The transport factor in medieval food commerce: economy and consumptions between 14th and 15th century

The food history surveys normally focused in particular on three different stages of the “food cycle”: production, cooking and consumption (feast and table). However, between them, there is an invisible but crucial fil rouge that link them all: the transport phase. The archivist sources about food transport are not common, but recently I have found a large number of unpublished duty registers in the State Archive of Bologna, related to an international commerce. They cover a remarkable period of time (1388-1448) and testify an important foodstuff commerce from the East to the Northern Europe, passing through Italian peninsula, where Bologna played a strategic role for foodstuffs sorting and shipping. Their analysis may offer several information about the market demand of certain foods and spices, and therefore new and precise data about what were the most requested and (probably) consumed food between 14th and 15th century.