This is the third in a series of posts on the history of French bread. The preceding post was on Gallo-Roman bread. The next installment is on late medieval bread. Further information on bread history can be found on Facebook in the Bread History Lounge.
By the time the Franks – as well as other Germanic groups – began to replace what remained of Roman rule, bread was established as a staple of the diet in Gaul. The Germans themselves may, like the Gauls before them, have favored gruel and flatbreads. But they now ruled over Romans (that is, Gallo-Romans) and the importance of bread in Roman culture had only been strengthened by its ritual importance in Christianity. The upper classes among Germanic groups had already been influenced by Roman models; when Anthimus wrote to the Frankish king Theuderic to eat “well-leavened bread and not unleavened bread... for it if it is not well-risen, it will weigh sufficiently on the stomach,” he expected royal bakers to be able to make such bread. (This also shows that both types of bread were then current.) While various grains were still found in Gaul, bread wheat (and its cousin spelt) had become dominant. (When Anthimus discusses barley, it is as used in gruel and infusions.)
By the time the Franks – as well as other Germanic groups – began to replace what remained of Roman rule, bread was established as a staple of the diet in Gaul. The Germans themselves may, like the Gauls before them, have favored gruel and flatbreads. But they now ruled over Romans (that is, Gallo-Romans) and the importance of bread in Roman culture had only been strengthened by its ritual importance in Christianity. The upper classes among Germanic groups had already been influenced by Roman models; when Anthimus wrote to the Frankish king Theuderic to eat “well-leavened bread and not unleavened bread... for it if it is not well-risen, it will weigh sufficiently on the stomach,” he expected royal bakers to be able to make such bread. (This also shows that both types of bread were then current.) While various grains were still found in Gaul, bread wheat (and its cousin spelt) had become dominant. (When Anthimus discusses barley, it is as used in gruel and infusions.)
The perceptible evolution is plurisecular, it made barley, oats and spelt disappear bit by bit from human consumption.... This to the benefit of greater consumption of wheat. One is surprised at the rapidity with which spelt disappeared from our texts after the Carolingian era where it knew a period of glory that was ultimately ephemeral. The hierarchy ended by establishing itself as follows: wheat, maslin, rye and other breads.
(Comet)
Further changes
would occur over these early centuries.
Maslin was typically a mix of wheat and rye; rye had a low status it
would keep in subsequent centuries, when it was used for the bread of
the poor and servants.
In 794, Charlemagne made what
was probably the first attempt to regulate bread prices in France:
“If
one wants to sell [grain]
as bread, twelve loaves of wheat, each of two pounds, must be given
for one denier... fifteen of rye, of two pounds each, twenty of
barley, of two pounds each, twenty five of oats, of two pounds each.”
The
fact that this mentioned breads made from oats is surprising; in
later centuries, these would be reserved for animals. But in the
tenth century, Ekkehard again mentioned bread made from oats, along
with that made from
wheat, spelt, rye and barley.
Mentions of millet and the closely related panic wheat became rare.
But Charlemagne's Capitulary de
Villis mentions both as fast-day foods, suggesting they
were considered humble alternatives to other grains. However, since neither leaven well, it may be that these were eaten as gruels, or at best flatbreads.
Bread then
could be made from different grains, and also of different qualities;
but otherwise it was only that: “bread”. Lives of saints mention
their eating it (often made with barley and sometimes dipped in ashes
first), lists of rents sometimes include it, Gregory of Tours
mentions it in his history, but it is always only “bread” (or a
“loaf”, since the same word can often mean either).
For more about the early Middle Ages
Feasting with the Franks
The First French Medieval Food
As it happens, one of the rare “close-ups” of
bread to survive from this period comes from a Germanic queen living
in a court with strong Gallo-Roman influence: the queen and saint
Radegund. This gives us some idea of how easy bread could be to make
domestically. In Fortunatus' life of his friend, he says that she
made her own bread which she used to hide under the flado –
that is, the flat cake (though the word would eventually evolve into
“flan”). It had to be, then, flat. She made it out of barley or
rye, showing how humble such grains were then considered. For Lent,
she had a mill brought to her, which would have been a hand-mill.
