The History of Bread From Pre-historic to Modern Times

The bread now used is common wheaten bread in most Protestant Churches. In some Presbyterian Churches a special kind of wafer is prepared for the purpose. In the Roman Church thin wafers are used. In the Eastern Churches they are of different sizes and thicknesses.

They are thus classified by the Rev. F. E. Brightman in Liturgies Eastern:

1. Byzantine; a round leavened cake 5 × 2 in., stamped with a square (2 in.); itself divided by a cross into four squares in which are severally inscribed IC, XC, NI, KA.

2. The Syrian Jacobite and Syrian Uniat; a round cake, leavened with the holy leaven, 3 × 3/4, stamped like a wheel with four diameters (the alternate radii being cut off half way from the circumference by a concentric circle).

3. The Marionite; the Latin unleavened wafer.

4. The Coptic; a round leavened cake, 3-1/2 × 3/4, stamped round the edge with the legend, Αγιος ο θεος, αγιος ισχυρος, αγιος αθανατος, and within with a cross consisting of twelve little squares, each of which and the remaining spandrels are marked with a little cross placed diagonally.

5. The Abyssinian; a flat round leavened cake, 4 × 3/4, stamped with a cross of nine squares with four squares added in the angles of the cross.

6. The Nestorian; a round leavened cake, 2 × 1/2, stamped with a cross-crosslet and four small crosses.

7. The Armenian; a round unleavened wafer, 3 × 1/8, stamped with an ornamental border, the crucifix and the sacred name and sometimes with two diameters at right angles to the back.

In regard to the Protestant Non-Episcopal Churches, it is stated in Herzog’s Religious Encyclopædia that the administration follows one of two types. These are the Lutheran and the Calvinistic. In the Lutheran, the elements are consecrated with the sign of the cross, a wafer of unleavened bread is given whole to the communicant, and white wine, instead of red, is used. The communicants kneel and receive the elements into their mouths instead of their hands. The Calvinistic type simplifies the service as much as possible, and assimilates it to a common meal. ‘In the French Reformed Church the elements are placed – the bread in two silver dishes, and the wine in two silver cups – on a table spread with a white linen cloth. From twenty-five to thirty communicants approach the table at a time. The officiating minister makes a free prayer, and then, while repeating the words of institution, presents the elements to his neighbours on the left and on the right, after which the dish and the cup pass from hand to hand. With various modifications this type has been adopted by all the Reformed (Non-Episcopal) Churches.’

This is practically the method adopted in most of the British Non-Episcopal Churches; instead, however, of the communicants coming forward to the table, they remain in their pews, the bread and wine being handed round by elders or deacons. In the American Non-Episcopal Churches the same plan is usually adopted.

These divergencies of method illustrate the strange fact in the Christian life, that around the simple and beautiful institution of the Lord’s Supper there have raged the fiercest controversies in religious history. So divergent are the views held about it, that the Roman Catholic Church asserts that in every celebration of the Mass our Saviour is again actually offered as a sacrifice, and the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of the Lord, this miracle of transformation being wrought through the consecrating prayer of the priest. The Quakers, at the other extreme, do not observe the service at all, and do not consider it to be a binding ordinance. Here, as so often in life, the truth lies between the extremes. The bread and the wine are the symbols of our Lord’s body and blood. We do not feed on Him by the mere physical eating of the consecrated elements, but we partake of Him through faith as we remember that His body was broken for us, and His blood shed for the remission of our sins. His own loving command as He sat at the table with His disciples was, ‘This do in remembrance of Me,’ and it is through fellowship with Him in spirit – in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the cross at Calvary – that ‘we feed on Him in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving.’

