's trade networks.

So, to the north. Over in the east, we have the trade network laid out in The Hobbit - Mirkwood, Dale, and Dorwinion down by the Sea of Rhun (no, it doesn't come from Bree, I'm afraid). I've included the Iron Hills in that area, since I doubt the dwarves all returned to the Lonely Mountain.

Dwarves are actually a key component of the northern trade network - they cut through the Shire on their way from the Blue Mountains to the Iron Hills (and later Erebor). They were seen, I vaguely recall, as somewhere between tinkers and peddlers - it's not noted as unusual that Gandalf brings dwarves with him to Bilbo's Party, or that they bring goods with them (though the Dale-marking is unfamiliar to the Shire-folk).

Elves also pass through the Shire, heading to or from the Havens, but they don't do so as traders - they camp out in the hills, and folk like Sam never see them. The Big Folk are known of, but not often seen (though Gandalf didn't get given suspicious glares or anything); we can probably infer some trade with Bree-land, though it seems the hobbits in both regions didn't travel.

In general, the Shire is a pretty insular economy - they have a strong tradition of re-use (see: mathoms), and until Saruman stuck his nose in, there's no indication that they had much new stuff. It was all just... well cared-for.

Bree-land is basically a farming region; it probably sprang up around the Prancing Pony and the Forsaken Inn (a day's ride east of Bree), as a stopover point for dwarves from the Blue Mountains (but it did so waaaaay back in the Second Age). I suspect the main trade pattern is: Barliman buys from the farmers, the farmers buy from travellers (and each other), travellers stay with Barley. The 'product' is food and rest, not anything exciting.

Rivendell isn't on the trade-map: one of the most subtle charges against Clbr_n is that it has traders coming to Elrond's hidden valley refuge. Yeah, no. Elves go there, and Rangers; other folks don't.

Moving on to your specific questions now, keeping in mind everything I've said above:

Salt probably comes from dwarvish mines in the Blue Mountains. There's no trade with the South, and the Havens don't seem to trade. So Sam might've bought a little every time a party of dwarves came through (there's a ficlet for you).

Money is one we've looked at recently, in the Boozonomics thread. Gondorian currency features two coin names, the castar and the tharni. The tharni is worth a quarter of the castar, and is also used to mean 'farthing' (as in East-, West-, South-), so what we have is coin names for 'penny' and 'farthing'. (These are the Westron names; in Sindarin, they're mirian and canath.)

It's a reasonable guess that Gondorian money is the same as Arnorian - they were economically connected, and words like 'penny' aren't going to diverge too much when the language itself - Westron - remains cohesive. So Barliman's silver pennies were castar. Per <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mzkG-ImZWhzOdFJLYEmgazNjOMu-qdu0yMLNZ2phik/edit?usp=sharing">the Booze Standard spreadsheet, I've estimated them as being worth about £65, or somewhere between $70 and $90 (this is buying power, so the difference isn't the same as our exchange rate).

That makes a silver farthing worth about £15, which is far too high for the smallest currency unit - and silver is a precious metal anyway. Since a) I vaguely know that some old currencies had the same coin struck in different metals (for different values), and b) copper is a common metal for cheap currency, having copper pennies and farthings seems reasonable. Per the spreadsheet, copper is worth about 1/12 the value of silver (in the real world); given that Elves like the number 12, and Tolkien grew up with a system of 12 pennies to the shilling, 12 copper pennies to the silver penny works quite nicely. (This puts a copper farthing somewhere around the price of a drink in an inn, so yeah.)

The actual coins are probably a mix of different things - some Gondorian, some old Arnorian (probably the gold), possibly Isengard coinage, some dwarf- or even hobbit-minted coins. Barter would probably have been used in a lot of situations - rangers aren't going to be carrying much cash around, and Gaffer Proudfoot isn't going to force Gammer Bucklebey to scrape together some coins to buy potatoes when she can just promise him some of her eggs next time the hens lay some.

