In Russell’s “Book of Nurture,” composed about 1450, it occurs as an ingredient in hippocras; and one collects from a letter sent by Sir Edward Wotton to Lord Cobham from Calais in 1546, that at that time the quantities imported were larger, and the price reduced ; for Wotton advises his corre- spondent of a consignment of five-and-twenty loaves at six shillings the loaf. One loaf Meats and Drinks. 195 was equal to ten pounds ; this brought the commodity down to eight pence a pound of fifteenth century money. The sugar of Cyprus was also highly esteemed; that of Bezi, in the Straits of Sunda, was the most plentiful ; but the West Indian produce, as well as that of Mauritius, Madeira, and other cane-growing countries, was unknown. Of bread, the fifteenth century had several descriptions in use : pain-main or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, bean-bread, pease-bread, oat-bread or oat-cakes, hard-bread, and un- leavened bread. The poor often used a mix- ture of rye, lentils, and oatmeal, varied ac- cording to the season and district. The author of “ The Serving-man’s Com- fort,” 1598, however, seems to say that it was counted by the poorer sort at that time a hardship only to be tolerated in a dear year to mix beans and peas with their corn, and he adds : “ So must I yield you a loaf of coarse cockle, having no acquaint- ance with coin to buy corn.” Meats and Drinks. 196 In a Nominate of this period mention is made of “oblys,” or small round loaves, perhaps like the old-fashioned “turnover”; and we come across the explicit phrase, a loaf of bread, for the first time, a pictorial vocabulary of the period even furnishing us with a representation of its usual form. Nor were the good folks of those days with- out their simnels, cracknels, and other sorts of cakes for the table, among which in the wastel we recognise the equivalent of the modern French gateau. Besides march-pain or pain-main, and pain-puff, two sorts baked on special occa- sions, and rather entering into the class of con- fectionery, our better-to-do ancestors usually employed three descriptions of bread : man- chete for the master’s table, made of fine boulted flour ; chete, of unboulted flour, but not mixed with any coarser ingredient ; and brown-bread, composed of flour and rye meal, and known as viaslin (mystelon). A bushel of wheat, in a romance of the thirteenth century, is estimated to produce twenty loaves ; but the statement is obviously Meats and Drinks. 1 97 to be taken with allowance. The manchet was sometimes thought to be sufficient with- out butter, as we now eat a scone. In the “Conceits of Old Hobson,” 1607, the worthy haberdasher of the Poultry gives some friends what is facetiously described as a “light” banquet — a cup of wine and a manchet of bread on a trencher for each guest, in an apartment illuminated with five hundred candles.

AI-modernized reading of the original text

In Russell’s “Book of Nurture,” composed about 1450, it occurs as an ingredient in hippocras; and one collects from a letter sent by Sir Edward Wotton to Lord Cobham from Calais in 1546, that at that time the quantities imported were larger, and the price reduced ; for Wotton advises his correspondent of a consignment of five-and-twenty loaves at six shillings the loaf. One loaf Meats and Drinks. was equal to ten pounds ; this brought the commodity down to eight pence a pound of fifteenth century money. The sugar of Cyprus was also highly esteemed; that of Bezi, in the Straits of Sunda, was the most plentiful ; but the West Indian produce, as well as that of Mauritius, Madeira, and other cane-growing countries, was unknown. Of bread, the fifteenth century had several descriptions in use : pain-main or bread of very fine flour, wheat-bread, barley-meal bread, bran-bread, bean-bread, pease-bread, oat-bread or oat-cakes, hard-bread, and unleavened bread. The poor often used a mixture of rye, lentils, and oatmeal, varied according to the season and district. The author of “ The Serving-man’s Comfort,” 1598, however, seems to say that it was counted by the poorer sort at that time a hardship only to be tolerated in a dear year to mix beans and peas with their corn, and he adds : “ So must I yield you a loaf of coarse cockle, having no acquaintance with coin to buy corn.” Meats and Drinks. In a Nominate of this period mention is made of “oblys,” or small round loaves, perhaps like the old-fashioned “turnover”; and we come across the explicit phrase, a loaf of bread, for the first time, a pictorial vocabulary of the period even furnishing us with a representation of its usual form. Nor were the good folks of those days without their simnels, cracknels, and other sorts of cakes for the table, among which in the wastel we recognise the equivalent of the modern French gateau. Besides march-pain or pain-main, and pain-puff, two sorts baked on special occasions, and rather entering into the class of confectionery, our better-to-do ancestors usually employed three descriptions of bread : manchete for the master’s table, made of fine boulted flour ; chete, of unboulted flour, but not mixed with any coarser ingredient ; and brown-bread, composed of flour and rye meal, and known as viaslin (mystelon). A bushel of wheat, in a romance of the thirteenth century, is estimated to produce twenty loaves ; but the statement is obviously Meats and Drinks. 1 97 to be taken with allowance. The manchet was sometimes thought to be sufficient without butter, as we now eat a scone. In the “Conceits of Old Hobson,” 1607, the worthy haberdasher of the Poultry gives some friends what is facetiously described as a “light” banquet — a cup of wine and a manchet of bread on a trencher for each guest, in an apartment illuminated with five hundred candles.

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