There is a semi-sacred bread eaten by the English race, and by no one else – the hot-cross bun – millions of which are devoured in England on Good Friday. Its origin is obscure, as is also that of the word ‘bun.’ Most dictionaries derive it from the old French bigne, or bugne– a swelling; but it certainly occurs in an early Promptorium Parvulorum, as ‘bunne-brede.’ Anent ‘Eating Buns on Good Friday,’ a correspondent in the Athenæum of April 4, 1857, p. 144, wrote:

‘In the Museo Lapidario of the Vatican, on the Christian side of it, and not far off from the door leading into the library, there is a tablet representing in a rude manner the miracle of the five barley loaves. Every visitor must have seen it, for it has been there for years. The loaves are round, like cakes, and have a cross upon them, such as our cakes bear, which are broken and eaten on Good Friday morning, symbolical of the sacrifice of the body of our Lord. Five of these cakes, explanatory of the scene, are ranged beneath an arch-shaped table, at which recline five people, while another, with a basket full, is occupied in serving them. The cakes are so significant of the Bread of Life that one might almost regard the repast as intended to prefigure the sacrifice that was to follow, and the institution connected with it. Having, from the earliest period of memory, cherished a particular regard for hot-cross buns and all their pleasing associations, it was a source of gratifying reflection to see my old favourites thus brought into intimate association with the pious thoughts of the primitive Christians, and to know that at home we cherished an ancient usage on Good Friday which the more Catholic nations of Europe no longer observed. But, alas! there is always some drawback to our full satisfaction in this world, and knowledge is often a cruel dissipation of favourite convictions; my faith in the Christian biography of these buns has recently received a very rude shock.

‘It would appear that they have descended to us, not from any Popish practice, as some pious souls affirm, but from one which was actually, and, like the word which we use to signify the great festival of the Church, Easter, to a paganism as ancient as the worship of Astarte, in honour of whom, about the time of the Passover, our pagan ancestors, the Saxons, baked and offered up a particular kind of cake. We read in Jeremiah (vii. 17, 18): “Seest thou not what they do in the cities of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem? The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the Queen of Heaven.” [See also Jeremiah xliv. 18, 19.] Dr. Stukeley, in his Medallic History of Valerius Carausius, remarks that they were “assiduous to knead the Easter cakes for her service.” The worship of a Queen of Heaven, under some significant name or other, was an almost universal practice, and exists still in various parts of the globe. She is usually represented, like the Madonna, bearing her son in her lap, or like Isis, with the infant Horus. We may see such images in the Louvre, and in the great Ethnographical Museum at Copenhagen, where the Queen of Heaven of the Chinese, Tien-how, figures in white porcelain, side by side with Schling-mu, the Holy Mother. Certain metaphysical ideas are apt to flow in a common channel, and get clothed in the same symbolical dress. Hence we find a Queen of Heaven, no less in Mexico than in China, in Egypt, Greece, Italy, and England; and, under the pagan title of a Christian festival, preserve, along with our buns, the memorial of her ancient reign.’

CHAPTER XIII

GINGER BREAD AND CHARITY BREAD

But there is a bread which must not escape notice – a true bread – although somewhat sweet and spiced. When it was first introduced into England no one can tell, but it was well known in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, for Shakespeare, in Love’s Labour Lost (Act V., S. 1), makes Costard say: ‘An I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread.’ And we find it used in a similar way to the educational biscuits of the present day; for Matthew Prior, in his Alma says:

‘To Master John, the English maidA horn-book gives, of gingerbread;And, that the child may learn the better,As he can name, he eats the letter.’

It was made with honey, before the introduction of sugar, and must be of remote antiquity and intimately allied to our friend the Bous. The Rhodians made bread with honey which was so pleasant that it was eaten as cake after dinner. The German gingerbread and the French pain d’épice used both to be made with honey. The use of gingerbread is widely spread, and wherever it is eaten it is popular, even in the far East Indies, where both natives and Anglo-Indians rejoice in it. In Holland it is in more request than in any other country in Europe, and the recipe for its manufacture is guarded as a jealous secret and descends as an heirloom from father to son.

In its early days gingerbread was an unleavened cake, and the first attempt to make it light was to introduce pearl-ash or potash; afterwards alum was introduced, now it is made of ordinary fermented dough, or with carbonate of ammonia. When well made, gingerbread will last good for years; but if not well made, and of good materials, it will last no time, but will get soft with the first damp weather. Such was the stuff sold at fairs – both thick gingerbread and nuts – booths being erected for the sale of nothing else. The background of these booths was ornamented by gingerbread crowns, kings and queens, cocks, etc., dazzlingly resplendent with pseudo gold leaf, or, as it was then called, ‘Dutch metal.’ I do not think that anybody ever ate any of these works of art, I think they were solely for ornament; and, when combined with bows and streamers of bright-coloured ribbons, they made the gingerbread booths the most attractive in the fair.