The Shire Post has a gorgeous line of Middle-earth coins, for what it's worth. They're not based on anything in the book (hilariously, they've turned the silver penny into a silver shilling, so they don't even have that!) but they're very nice. I have some. ^^

Paper is easy to make from wood pulp; I think it's fairly common. Bilbo was able to acquire a diary after setting off after the dwarves with nothing, for instance, and I think the majority of hobbits were literate (in the cirth, not the tengwar). Bree... well, if you say Barley was unusual, I'll accept that! Bree, Archet, Combe, and Staddle were basically inhabited by farmers, so they didn't need to read.

Bree-land's government is unknown. Bill Ferney doesn't get arrested for his assumed part in letting the horses out, so perhaps it's 'rule by the strong'. If Bree is a market-town for the other villages, it could be the leading merchants who run things. It's not the Rangers of Arnor - they're viewed as suspicious.

Sugar and spices... well, honey is a good source of sweetener if you don't have access to actual sugar. Do you have a quote for the spices? I can't think of anything, but if it's there, then I'd guess at Dorwinion, by way of Erebor. Maybe dwarves like curry. ^^

I think that covers most of it? And will take a few days to read? :D

hS

It probably doesn't, but I'm a sucker for details. by Alleb on 2016-01-06 02:24:00 UTC Reply

Like I mentioned to Scape, having a foundation of general knowledge will be awesome while I'm writing. And, who knows: if Amy is dropped off early enough before Stuff Happens, she might travel with some traders along that network. Plenty of interesting opportunities with that! In fact, it would help tie up a loose end I've been having trouble with... Hmm... I'll think about this a little more.

Anyway, yay, answers! :D Thank you!

Ah, that's where Dorwinion is. For some reason, I thought it was unknown.

This trade route is very handy-- thank you! It gives me some interesting opportunities with travel pre-Quest.

Salt: Excellent! The more I thought about it the more it bugged me, and I had completely forgotten about the Blue Mountains (I used to think I knew a lot about M-e. Used to).

Money: Yus, coins! Arguably the most important question of the lot. It's especially awesome to have Westron names for them.

Paper: Also something that bugged me, for some reason. About literacy-- at a total guess, how many Gondorian citizens would you say are literate (and do we have any population guesses)? I would say all of the upper class, including merchants and such, are literate, but most of the lower-class is not.

Government: "Rule by the strong" sounds a little harsh, especially considering how the Bree-landers are described as "cheerful and independent." A head merchant being something of a leader sounds better. I could also imagine the Bree-landers having no formal government, as it's a very small population, or just a circle of family heads to keep things in order.

Sugar and Spice (and everything nice): I'm getting rather obsessive by this point (not any earlier, of course. No siree). Honey as a sweetener is probably the best choice, and spices was more of a "Do they have spices? If so, how?" kind of question; I have no quotes. Dwarves liking curry seems oddly fitting, though.

I believe that was all! I'll probably come up with something else out of left field soon, of course. Thanks again, hS! Your knowledge (and the ability to put up with my incessant questions) never fails to impress me.

-Alleb

Another map, of spices. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-06 12:14:00 UTC Reply

I've based this on a random map of the centres of origins of various spices. Obviously, some plants will spread naturally to adjacent areas, while others will be cultivated (herbs in the Shire, for instance). Partly I guess this is going to depend on the evolutionary age of the plant - it looks like onions spread to the New World, while things like cinnamon have stayed very local.

I've also noted key locations in red, and hypothetical trade routes in blue. And so:

The base map is the Second Age one from the Atlas of Middle-earth. It's largely based on Tolkien's Ambarkanta map, which you can see low down here; it's wildly outdated, but it's the best we have.

Apparently both Saffron and Cumin are Med plants - I figured they were both Indian, but there you go. Basil, on the other hand, is from Indonesia.

I've speculated that the far-eastern spices are unknown on the mainland. Neither Sauron nor Morgoth have ever had much to do with the sea (the Corsairs are part-Numenorean), so I doubt the Dark Lord set up oceanic trade routes. Those spices might still be available, though - the Numenoreans would have visited way back in the Second Age, and they might be cultivatable in Numenor and Umbar. That's dubious, though.

The Indian spices are a bit of a coin toss. Would they be shipped to Umbar, or not? That depends how much of a free hand you think Sauron will give his subjects.

