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This is an excerpt from Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen
(Netherlands, ca. 1510 - C. van Tets, trans.)
The original source can be found at Willy Van Cammeren's website

To make a brown pepper. Take bread and toast it well until it is black and take a kettle with water and hung over the fire and a good amount of vinegar therein so that it may become a bit curdled [sour]. When the bread is toasted black take it from the grid and throw it into the kettle which is hanging over the fire and let it become soft. And rye bread is better for this than any other, but white bread is better for sauces. When this bread is soft and tender pass it through a strainer with the same broth from the kettle or with a little vinegar if it cannot all go through. And when it has gone through one shall thin it and let it boil so that it may bind together well. Then one shall take fried onion which has been well fried and softened in browned rape oil and put it in the pepper [i.e. the sauce]. Then let the onion boil with the pepper. One puts a little oil into it, and some [people put] a lot. Then you shall take spices according to how good you want it, and put a lot in. One must take ginger, grains of paradise, and cloves [cleyn cruyt is usually grains of paradise and well as cloves, but grains of paradise is mentioned separately here]. Those who wish to have it good, they take cinnamon, nutmegs [and] mace. Some add pepper. And one shall [grind] these spices with vinegar or with verjuice, or with wine, whichever one wishes to use. Then one shall pour it in and let it boil together so that everything binds together. And then one must lay in roast wethers' legs and geese or hares or other roast [meats]. And when the dish is on plates so one must strew it with cinnamon or with ginger. Thus one makes good pepper. One also puts melted sugar in this.