Larger mills existed – the Salic Law prescribes punishment for
robbing or vandalizing them – though the water mill was still a
relatively new innovation and not yet widespread.
Mentions of
bread say nothing of shape. Leavened bread was very likely spherical,
like the loaves seen on a Roman tomb before this period and in
innumerable images from later centuries. Scattered exceptions may
have been found in the later Carolingian period, when images in some
capital letters in manuscripts show what might just be short but
narrow breads about a foot long, like today's demi-baguette. Another
comes in certain Christian images on mausoleums and in rare
illustrations. This is of a round but not very raised bread lightly
split by a cross. But most often, “bread” in this period probably
refers to spherical or (for larger breads) hermispherical shaped
loaves.
The one actual bread from this period, carbonized like most archeological bread, appears to be about a quarter of one of these larger breads, with a slight curve on the outside and, strangely, a rectangular cut into the interior. The latter may come from successive slices like the one found with this (in a Carolingian silo at Bois d'Orville in the Nineties). (ARCHÉA)
It is extremely rare to find actual images of daily life in this period, but one major exception is the ninth century Utrecht Psalter, which includes a wealth of tiny, but detailed vignettes. What appear to be loaves of bread on one table are low hemispheres with what look like curved flaps coming up from three sides, leaving an approximate triangle (with concave sides) in the middle; this was then marginally more sophisticated than the simple spheres shown in later medieval images.
The one actual bread from this period, carbonized like most archeological bread, appears to be about a quarter of one of these larger breads, with a slight curve on the outside and, strangely, a rectangular cut into the interior. The latter may come from successive slices like the one found with this (in a Carolingian silo at Bois d'Orville in the Nineties). (ARCHÉA)
It is extremely rare to find actual images of daily life in this period, but one major exception is the ninth century Utrecht Psalter, which includes a wealth of tiny, but detailed vignettes. What appear to be loaves of bread on one table are low hemispheres with what look like curved flaps coming up from three sides, leaving an approximate triangle (with concave sides) in the middle; this was then marginally more sophisticated than the simple spheres shown in later medieval images.
We have no
recipes for this early bread, but the fact that it was often given as
rent strongly suggests it was made using the (originally Roman)
sourdough method. Unlike yeast-leavened bread (which quickly grows
stale), sourdough bread can remain edible for a week or more. It is
possible that in some (no doubt northern) regions where beer was the
dominant drink, some bread was still leavened, as by some Gauls,
using brewer's yeast. But that was probably exceptional, if it was
done at all.
Bread made on
the hearth – little more than a fire at this point – and put
under the coals may have been flat, though it is also possible to
bake leavened lumps of dough this way.
And now, the BOOK:
Before the Baguette: The History of French Bread
Also available as an epub : Smashwords ebpub version
Preview on Amazon's "Look Inside"
or take a peek at the Table of Contents here:
Biscuits, blessed
bread and the Host
Though bread overall was described in general
terms, a few specialized breads did exist.
In America today, “biscuit” refers to a soft,
often homemade bread. But the term originally means “twice-cooked”,
and referred to bread which had been rebaked so that it would last
longer. This did not originate in early France; Pliny describes a
sailor's bread – panis nauticus – which was rebaked. Roman
soldiers also had a ration of twice-cooked bread called bucellatum.
The first mention of this in France is in the rule
of St. Columbanus (6th-7th c.), which,
strangely, uses the Greek term for it: paximatio; the monks
are to eat “greens, legumes, flour mixed with water, a little
paximation”. An early ninth century chronicle,
Annales
Mettenses (priores)
or
(Earlier) Annals
of Metz ,
describes
a man attacking people with the pestle used to “break bread up into
the brothers' greens”, showing
that this bread was hardened. (The note that bread was used to flavor the greens is also interesting, and unique.)
