As one of the oldest street names in the Old Town, Pfeffergasse (Pepper Lane) is first mentioned in 1399; the present-day form Pfefferstadt (Pepper Street) has been in regular use since 1581.

In the Middle Ages, with its fondness for strongly spiced food and drink, pepper was an important and much sought-after commodity. However -- at least in the territory of the Teutonic Order -- one should not think primarily of Indian pepper. Rather, it refers to Turkish pepper or paprika, whose cultivation the Order had brought from Silesia to Prussia and which frequently had to be paid as rent from rural properties. The price ratios compared to other goods suggest that the pepper traded in Danzig was not a costly colonial spice but a domestic product, and the street was named after its storage sites.

At the end of Pfefferstadt, roughly where today's Strasse am Jakobstor meets it, stood the Corpus Christi Gate of the Old Town wall, named after the hospital located outside. It was later incorporated into the Bastion Heiliger Leichnam (Holy Corpse). The section of Pfefferstadt from this bastion to the Kassubischer Markt is called Ziezausche or Ziessausche Gasse on 18th-century maps -- a designation derived from a personal name that fell out of use in 1900, when the bastion was leveled and Pfefferstadt was extended through to Hansaplatz.

The bridge over the Radaune Canal at the opposite end of Pfefferstadt was called the Brotbrücke (Bread Bridge) in 1480. Today the street's name translates as Spice Lane.

History