The reason the eastern luxuries Were expensive.

reasons that eastern luxuries were expensive because it cost a lot of money to produce them and it was used to dignify status. Luxury goods are said to have high income elasticity of demand: as people become wealthier

They were expensive because they were rare in the west. They were rare, because the ways to bring them were a very long, dangerous and otherwise expensive trade routes, either through central Asia or through the Indian and Arabic peninsula coast, and later (after Vasco da Gama) around Africa.