And one thing I don't think is available in the west: poppies. Some breeds of poppy can be used to make opium. Do you really think Sauron would let a drug that can make people dependent on him out into the wild? Nah-uh. He's keeping that for himself, and using it to create spies.

hS

I'm so glad I asked about this. ^_^ by Alleb on 2016-01-06 21:51:00 UTC Reply

There's something awesome about learning/hypothesizing about the littlest details.

With the trade routes: Is it assumed that, say, capers went to Umbar, up to Ithilien, and finally into the Shire, or are they meant to stop in Umbar?

Now I want to write about the life of a spice merchant in Middle-earth. ~~I've gone too deep.~~

-Alleb

Depends on the timeframe. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-07 11:12:00 UTC Reply

If there's relative peace between Gondor and Harad, or if Gondor has a secure hold on South Gondor, then there's probably trade all the way up (though, as before, after the fall of Arthedain, there's not much going from Gondor to Arnor). There is a road on the map of Gondor called the Harad Road, which crosses the Poros in southern Ithilien; it connects to Pelargir, in the centre of Gondor.

But in times when the lands south of the river are under Sauronic/Umbarian/Haradrin control? I doubt there's a whooole lot of trade going on. (All three of those adjectives are made up, by the way.)

hS

Got it. by Alleb on 2016-01-08 13:40:00 UTC Reply

Thank you again! You're awesome, hS.

-Alleb

Too deep? This is Tolkien. Don't talk rot. =] (nm) by Scapegrace on 2016-01-06 23:26:00 UTC Reply

That's true! XD by Alleb on 2016-01-08 13:46:00 UTC Reply

Man, I used to think I was quite knowledgeable when it came to Middle-earth. "I know what the Valar are!" I said to myself. "That makes me a super-fan!"

Yeah. Not so much.

Also, totally OT, your message has given me an idea for a new disease in a world I'm building-- talk rot. It ravages the throat and vocal chords, making it impossible to speak once the disease has run its course-- your talk literally rots away. So... thanks!

-Alleb

That's a really interesting thing! by Scapegrace on 2016-01-08 15:14:00 UTC Reply

Oooh, is it fungal? The sufferer's vocal cords blistering and oozing infected pus as the strangling tendrils of the plant take hold, the poor unfortunates cries for help wheezing into a slow silence, the only sound they make the wracking coughs as they choke up gobbets of cracked, blackened, half-dead vegetable matter, the root system crawling out of the mouth, leaving the victim one final, prone, asphyxiated husk as the storm-cloud of wretched, twisted parasite bursts forth from within...

And leaves, protruding tumourously from the mouths of the dead, the most beautiful, sweetest-smelling flower in the kingdom, whose blood-red blossoms seem to sing in the passing breeze...

...

Well then. That went a bit ham. Whoops.

Can I use that? by Alleb on 2016-01-11 02:44:00 UTC Reply

Because it's awesome and I love it. I could even have one country build its economy on talk rot, infecting criminals and harvesting the flowers— yes, I like this. Especially since my main character is rather naive, so she might go on about what a nice place this is and how everyone is so friendly, and my, what pretty flowers they have! Then she learns the truth and never looks at flowers the same way again.

Excellent.

-Alleb

Of course you can! I'm flattered that you'd even ask. =] by Scapegrace on 2016-01-11 11:02:00 UTC Reply

Something that might help is to look up forms of trial by ordeal (in which one determines the guilt of a party by, er, making them do something unpleasant), but the one that really springs to mind is tangena. This is a Madagascan traditional form of trial by ordeal in which one ingests a really quite unfathomably poisonous tangena nut. After a brief pause, the accused was then fed three pieces of chicken skin; if they were all successfully puked up, then you were innocent, and if you managed to keep it down (or died horribly in the process) you were guilty and in need of correctional measures. Which, particularly during the reign of Ranavalona I, generally meant decapitation.

Now, the reason I bring it up is because in Malagasy culture, the tangena ordeal was thought to be absolutely infallible to the point where the innocent would actually ask to go through it. If your main character is an ingenue, and she's from this culture, then that might be an excellent reveal as to how talk rot works in-universe. Hope that's helpful! =]

Thank you! by Alleb on 2016-01-13 11:58:00 UTC Reply

It's an incredibly striking image; I can't wait to use it.

