So sayeth Plutarch.
Today, we'll talk about salt. A lot of this is taken from Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat's book, A History of Food, which will feature heavily in other articles too -- it is, after all, a kind of bible. I recommend it.
I once tasked myself with writing an article about salt, or specifically the salt trade in medieval France. True to form, I started at the beginning -- the formation of salt deposits (did you know that there's a thick layer of salt beneath the mediterranean sea?) and the rise of Rome.
I'll try not to do that this time. We do need a basic understanding of how salt was manufactured, however, so, in short:
The history of salt precedes the history of mankind. We find salt in the sea, and in salt deposits. Occasionally, we find it in plants. Animals have salt in their blood. Salt occurs everywhere. Overwhelmingly, we've acquired salt from two primary sources, though: sea salt, and terrestrial salt (rock salt or brine springs). A distinction has to be made before we progress further: a
salt-pan is an installation to collect the salt in seawater, and
salt-works is the equivalent for collecting terrestrial salt.
To collect sea salt, you need the proper climate and terrain: a warm sea, plenty of sun, and constant winds. Collecting sea salt is limited to the Mediterranean coasts, the Atlantic coast between Britanny and Ghana, the China Sea's shores, and Madagascar. There are a number of coastal areas in the southern US and Central and South America, too, but they have no impact on France's salt trade.
In Europe, there are salt deposits in eastern France, northern Germany (Lüneburg), the Austrian Alps, and the Carpathians. In Africa, you find it in the subsoil or the surface soil of the Sahara; in Ethiopia and Katanga. China has good salt deposits too.
You can also derive salt from vegetal ash, green plants, or wood (or seaweed, obviously); salt derived from vegetable sources is more potassium than sodium chloride. Halophilus plants such as Coltsfoot, for instance, absorbs sodium from the soil, rather than potassium. The Gauls evaporated saltwater over wood fires, as reported by Pliny, a method that would be replicated later.
The technique of boiling brackish waters was employed by people in Scandinavia, Great Britain, and Ireland until it was cheaper to trade for salt than manufacturing their own. This didn't happen until the end of the Middle Ages, though (I will write about medieval trade later because that is a wonderful thing that not enough people talk about).
The Celts worked the
Hallstatt mines 1000 BC; the archeological finds are well-preserved, showing evidence of trade across Europe and the Middle East.
Salt was only used in food, and as a preservative, until the discovery of chlorine in the late 18th century. Soda (natron), previously manufactured by burning halophilus vegetation, could also be manufactured with regular salt in 1791.
Tell me, would it be possible to live without salt pork? [1]
Emperor Claudius, asking the senate. The senate declared that life would be deprived of one of its greatest delights, were there no salt pork.
And now we, finally, touch on the rise of Rome. The
Via Salaria, the salt road, existed before Rome. Salt merchants came up to the Etrurian plains from the marshes of Ostia, they stopped at the banks of the Tiber, at a staging post that would later become the Eternal City, to exchange salt for the local population's products. Where there is trade, eventually there is a market.
Romans liked their food salty; meat, fish, and vegetables were salted. Cheese was also salted, more than it is today, and so was bread. For bread, salt acts not only as a rising agent, but also to preserve it longer. I will speak on bread stamps (a Roman invention) at a later date, and I
love bread stamps. Not only bread, beer, and wine also had salt added.
The Greeks considered salt a divine gift; and royalty was, also, a divine gift. As monarchies succeeded the Roman empire, salt became the king's prerogative. The first royal document we have concerning the legislation of salt is from the Lombard king Liutprand, issued in 715 BC. It regulates dealings in salt and imposes two taxes: one to be paid by the seller, and one by their customers.
And thus, by way of the Roman empire, we arrive at where we wanted to be: Medieval France. Well, soon.
Salt pans and salt-works on the great feudal estates, both of secular lords and of the Church, made up a large part of their revenues. Monasteries not only ran the rural economy, but they also managed the salt-making operations and distributions over a long period of time. The abbeys and monasteries provided most of the salt supplies of Europe; they bought or produced large quantities, distributed it locally, and sent it elsewhere to sell it.
This would all end by the 13th century.
Between the twelfth and the 13th centuries, the abbeys began to lose their monopolies of the food supply. In the Middle Ages, monasteries and the great dioceses of Arles, Marseilles, Agde, Bèziers, and Maguelonne ceded their rights to the salt-works to the local barons, who in turn became
domini salis, salt lords.
The Baron of Fos acquired the salt-marshes of Fos, Saint-Mitre, and Istres. The Vicomte des Baux took control of Martigues. The free towns of Arles, Toulon, and Hyères became owners of salt-works. The entire area was subject to the Comte de Provence, a vassal
not of the King of France but the Emperor.
Charles of Anjou, who acquired Provence as appanage by marrying the daughter of Raimond Béranger, needed money (a reoccurring theme) to win control of Naples. Frederik Barbarossa gave him his blessing, and Charles bought the whole of his vassals' salt production, at a price fixed by himself so that he could sell it again at a profit. He made a fortune. By the 14th century, the salt from Provence would have competition from the salt of the kingdom of France.