A number of sources claim that Abbo used the term
biscoctus in his ninth century chronicle of the
siege of Paris. But this appears to be a mis-parsing of the original
Latin: ut biscocti Danum deferri
for vi sibi scotta Danum deferri. The
specifics of a tithe from 1087 (that is, just before the First
Crusade), specify that the son of the family will give “a biscuit”
(unam biscoctam). This may be the first recorded use of the
term itself (just) before the Crusades; it also suggests that biscuits could be fairly big (as one would expect from one given as a tithe). Otherwise it is clear that
biscuit, in the sense of hardened bread, already existed in the early
Middle Ages. It is likely in fact that it was simply a survival from
Roman times.
In future centuries, at least two breads would be
used in Catholic churches in France. One was pain
bénit,
or “blessed bread”, which by the seventeenth century was a
special bread made, often with eggs and butter, by a congregant to be
blessed and then distributed; the other of course was the Host (the
communion wafer). Both of these appeared in the early Middle Ages,
though under what form is not certain.
Gregory of Tours, in his Book of Miracles,
mentions a “blessed bread” (benedicti panis). He also
tells of a peasant getting bread from his wife and then having it
blessed by a priest, making this bread a eulogy. He also writes, in
his History of Franks, of “eulogies” given to a guest.
These all appear to refer, simply, to normal bread blessed by a
priest, though the term “eulogy” may also at this point have been
used for bread used for communion. The one thing that is established
at this early date is that certain breads began to be assigned a
special role in Catholic practice, even if they were not yet
materially different from day-to-day bread.
Though he does not give a name to it, Knotker the
Stammerer describes a bishop blessing bread for Charlemagne:
Once he asked a bishop for his blessing and he thereupon, after blessing the bread, partook of it first himself and then wanted to give it to the most honourable Charles: who, however, said to him: "You may keep all the bread for yourself"; and much to the bishop's confusion he refused to receive his blessing.
It is not at all clear when a simple piece of
bread, given a blessing, evolved into the special offering of later
centuries, but clearly the concept was established in these early
centuries.
The term oblata originally meant an
offering, but soon came to refer to the Host. An eighth century
account of the burial of St. Cuthbert describes an oblata being
put on his body:
“all
his body washed, a cloth put around his head, a Host set on the holy
chest..."
(toto
corpore lavato, capite sudario circumdato, oblatis super sanctum
pectus positis).
In
578, the Council of Auxerre made one of several attempts to forbid
giving (more
explicitly)
the Eucharist to the dead (non
licet mortuis,
nec eucharistiam
nec osculum tradi).
The Host had originally been ordinary bread, but
evidence now appears of a special wafer – essentially a miniature
waffle – made between two hot irons and marked with specific
religious imagery. A ninth century document records the vision of a
certain Ildefonse (not the famous Ildefonse of Toledo) from 845. This
was of "two wheels, engraved on two irons belonging to a single
bread, made between two irons." These are said to be three
fingers wide. The manuscript includes images of these irons, showing
a variety of Christian monograms and phrases. While later wafers would bear images
as well, this was essentially the wafer as it would exist for
centuries.
With time, the secular version of this would
become the first baked dessert in France, often cited at the end of
medieval meals. Wafers in turn would become the ancestor of other
sweet baked goods; that is, pastries. (The word “pastry” itself
originally referred to food cooked in pastry shells, not sweets.) The
appearance of the communion wafer, then, had extensive implications
for secular baking history.
Public bakers and
trades groups
As Gallo-Roman culture persisted, especially in
the south, urban bakers probably continued to bake and sell bread in
the surviving cities. But, until the end of the Carolingian period,
sources for the period only mention professional bakers in
monasteries and large households. Otherwise, bread was made
domestically. In the south, certainly, this would have been very like
those described by Gregory: some made in ovens and some under hot
coals.
A commonly repeated item claims that Dagobert gave
statutes to the bakers in 630; this however is a myth which can be
traced back to two different sources in 1722. Whether or not public
bakers survived, no written trace exists of them in France for
centuries.