In the last century it was a great institution, and Swift, writing to Stella, says: ‘’Tis a loss you are not here, to partake of three weeks’ frost, and eat gingerbread in a booth by a fire on the Thames.’ There was a famous itinerant vendor of this article named Ford, but who was more generally known as ‘Tiddy Diddy Doll,’ from a song he used to sing whose words were but those. He flourished in the middle of last century, and Hogarth painted him in one of the scenes of ‘Industry and Idleness,’ where the idle apprentice is going to his doom.

Hone, in his Every Day Book, vol. i., p. 375, etc., gives a very good account of Ford. He says: ‘This celebrated vendor of gingerbread, from his eccentricity of character, and extensive dealings in his way, was always hailed as the king of itinerant tradesmen.17 In his person he was tall, well made, and his features handsome. He affected to dress like a person of rank – white and gold suit of clothes, laced ruffled shirt, laced hat and feathers, white silk stockings, with the addition of a fine white apron. Among his harangues to gain customers, take this as a specimen: ‘Mary, Mary, where are you now, Mary? I live, when I am at home, at the second house in Little Ball Street, two steps underground, with a wiscum, riscum, and a why-not. Walk in, ladies and gentlemen, my shop is on the second floor backwards, with a brass knocker at the door. Here’s your nice gingerbread, your spice gingerbread; it will melt in your mouth like a red-hot brick-bat, and rumble in your inside like Punch and his wheel-barrow.’… For many years (and perhaps at present) allusion was made to his name, as thus: ‘You are so fine, you look like Tiddy Doll. You are as tawdry as Tiddy Doll. You are quite Tiddy Doll,’ etc.

But there is a use for badly-made gingerbread which perhaps some of us do not know – a gingerbread barometer. It is nothing more than the figure of a General made of gingerbread, which Clavette buys every year at the Place du Trone. When he gets home he hangs his purchase on a nail. You know the effect of the atmosphere on gingerbread; the slightest moisture renders it soft; in dry weather, on the contrary, it grows hard and tough. Every morning, on going out, Clavette asks his servant, ‘What does the General say?’ The man forthwith applies his thumb to the figure, and replies, ‘The General feels flabby about the chest; you’d better take your umbrella!’ On the other hand, when the symptoms are hard and unyielding, our worthy colleague sallies forth in his new hat.

A curious use of dough, somewhat sweetened, was made at Christmas, when it was manufactured into Yule doughs, or dows, or Yule babies, small images like dolls with currants for eyes, intended probably to represent the infant Jesus, which were presented by bakers to the children of their customers. Another Christmas custom connected with dough used to obtain in Wiltshire, where a hollow loaf, containing an apple, and ornamented on the top with the head of a cock or a dragon, with currant eyes, and made of paste, was baked, and put by a child’s bedside on Christmas morning to be eaten before breakfast. This was called a Cop-a-loaf, or Cop-loaf.

Much land in England was held by tenure, in which bread plays a part, as the following instances out of many will show.18

Apelderham, Sussex. – John Aylemer holds by court roll one messuage and one yard [thirty acres] land… And he ought to find at three reap days, in autumn, every day, two men, and was to have for each of the said men, on every of such reap days, viz., on each of the two first days, one loaf of wheat and barley mixed, weighing eighteen pounds of wax, every loaf to be of the price of a penny farthing; and at the third reap day each man was to have a loaf of the same weight, all of wheat, of the price of a penny halfpenny.

Chakedon, Oxon. – Every mower on this manor was to have a loaf of the price of a halfpenny, besides other things.

Glastonbury, Somerset. – In the thirty-third year of Edward I., William Pasturell held twelve ox-gangs of land there from the abbot, by service of finding a cook in the kitchen of the said abbot and a baker for the bakehouse.

Hallaton, Leicester. – A piece of land was bequeathed to the use and advantage of the rector, who was there to provide ‘two hare pies, a quantity of ale, and two dozen of penny loaves, to be scrambled for on Easter Monday annually.’