Ooh, yes, trial by ordeal. I'd heard about that before, particularly the method where the accused picks up a red-hot iron bar and carries it a certain distance. If his hands don't get infected (good luck with that, Englishmen in the days before basic hygiene) then he's innocent. If they do, well, there's your answer. History was brutal.

I'm not sure if this is what you meant, exactly, but that gives me the idea of my main character (Susan, at the moment, but this story has only just begun so it could change) accidentally signing up to be infected. It would be kind of like selling yourself into indentured servitude to help your family, but, you know, without the whole "living" bit. She might actually get infected, forcing her companions to break into one of the most dangerous courts in the world to get the antidote. Which would be pretty fun to write.

Also, ingenue-- excellent word for Susan. And just an excellent word.

-Alleb

A quick question on spices: by Scapegrace on 2016-01-05 15:28:00 UTC Reply

Back in the day, I was working on my own Tenth Walker fic involving a Haradrim Walker who'd been sent to deliver information to Gandalf by Morinehtar... and arrived shortly after the flight from Moria. His timing was, as might be inferred, absolutely impeccable. Something I thought about was this idea that the Haradrim were similar to the Berber nations, and that they were traders in spice - or at least they would be if the Northrons would sit down and listen for five seconds rather than stab them with bits of pointy metal. A recurring phrase in the plan I cobbled together (and, let me be clear, entirely invented) was "Haradrim give no gifts", and that therefore Amro, son of Artax, would give a small, beautifully carved ivory box of some random spice plant or another's seeds to Galadriel in return for whatever gift the Lady of the Wood gave to him.

Now, I know this is entirely fictitious, but a) would that be feasible given what little we know of Harad in the Third Age, and b) what kind of spices would we expect to find in Middle-Earth at this time, particularly ones to the south. I just thought it might be an interesting thought experiment, is all. =]

Jumping from economics to herb-lore. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-05 16:23:00 UTC Reply

a) 'Given what little we know' is an understatement! The fact that the Baynes map actually told me a significant new fact about Harad (that it has camels) is a massive hint at just how little we know. And they're under Sauron's thumb, of course...

I would say that yes, given the implied deserts, nomadic traders would be viable. If Umbar serves a useful purpose for Sauron, he needs people to cart stuff back and forth to it - and it's just plain easier to piggyback an extant trade network than to enslave one of your own.

There's probably some border-trade in South Gondor - the region south of Anduin; we already know it's a 'debatable land', which sounds very much like mingling. I imagine the tall folk of Minas Tirith turn something of a blind eye to it (putting it down as 'intelligence gathering' while tucking into their spiced cakes or whatever...). But yeah, anyone from Harad wandering into the North is likely to be greeted with stabs a'plenty.

As for specifically moving spices... hmm. See below.

b) Now you've got me researching the spice trade. ^_^ 'Spices' as we know them come from, broadly speaking, India and the Middle-east. They do not come from Africa - the spice trade through Africa seems to have come about because Alexandria served as a spice-port. So your traders would be taking spices from Khand (south-east of Mordor) and the lands beyond it, and moving them to western Harad - the urban centre of Umbar.

But what would they be? I'm going to run through this randomly-chosen list of 'basic spices' to answer that.

