[Sca-cooks] medieval bread loafs

[Terry Decker]

I'm working from memory here, so I may err.  A "quarter of wheat" is eight
bushels, which mills to about 4 bushels (240 pounds) of flour.  "Common
wheat" is flour straight from the mill.  Treet, cocket ands wastel represent
bread made from increasingly better grades of flour.  Simnel is specialty
bread made from the finest quality of flour.  It represents enriched and
filled breads whose weight will not follow the relationship between the
weight of the wheat and the weight of the loaf.  Each bushel of flour (60
pounds)will have about 15 pounds of middlings.

Bear


>-------
>A 'caste' of bread was either two or three loaves according to
>size, two manchets being reckoned as one loaf.  In this recipe
>there would have been two loaves (four manchets) to the caste,
>each manchet weighing eight ounces.  One hundred manchets could
>be made from one bushel of flour.
>-------
>To get back on subject, the penny loaf was the price of a loaf of bread
>under the Assize of Bread established in 1266.  There were three
>qualities of flour listed and three different weights of loaf.  In terms
>of 17th and 18th century recipes, what is usually meant is the penny
>white loaf (a manchet) which weighed between 6 and 8 ounces.  A wheat or
>brown loaf would weigh 12 to 16 ounces.
>-------
>Well, okay a little of an Assize:
>>From the Assize of Bread and Beer:
>
>"Assisa Panis (Assize of Bread): When a Quarter of Wheat is sold for 12d.,
>then Wastel Bread of a farthing shall weigh =A36 and 16s. But Bread Cocket
of
>a farthing of the same grain and bultel, shall weigh more than Wastel by
2s.
>And Cocket Bread made of grain of lower price, shall weigh more than Wastel
>by 5s. Bread made into a Simnel shall weigh 2s. less than Wastel. Bread
made
>of the whole Wheat shall weigh a Cocket and a half, so that a Cocket shall
>weigh more than a Wastel by 5s. Bread of Treet shall weigh 2 wastels. And
>bread of common wheat shall weigh two great cockets.
>
>When a quarter of wheat is sold for 18d., then wastel bread of a farthing
>white and well-baked shall weigh =A34 10s. 8d...."
>
>The Assize of Bread and Beer was first codified in the 12th Century and
>became fixed in its form in the 14th Century, although changes were made
>from time to time in regards the weights and costs.  It remained in law
>until the 19th Century.
>
>--
>THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
>   Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
>**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****
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