Lenneston or Loston, Devon. – Geoffrey de Alba-Marlia held this hamlet of the King, rendering therefore to the King, as often as he should hunt in the Forest of Dartmoor, one loaf of oat bread of the value of half a farthing, and three barbed arrows, feathered with peacock’s feathers, and fixed in the aforesaid loaf.

Liston, Essex. – In the forty-first year of Edward III., Nan, the wife of William Leston, held the manor of Overhall, in this parish, by the service of paying for, bringing in, and placing of five wafers before the King, as he sits at dinner, upon the day of his coronation.

Twickenham, Middlesex. – There was an ancient custom here of dividing two great cakes in the church among the young people on Easter Day; but, it being looked upon as a superstitious relic, it was ordered by Parliament, in 1645, that the parishioners should forbear that custom, and instead thereof buy loaves of bread for the poor of the parish with the money that should have bought the cakes. It is probable that the cakes were bought at the vicar’s expense; for it appears that the sum of one pound per annum is still charged upon the vicarage for the purpose of buying penny loaves for poor children on the Thursday before Easter. Within the memory of man they were thrown from the church steeple to be scrambled for.

Wells, Dorset. – Richard de Wells held this manor ever since the Conquest by the service of being baker to our Lord the King.

Witham, Essex. – By an inquisition made in the reign of Henry III., it appears that one Geoffrey de Lyston held land at Witham by the service of carrying flour to make wafers on the King’s birthday, whenever his Majesty was in the Kingdom.

Of bread, as given away in charity or by dole, the examples in England are almost numberless; still a few somewhat redeemed from common place, and extracted from the Report on Charities, may interest the reader.19

Assington, Suffolk. – John Winterflood, by will dated April 2, 1593, gave to the poor of Assington four bushels of meslin (wheat and rye) payable out of the manor of Aveley Hall, to be distributed in bread at Christmas; and four bushels of meslin, out of the rectory or priory of Assington, to be distributed in bread at Easter; and under this donation four bushels of wheat are brought to Assington Church and distributed among the poor at Christmas, and the like quantity of wheat at Easter.

St. Bartholomew by the Exchange, London. – Several benefactors have given bread to the poor of this parish. Richard Crowshaw, goldsmith, by will, April 26, 1531, directed that 100l. should be paid to provide 2s. weekly for ever, to be laid out in good cheese, to be delivered to the poor parishioners of this parish, according as they received the bread, which then was and had been long given them.

Another bread and cheese charity still obtains in the village of Biddenden, Kent, about four miles from Tenterden; and it is noticeable on account of the tradition which assigns its foundation to a lusus naturæ similar to the Siamese twins of our day. The founders of the charity, according to tradition, were Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, who were born in 1100, and lived together, joined at hips and shoulders, for 34 years. To perpetuate their memory, biscuits, measuring 3-1/2 in. by 2 in. and about 1/4 in. thick, are made and distributed with the dole of bread on Easter Sunday. On these biscuits is stamped a rude representation of the ‘Biddenden Maids.’ There are two moulds, one made of beech-wood, judging from the twins’ costume of commode, or cap, and laced bodice, dates from the time of William and Mary or Anne; the other, which is of boxwood, although an attempted copy, is undoubtedly more modern. The writer has the biscuits, and with them came the following paper, headed by a rough woodcut:

‘A short and concise history of Eliza and Mary Chulkhurst, who were both joined together by the hips and shoulders, in the year of our Lord 1100, at Biddenden, in the County of Kent, commonly called “The Biddenden Maids.”’

The reader will observe by the plate that they lived together in the above state 34 years, at the expiration of which time one of them was taken ill, and in a short time died; the surviving one was advised to be separated from the body of her deceased sister by dissection, but she absolutely refused the separation by saying these words, ‘As we came together we will also go together’; and in the space of about six hours after her sister’s decease she was taken ill and died also.

By their will they bequeathed to the churchwardens of the parish of Biddenden and their successor churchwardens, for ever, certain pieces or parcels of land in the parish of Biddenden, containing 20 acres, more or less, which are now let at 40 guineas per annum. There are usually made, in commemoration of these wonderful phenomena of Nature, about 1000 rolls (sic) with their impressions printed on them, and given away to all strangers on Easter Sunday, after Divine Service in the afternoon; also about 500 quartern loaves, and cheese in proportion, to all the poor inhabitants of the said parish.