-Bay leaves: from the Bay Laurel. Mediterranean, so could grow in South Gondor or southern Ithilien, and possibly Dorwinion.
-Black pepper: native to southern Asia. Would have to travel long distances, and bypass Mordor. Unlikely to be available - I suspect Sauron would stop the traders at his borders, rather than bothering to send them through.
-Cayenne pepper: a New World plant. While they could be a Numenorean import (see: tomatoes, potatoes), their warm climate requirement suggests to me they probably wouldn't grow in the wild - and given the state of the world in the Third Age, it's unlikely there are cultivated samples around.
-Chili powder: ditto.
-Cinammon: a bark of Indian origin. Quite possible this could be traded through Khand to Umbar.
-Cloves: native to Indonesia. As with pepper, unlikely to make it past Mordor.
-Cream of tartar: forms in wine casks, so Dorwinion or Gondor are perfect.
-Cumin: native to the Middle-east, ie, Khand and the lands south of Mordor. This one definitely makes it to Umbar, and is probably found (rarely) growing in South Gondor.
-Curry powder: a blend of spices from India. The varieties we know wouldn't exist, but some form of this would probably wander into Harad.
-Ginger: comes from China. As with the rest of the South Asian spices, I consider this unlikely.
-Kosher salt: well, it's salt. Mines or sea-salt, you can get it.
-Nutmeg: Actual nutmeg is Indonesian, but there's a lesser variety from India. The latter could make it to Harad; rumours of 'super-nutmeg' might prompt tiny portions of the former to follow (or, more likely, normal stuff they /claim/ is the good variety...).
-Oregano: a relative of mint (as are things like marjoram), which probably grows wild across Middle-earth. Certainly around Ithilien and Dorwinion.
-Paprika: New-World chili derivative. No chance.
-Crushed red pepper: as above.
-Rosemary: Mediterranean, so wild-growing in Ithilien.
-Sesame seeds: These are African! If you live in Umbar and want to make your food more interesting, sesame is the way to go.
-Thyme: another Med plant, so head to Ithilien. Sam chose a good place to start demanding herbs, didn't he?
-Vanilla extract: New-World, and symbiotic with a particular bee to boot. Even less chance than the rest.

Basically: herbs, yes. Indian/Mid-eastern spices, possible by way of Harad. South Asian/Chinese/Indonesian spices, no chance. And if in doubt, err on the side of 'Sauron thinks you're wasting your time with these frivolous flavourings - it's not like He needs to eat, anyway!'.

hS

Random thought. by Neshomeh on 2016-01-06 05:20:00 UTC Reply

The Númenoreans sailed around the world before getting kicked off their island. Couldn't they have picked up and then cultivated some exotic herbs and spices? Could Gondor have greenhouses? Could some imports be running wild in Arnor?

Also, Sam was after bay leaves, thyme, and sage in Ithilien. Therefore, we know Middle-earth has to have those, and moreover, that they're available in the Shire and probably Bree. If he can get those, he can probably get other things that come from the same regions, too.

And, what herbs are indigenous to England? Safe bet they've got those in the Shire and Bree.

... Okay, that ended up being three thoughts. Whatever.

~Neshomeh

Gardens. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-06 09:38:00 UTC Reply

I forgot about gardens. ^_^ Since the Shire was once part of Arnor, which was in a firm trading relationship with Gondor, it makes perfect sense that Ithilien/Mediterranean herbs (thyme, bay, maybe sage as well) would've been available there way back - and given the nature of hobbits, and the fact that the Shire has never been a war-zone, it makes equally perfect sense that they would've continued as cultivated and garden plants.

This page suggests the ten best herbs for growing in containers (in Britain); they all look pretty plausible. It's kind of hard to find out what's strictly native, because we've been importing things for two thousand years; apparently they include primrose, ground ivy, and myrtle.

Jumping back to the first couple of questions: the Numenoreans sailed north and south, but this was before the changing of the world. They definitely can't have picked up any New World plants (unless they did it in the brief period when they claim to have sailed right around the world at the start of the Third Age), and it's not very clear how much of the Far East existed at the time. It's possible that they could've brought spices and spice-plants to Numenor... but unless Elendil thought them important enough to rescue, they would've died with the island.

Actually, the place where they might have survived is Umbar - it's southerly enough that tropical plants could survive there, and it was populated by Kings' Men, who would've seen their luxuries as important. But Umbar has almost always been hostile to Gondor... and has been razed several times. I don't think Gondor would have cultivated Far Eastern spices (and I don't think they had the technology for greenhouses).

Though I am now imagining a story about The Last Cinnamon Tree, planted in a garden somewhere in Umbar, watching the various events around it - and finally burning in one of the sieges and sackings of the city...

hS

Technology? by Neshomeh on 2016-01-07 00:05:00 UTC Reply

What do you need for a greenhouse besides glass? I can well imagine that glass would be a rare commodity, but surely they knew how to make it? ... Maybe not anymore, as of late in the Third Age, but it seems like the sort of thing Elves might have taught them, doesn't it?

~Neshomeh

Well, glass. by Huinesoron on 2016-01-07 09:56:00 UTC Reply

Do we have evidence of glassmaking in Middle-earth? I know Vingilot was remade using 'elven-glass', which phrase was used by Bilbo (who therefore must know what (elven-)glass is), but is there anything else? I mostly recall crystal - which is what I would guess was used for Vingilot.

