Good evening and thank you for joining me for another boring books for bedtime.

I hope tonight's election provides all the boredom your busy brain needs to quiet down and let you get

some sleep.

So find a comfortable spot, adjust your volume.

Take a nice deep breath in. let it out slowly, and off we go. Tonight let's return to a deliciously relaxing book, The History of Bread,

From Prehistoric to Modern Times

by John Ashton

First published in 1904

by the Religious Tract Society of London.

Let's pick up right where we left off some time ago toward the end of Chapter 7, Early English Bread. Let's begin. Much early legislation was passed regarding

bakers in their calling, but in spite of it all, some

bakers did not amend their ways, and an amusing grievance was made by Fabian as to their punishment.

In his Chronicles, under date of 1268, and speaking of the harshness of Sir Hugh beguad,

Justice, he says,

In process of time after, the said Sir Hugh with others

came to Guild Hall and kept his court and pleas there without all order of

law and contrary to the liberties of the city, and there punished the bakers for lack of size by the tumbrel, where before times they were punished by the pillory, and ordering many things at his will more than by any good order of law.

And Hollinshead repeats the story. Nor were the misdeeds confined to their trade, as we may learn from

the archives of the city of London. In fact, their evil deeds were so notorious that the king himself had to take cognizance of them.

That the bakers wanted looking after is well evidenced by extracts from the city archives.

In AD 1298, it is said, be it remembered that on Wednesday next after the Feast of St. Lawrence,

August 10th, in the 26th year of the reign of King Edward, Juliana, the year of the reign of King Edward.

...