SC - Re:was sweet spinach tart now Roman bread shape

[Decker, Terry D.]

> I really need to read these threads more carefully; I've obviously
> missed something. I assume (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong)
> that Stefan felt that there wasn't much baking going on in Pompeii in
> the Middle Ages because Pompeii was destroyed in 79 C.E. and, AFAIK,
> never rebuilt. 
> 
True enough.  The cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum disappeared in the
eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE.  The Elder Pliny observed  the eruption from
a vessel in the Bay of Naples, then died of suffocation from the fumes while
taking refuge in Stabia.

The cities weren't rebuilt, but the area became the site for some villages
which still exist, although this may have been after the eruption of 513 CE.

> Pompeii is an entire town frozen in time by catastrophe. Only a true
> cook would call a pair of baker's rings one of the most important finds,
> and for that, Balthazar, I salute you! ;  ) How do the rings indicate
> that the bakers were guild members? (I've seen them, but not recently.)
> Is there something inscribed on them to that effect? If that is the
> case, I can see the point, but otherwise it occurs to me that bakers may
> have been regulated by law as to loaf sizes, weights, etc.
> 
> Adamantius
> 
The rings don't demonstrate that the bakers were members of a guild, but
under Roman law bakers were a very segregated, regulated and powerful caste.
The guild structure was established about 153 BCE.  Bakers were restricted
to their trade and the sons of bakers could only apprentice as bakers,
although there was a very expensive buy-out option..  Because of their
wealth and position, bakers were also limited in political opportunities.
Apparently, these laws were more loosely applied in the provinces than in
Italy proper.

The Roman guild structure appears not to have survived the Empire.  When the
baker's guilds were resurrected in northern Europe between the 11th and 13th
Centuries (best guess) they appear to have been established as organizations
affiliated with churches whose congregations were primarily bakers (as with
London's Worshipful Company of Bakers).

Bear