The best place to look would probably be the Shire. Hmm... the windows of Bag-End? I'm getting an implication of no glass:

After a while Gandalf got up, closed the shutters outside the window, and drew the curtains. The room became dark and silent, though the clack of Sam’s shears, now nearer to the windows, could still be heard faintly from the garden.

Gandalf closes shutters and curtains, but no mention of glass - they can still hear the shears, and he's still able to drag Sam in through the window later.

A rather more direct approach: how often is the word 'glass' used in the text of LotR? Well, there's 13 in Fellowship:

Four instances in the Shire:

sometimes, after a glass or two, [Bilbo] would allude to the absurd adventures of his mysterious journey

[Frodo] got up and drained his own glass silently to the health of Bilbo, and slipped out of the pavilion.

not a penny-piece or a glass bead was given away.

said Frodo, as he drained his glass.

One dream of Frodo's:

growing stronger to turn the veil all to glass and silver

One description of the river:

there was a distant glint like pale glass where the Brandywine River made a great loop

A couple in Rivendell:

He may become like a glass filled with a clear light for eyes to see that can.'

you have seen a thing or two since you last peeped out of a looking-glass

Two in Bilbo's poem:

where keen the air, where pale as glass

of mithril and of elven-glass

Two in Moria:

its black walls, polished and smooth as glass

'Mithril! All folk desired it. It could be beaten like copper, and polished like glass'

And one glass window, by way of Galadriel:

She shone like a window of glass upon a far hill in the westering sun

So you're right: plate glass exists, but is rare. Frodo compares the Dead Marshes to a dirty glass window (one of 18 instances in TTT, alongside descriptions of the palantir and the star-glass). Gimli compares the surface of the pools beneath the Hornburg to glass. And... that's it. There's nothing relevant in the 8 RotK instances (except yet another instance of crystal-as-glass - the green stone Aragorn wears).

So: plate-glass exists. It's common enough that (if we assume the narrator is speaking Frodo's thoughts) Frodo has seen it dirty. But no-one seems to have any.

Regardless, though: would Gondorian greenhouses have survived the various wars and plagues to sweep the country? I'd guess not, but I don't know for sure.

hS

Hang on a tick. by Scapegrace on 2016-01-06 16:43:00 UTC Reply

There's at least a few things that require a vaguely warm climate that you get from the New World. So, the question is this: where did pipe-weed come from? Or does the differentiation between varieties imply tobacco is... native... to the Shire...

Hey, hS, old mucker, d'you recall that crackpot theory that Middle-Earth is Mesoamerican? =]

Aw, yeah, that nutty idea. ^_^ by Huinesoron on 2016-01-07 11:28:00 UTC Reply

There are three New World plants which we know grow in the Shire: potatoes, tomatoes, and pipe-weed. We also know pipe-weed grows wild in Gondor, but that Hobbits are the only people who cultivate it.

That's actually more significant than it sounds: Hobbits were the first people to see pipe-weed as anything other than a weed, so why would it've been brought from Numenor/the New Lands? Tomatoes and potatoes, yes. A weed? Unlikely.

And tobacco is a warm-climate plant: see this map for where it was grown in the '30s. You can juuuust about grow it in northern Europe, but I doubt it's easy. The fact that it grew wild in the Shire suggests that it may well be native.

... assuming that pipe-weed is actually tobacco. The genus Nicotiana includes species native to southern Africa and south Asia as well. If we step up to the entirety of Solanaceae - aka the Nightshades, which also includes taters and tomatoes! - we get a global distribution. Many of them produce alkaloids, of which nicotine is one; lots of them are poisonous (belladonna!), but some take longer to kill you (y'know, nicotine).

