used for their bread, wheat, spelt, barley and durra (sorghum). In the opinion of Dr Wallis Budge, barley was in Egypt the grain of most primitive culture. However that may be, it is certain that even in ancient Egypt white bread made from wheat was used by the rich. The form of the bread is revealed by ancient monuments. A common shape was a small, round loaf, something like the muffin of to-day. Other loaves were elongated rolls, and curiously enough were sprinkled on the top with seeds like modern Vienna bread.
The history of baking in classical Greece and Italy can be clearly traced. Athenaeus in his Deipnosophists minutely describes many different kinds of bread, which may be assumed to have been currently used in Greece. According to Pliny (Nat. Hist, xviii. II. § 28) Rome had no public bakers till after the war with Perseus (171-168 B.C.). That long after public bakehouses came into use the Romans and other urban dwellers in Italy continued to make a great deal of bread at home is certain. In Pompeii several private houses had their own mill and bakehouse. That city must also have possessed bakers by trade, as loaves of bread have been found, round in form, and stamped with the maker’s name, possibly to fix responsibility for weight and purity. In the time of the Republic, public bakehouses were under the control of the aediles. Grain was delivered to the public granaries by the Saccarii, while another body called Catabolenses distributed the grain to the bakers. The latter were known as Pistores or “pounders,” a reminiscence no doubt of the primitive time when grain was pounded by a pestle in a mortar. Slaves were largely employed in the irksome work of grinding, and when Constantine abolished slavery the staff of the pistrinae was largely recruited from criminals. The emperor Trajan incorporated about A.D. 100 the college of Pistores (millers and bakers), but its members were employers, not operatives. The work of a bakery is depicted in a set of bas-reliefs on the tomb of a master Pistor named Eurysaces, who flourished about a century before the foundation of the college. Here the grain is being brought and paid for; mills driven by horse and ass (or mule) power are busy; men are sieving out the bran from the flour by hand (bolters); bakers are moulding loaves on a board; an oven of domelike shape is being charged by means of a shovel (peel); and baskets of bread are being weighed on the one hand and carried off on men’s backs on the other.
Regulation of Sale.—In the middle ages bakers were subjected to special regulations in all European lands. These regulations were supposed to be conceived in the interests of bread consumers, and no doubt were intended to secure fair dealing on the part of bread vendors. The legislators appear, however, to have been unduly biased against the baker, who was often beset by harassing restrictions. Bakers were formed into gilds, which were under the control, not only of their own officials, but of the municipality. In London the bakers formed a brotherhood as early as 1155, and were incorporated in 1307. There were two distinct corporate bodies concerned with bread-making, the Company of White Bakers and the Company of Brown Bakers; these were nominally united in 1509, but the union did not become complete till the middle of the 17th century. In Austria, bakers who offended against police regulations respecting the sale of bread were liable, until comparatively recent times, to fine, imprisonment and even corporal punishment. In Turkey the lot of the baker was very hard. Baron de Tott, writing of Constantinople in the 18th century, says that it was usual, when bread went to famine prices, to hang a baker or two. He would have us believe that it was the custom of master bakers to keep a second hand, who, in consideration of a small increase of his weekly wage, was willing to appear before the cadi in case a victim were wanted. A barbarous punishment, inflicted in Turkey and in Egypt on bakers who sold light or adulterated bread, consisted in nailing the culprit by his ear to the door-post of his shop. In France a decree of 1863 relieved bakers from many of the restrictions under which they previously suffered, but it did not touch the powers of the municipalities to regulate the quality and sale of bread. It left them the right conferred in 1791, to enforce the taxe du pain, the object of which was to prevent bakers from increasing the price of bread beyond a point justified by the price of the raw materials; but the right was exercised on their own responsibility, subject to appeal to higher authorities, and by a circular issued in 1863 they were invited to abolish this taxe officielle. In places where it exists it is fixed every week or fortnight, according to the average price of grain in the local markets.
In England an act of parliament was passed in 1266 for regulating the price of bread by a public assize, and that system continued in operation till 1822 in the case of the city of London, and till 1836 for the rest of the country. The price of bread was determined by adding a certain sum to the price of every quarter of flour, to cover the baker’s expenses and profit; and for the sum so arrived at tradesmen were required to bake and sell eighty quartern loaves or a like proportion of other sizes, which it was reckoned each quarter of flour ought to yield. The acts now regulating the manufacture and sale of bread in Great Britain are one of 1822 (Sale of Bread in the City of London and within 10 m. of the Royal Exchange), and the Bread Act of 1836, as to sale of bread beyond 10 m. of the Royal Exchange. The acts require that bread shall be sold by weight, and in no other manner, under a penalty not exceeding forty shillings. This does not, however, mean that a seller is bound to sell at any particular weight; the words quartern and half-quartern, though commonly used and taken to indicate a 4-℔ and 2-℔ loaf respectively, have no legal sanction. That is to say, a baker is not bound to sell a loaf weighing either 4 ℔ or 2; all he has to do, when a customer asks for a loaf, is to put one on the scale, weigh it, and declare the weight. When bread is sold over the counter it is usual for the vendor to cut off and tender a piece of bread to make up any deficiency in the loaf. This is known as the “overweight.” There is little doubt the somewhat misty wording of the bread acts lends itself to a good deal of fraudulent dealing. For instance, when bread is sold over the counter, two loaves may be 5 or 6 oz. short, while the piece of makeweight may not reach an ounce. The customer sees the bread put on the scale, but in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred does not trouble to verify the weight, and unless he expressly asks for 2 ℔ or some specific weight of bread, it is very doubtful whether the seller, having satisfied the letter of the law by placing the bread on the scales, could be convicted of fraud. The provision as to selling by weight does not apply to fancy bread and rolls. No exact definition of “fancy bread” has ever been laid down, and it must be largely a question of fact in each particular case. All bakers or sellers of bread must use avoirdupois weight, and must provide, in a conspicuous place in the shop, beams, scales and weights, in order that all bread there sold may from time to time be weighed in the presence of the purchaser. The penalty for using any other weight than avoirdupois is a sum not exceeding £5 nor less than forty shillings, and for failing to provide beams and scales a sum not exceeding £5. Also every baker and seller of bread, delivering by cart or other conveyance, must be provided with scales and weights for weighing bread; but since the Weights and Measures Act 1889, no penalty is incurred by omission to weigh, unless there has been a request on the part of the purchaser. The acts also define precisely what ingredients may be employed in the manufacture of bread, and impose a penalty not exceeding £10 nor less than £5 for the adulteration of bread. (See further under Adulteration.)
Although the act of 1836 extends to the whole of the United Kingdom (Ireland excepted) out of the city of London and beyond 10 m. of the Royal Exchange, yet in many Scottish burghs this act is replaced by local acts on the sale of bread. These are in all cases of a much more stringent nature, requiring all batch or household bread to be stamped with the reputed weight. Any deficiency within a certain time from the withdrawal of the bread from the oven is an offence. The London County Council desired to introduce a similar system into the area under their jurisdiction, and promoted a bill to that effect in 1905, but it fell through. The bill was opposed not only by the National Association of Master Bakers, the London Master