Hasted, in his History of the County of Kent (edit. 1790, Vol. III., p. 66), says, with regard to this benefaction: ‘There is a vulgar tradition in these parts that the figures on the cakes represent the donors of this gift, being two women – twins – who were joined together in their bodies, and lived together so till they were between 20 and 30 years of age. But this seems without foundation. The truth seems to be that it was the gift of two maidens of the name of Preston, and that the print of the women on the cakes has only taken place within these 50 years, and was made to represent two poor widows, as the general objects of a charitable benefaction. William Horner, rector of this parish, in 1656, brought a suit in the Exchequer for the recovery of these lands, as having been given for an augmentation of his glebe land; but he was nonsuited.’

CHAPTER XIV

BREAD RIOTS

Bread riots are of comparatively modern date. In the olden days people suffered from scarcity, but they suffered without making senseless riots. There was no Free Trade in corn, and the people had to depend upon home-grown cereals; so that in times of drought or failure of crops they felt the pinch terribly. True, they had a certain amount of protection against overcharge and combination in the form of the Assize of Bread, which, while it gave the baker a working profit, gave the consumer the benefit of a sliding-scale according to the market value of wheat.

It is not worth while going very far back to write the history of hard times and how they were met; a hundred years is quite long enough for retrospect. Suffice it, then, that the years 1795-96 were years of great scarcity, and all classes, from the peasant to the King, felt it, and met it like men. To cope with this dearth, the best way seemed to them to diminish, as far as possible, the use of wheaten flour, and to provide substitutes therefor. The King set his subjects a good example.

‘His Majesty has given orders for the bread used in his household to be made of meal and rye mixed. No other sort is permitted to be baked, and the royal family eat bread of the same quality as their servants do. It is extremely sweet and palatable.

‘One half flour, and half potatoes, also make a very excellent bread.’ (Times, July 22, 1795.)

‘The writer of this paragraph has seen the bread that is eaten at his Majesty’s table. It consists of two sorts only, the one composed of wheaten flour and rye mixed; the other is half wheaten flour, half potato flour. If ever example deserved imitation, it is this.’ (Times, July 30, 1795.)

People were requested to discontinue the use of hair powder, which was made of starch obtained from wheat, and very many did so; in fact, this movement extended to the Army, for we read in the Times, Feb. 10, 1795: ‘In consequence of the scarcity of wheat, arising partly from such quantities of it being used for hair powder, several regiments have, very patriotically, discontinued the use of hair powder, which, in these instances, was generally nothing but flour.’

Potatoes came very much to the fore as a substitute for wheat, and the Parliamentary Board of Agriculture proposed a premium of one thousand pounds to the person who would grow the largest breadth of potatoes on lands never before applied to the culture of that plant.

The City authorities watched the bakers narrowly as to short weight and amerced them 5s. per ounce short, one man having to pay, with costs, £106 5s. on 420 ounces deficient in weight. Wheat in August, 1795, was 13s. 6d. per bushel, and the price of the quartern loaf should then have been 1s. 6d., as it was 1s. 3d. in January, 1796, when wheat was 11s. 6d. per bushel. It fell rapidly after harvest and in December, 1796, was 7s. 4d. per bushel. It must be remembered that money then had twice its present value.

In 1800 there was another scarcity, and in February of that year a Bill passed into law which enacted ‘That it shall not be lawful for any baker, or other person, or persons, residing within the cities of London and Westminster, and the Bills of Mortality, and within ten miles of the Royal Exchange, after the 26th day of February, 1800, or residing in any part of Great Britain after the 4th day of March, 1800, to sell, or offer to expose for sale, any bread, until the same shall have been baked 24 hours at the least.’

The average price of wheat this year was 14s. 1d. per bushel, and in July, just before harvest, it rose to 16s. 10d. or 134s. 8d. per quarter, and other provisions were very dear. The people were less patient than in 1795-6, and in August and September several riots took place at Birmingham, Oxford, Nottingham, Coventry, Norwich, Stamford, Portsmouth, Sheffield, Worcester, and many other places. The markets were interrupted, and the populace compelled the farmers, etc., to sell their provisions at a low price.