It's a bit of a coincidence that the three New World plants all come from the same family. Could it be that 'tomato', 'potato', and 'pipe-weed' are just three varieties of Old World Solanum which have been bred to be non-toxic and (in the case of pipe-weed) to contain a stimulant alkaloid? Could they even have originally been one and the same plant, which was carefully bred into different forms by over-eager hobbits?

hS

And that actually fits with what we already know! by Scapegrace on 2016-01-07 17:12:00 UTC Reply

Belladonna Took was Bilbo's mum, if memory serves. So that's interesting, and at least partially implies that the plant was used for the same thing - belladonna's name, if you didn't know, comes from the habit in Renaissance Italian high society of its berries being crushed up and the juices dripped into a woman's eyes to give an attractive wide-eyed look.

Also, it's prolly worth mentioning that potatoes were originally grown for their flowers in Europe before it was established you could use them as basically the best root crop in the history of ever (seriously, the potato completely changed the face of European history, at least in part because you couldn't destroy crops of it that easily during the campaigning season), which is fair enough because they're really rather pretty. So yeah, new headcanon: potatoes, tomatoes, and pipe-weed are all much more closely related.

While hS I am not... by Scapegrace on 2016-01-05 13:32:00 UTC Reply

I can answer with a bit of World One knowledge.

See, mining for rock salt isn't the only way to get it; the Bunyoro trading empire was built on the Kibiro salt industry, and that was based around panning for it in Lake Albert. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Mannish kingdoms near the sea, Dol Amroth being probably the most likely example, traded heavily in salt as a luxury.

However, the biggest thing to remember is this: how does it advance the narrative to explain in exhaustive detail the trade network of Eriador and Middle-Earth in general? I mean, Tolkien did like to wander off on discussions of stuff, but he's hardly Victor Hugo; his was a legendarium of tales and songs and the oldest, oldest stories, not a complete history of absolutely everything that went on. Remember that Tolkien's work was written long before the idea of "history from below" as codified by E.P. Thompson, and (and this is total guesswork on my part) I doubt very much that the Professor would have given so much as the time of day to Marxist historians like Thompson, Hobsbawm, et al.

However, don't let this discourage you. I'm sure hS can fill in the details - after all, he found the Gondorian coinage you mention (the castar and the tharni) and his Numenorean flying ironclads - but ultimately it comes down to this. If you can plausibly leap to it from stuff in the text after a close reading, then you're probably fine. =]

Interesting! by Alleb on 2016-01-06 00:19:00 UTC Reply

Did you learn that from Civ as well? I should start playing those games; they seem really interesting.

...You know, I never thought I'd ever give consideration to sources of salt in M-e and the economic impacts thereof.

With advancing the narrative: I'm trying to get the general flavor of Bree, and economics are a big part of that. For example, is everyone excited when a peddler's wagon comes through, or is it a fairly regular occurrence? What materials do the Bree-landers have on hand? What's scarce and what's common? Some of that will inevitably be fanon and best guesses, of course, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to ask the experts.

Like I told EvilAI, I think, for the most part, it will come through in small scenes or one-liners. Little points that make Bree seem more permanent and solid-- that's a big thing I'm going for. I want to build a pretty solid foundation of background info to draw on, even if I don't use all of it.

Plus, I'm personally curious about these things. Worldbuilding, ftw!

-Alleb

Off Topic Question by [EvilAI]UBEROverlord on 2016-01-05 05:45:00 UTC Reply

I'll let one of the resident experts answer the question, but I would like to pose one for you. I understand what you are trying to do, it can always add to a story, but it can bog down the story as well. So my question is, for your story to work, do you really need all that extra? I only ask, because it brings to mind Moby Dick. One of the biggest issue many readers have is the fact that a large chunk of the story is less fiction and more Whaling Treatise. Many readers might have trouble if you go too deeply into the details on something like that.

Of course if you think it works and won't bog down your readers, by all means go for it.

I hadn't really thought about that. by Alleb on 2016-01-05 23:17:00 UTC Reply

Thank you for asking: it's a very good question. Yeesh, yes, I remember the Whaling Treatise bits. Very dull. I'll do my best to avoid that-- mostly, I want Bree to seem like Amy's home, so that when she leaves it's not like leaving some random town. Some of the questions were just me being curious, though: after all, where did they get that salt? I've recently been working on worldbuilding, so that kind of inquiry has been on my mind.

I think a lot of it will boil down to one-liners or small scenes: The arrival of a peddler, or Amy missing/appreciating salt; things like that. But thank you again-- I'll beware the Info Dump.

-Alleb