Note that Charlemagne's 794 edict speaks of
selling bread, but does not mention this being done by a specific
profession. It may be that public bakers again existed at this
point, but it is equally possible that the edict was referring to
anyone, even in private households, who chose to make and sell bread.
In 864, his grandson, Charles the Bald, issued the
Edict of Pistres, the first to touch on the question of standard
measures in France. It asks that counts and public officers have
standards available for measures, based on those in his palace, so
that those who “sell baked bread or meat by the piece, or wine by
the sexter cannot adulterate or reduce” what they sell. It then
however focuses on one profession only, going on to say that the
Bishop or the Abbot or the Count in charge will be able to measure
bread from bakers; and if they are found to have false weight or
adulterated goods, they are to be punished. This is very suggestive
of the kind of regulation which would be standard in baking
throughout the later Middle Ages.
This makes it clear that public bakers now
existed. Just before this (831) the monastery of St. Riquier required
the vicus (street or quarter) of bakers associated with the
monastery to provide one hundred loaves of bread a week to the monks.
While this is not yet a reference to a guild, not only were the
bakers grouped in one place, but they must have acted collectively to
share this obligation. This is a rare, if significant, reference of
the kind and concerns a conglomeration associated with a monastery,
not a true city. But it shows that tradespeople acted collectively
before the rebirth of cities and the rise of guilds.
Summary
By the early Middle Ages, then, bread in general
was established as a staple of the French diet. Most was made of
bread wheat or spelt, but also of rye, barley and oats, and more
rarely of millet and panic wheat; emmer and einkorn had essentially
disappeared. While it is possible some bread was still leavened, as
by certain Gauls, with yeast, the fact that breads were often
included in rents meant they were long-lasting and so almost
certainly leavened with sourdough. Little is known about specific
breads, but biscuits and wafers are already documented. Public bakers
are again noted after Charlemagne and there is even evidence they had
begun to act collectively; guilds, however, were some centuries off.
FOR FURTHER READING
For my own English translation: Anthimus, How to Cook an Early French Peacock: De Observatione Ciborum - Roman Foodfor a Frankish King (BilingualSecond Edition)
Capitularia regum Francorum: additae sunt Marculfi monachi et aliorum formulaeveteres et notae doctissimorum virorum ed Etienne Baluze,
Marculfus v1 1677
Lois des Francs contenant la Loi salique et la Loi ripuaire,
ed Isambert (François André, M.), 1828
"Réponse au Cekoidonc de Juin", ARCHÉA: Archéologie en Pays de France
Psalterium Latinum (Utrecht Psalter), Universiteit Utrecht
"Réponse au Cekoidonc de Juin", ARCHÉA: Archéologie en Pays de France
Psalterium Latinum (Utrecht Psalter), Universiteit Utrecht
Pliny
the Elder, Histoire Naturelle, ed, Ajasson de Grandsagne, v14
1832
“Annales Mettenses priores”. Scriptores rerum Germanicarum in usum scholarum separatim editi (SS rer. Germ.)1905
Abbon, Le siège de Paris par les Normands, en 885 et 886, tr N. R. Taranne,...
Glossarium ad scriptores mediæ et infimæ Latinitatis, ed Charles Du Fresne Du Cange (Dominus), Louis-Ant. LePelletier Vol 5 1734
“CXLI - Décima de Choignas, in parochia ecclesiae quae dicitur Rilliacus”, Mémoires de la Société archéologique de Touraine. Série in-8 1872 v22
Patrologiae cursus completus: sive Bibliotheca universalis, ed Migne Second Series vol 80 1850
Einhard and “The Monk of St. Gall”, Early Lives of Charlemagne. 1905
Mémoires de la Société archéologique du Midi de la France, 1872
Freestone, William Herbert, The Sacrament Reserved: A Survey of the Practice of Reserving the Eucharist … 1917
Acta sanctorum ordinis S. Benedicti, in saeculorum classes distributa...,
ed Mabillon 1735
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