Philippe IV, the Fair, realized that a monopoly system like the counts of Provence had, was exactly what he, too, needed. He, too, was also short on money. Enter the
gabelle.
The
gabelle, deriving from
gabella, from Arabic
qabala, "tribute", was the solution to any monetary issues. Levied arbitrarily, the peasants suffered the most from it, for they got the
grande gabelle. They not only paid more for their salt, but they had to buy it in fixed quantities. Obviously, the clergy, nobles, and other important citizens were exempt; they were
franc-salé, free of the salt tax. The
gabelle was one of the chief causes of the French Rebellion but would survive until 1945, albeit in a diminished form.
Louis X, le Hutin (the Headstrong), set up a corps of royal officers to replace the salt merchants who had found the answer to the salt tax in innumerable forged and fraudulent documents. In 1331 Philippe VI went further and set up salt warehouses, each with its own local area of jurisdiction and the right to fix the official quota that had to be bought. The price of salt was subject to the decree of the king and his delegates, and rose according to the sovereign's needs, which meant all the time. Accordingly when a ransom had to be paid for Jean le Bon, held prisoner in England during the Hundred Years' War, the tax rose to six deniers. From being set at 8 sous under Charles V and 12 under Louis XI, it rose to 21 livres per muid (274 litres) in the time of François I and his italian wars, since he too had to pay a ransom. [2]
Henri II sold exemptions from the tax for immediate cash, and the expense was passed on to the provinces concerned: Poitou, Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois, Périgord, and Limousin. The Béarn paid nothing in tax since it had too many salt springs. Brittany escaped payment until 1675.
Thus, the tax varied between provinces, and even between towns within a province. Such differences create opportunities for contraband;
faux sauniers, dealers in "clandestine salt", dealt in false salt. The real salt belonged to the king. In an effort to prevent contraband, the
gabelle collectors' numbers grew, and in the 17th century, there were 25,000. If the tax didn't bring in enough money, the
salt duty, that is, the required minimum amount to buy (at one point, 3.6kg), was raised. No matter how much salt you actually needed, the duty was what you purchased. This increased fraud. Ordinary people were (obviously) forbidden to sell any salt surplus. To make matters
even worse, the judicial system was encouraged to enforce the tax -- the magistrates' salaries were calculated on the provincial yield of the tax itself, and
informers snitches got a third of the value of the crime reported.
Crime grew. In 1780, according to Necker's
Traité de l'administration des finances de la France, there were 3,700 seizures of salt, 2,300 men were arrested on the roads; 1,800 women, and 6,000 children. 1,100 horses and 50 carts were confiscated. 2,000 were given prison sentences, 300 were sent to the galleys for life.
The people of France, always up for a good rebellion, did so. Frequently. Protests did no good, and every attempt at an uprising provoked ferocious massacres. Rioting in Reims, Dijon, and Rouen in the 15th century, savagely put down. In 1548, civil war broke out in Guyenne, the royal troops were unable to cope with the 40,000 peasants gathered around Cognac and Châteneuf. Routing the soldiers, the peasants seized Saintes and looted it. The entire countryside between Poitiers and Blaye was laid waste. Next, the people of Bordeaux rose. Tristan de Monneins, the head of the administration, was cut to pieces and salted like a pig. The Constable de Montmorency was sent to suppress the rebellion; he set up gallows all over Guyennne. He marched into Bordeaux, disarmed the people, and confiscated all the church bells (I don't know why). Then, he fined the city 200,000 livres, suspended its
parlement for a year, and forced 125 of the more prominent citizens to dig up the remains of Monneins with their bare hands, after which he hanged them (the people, not the hands.. but I suppose the hands hung, too). In 1549, Bordeaux was exempted from the tax, after paying an "indemnity" of 450,000 livres.
The "Peasant's Code", drawn up by the parishes of Brittany, stated that "It is forbidden, on pain of passing under the yoke, to entertain the
gabelle or its children, or to furnish them with food or any other commodity. On the contrary, it is right to shoot at the
gabelle as you would shoot a mad dog." Paris sent 6,000 men against Concameau, Douarnenez, and Audierne. The country was laid waste, and those who were not hanged found themselves rowing the Sun King's galleys.
The
gabelle was abolished in 1790, but Napoleon imposed a tax of two centimes a kilo on it in 1804 (guess the war!), which was maintained until 1945.
I would like to stress that the
gabelle was not an exclusively
French phenomenon. China and India profited more from their salt taxes than their gold mines, according to Pliny. All states have applied taxation of some kind to salt. England forced the American colonists to use only taxed European salt. The abuse of the
gabelle is, though, maybe the worst of its kind.
[1] Alexander Dumas, Dictionary of Cuisine
[2] Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat, A history of Food
