Medieval Food Question(s)

[helwen]

I have a friend who's currently transcribing a treatise on horsemanship (Gervase Markham), and it has some terms she's having trouble figuring out.

One is comparison of size of some horse thing to breads.

Does anyone know what the size of a halfpenny wheaten loaf, or a penny white loaf is? (Not sure if these are two ways to say the same thing or two different things).

Any recommendations on sources for finding this sort of thing?

Thank you!

Comments

I

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

It's actually feeding the horse breads of that size (although made from different ingredients) or fed that quantity of bread throughout the day. While I know that various priced loaves had to have specific amounts of weight to them, I can't find the actual weights/sizes of the loaves of bread.

maybe not what you want

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

But I plugged "halfpenny wheaten loaf" into Google just to see and a link to an e-book (and "The History of the Town of Gravesend in the Cunty of Kent" circa 1620) shows the weights of loaves as proscribed by law.

Re: maybe not what you want

[helwen.livejournal.com]

That has possibilities...

Re: maybe not what you want

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

I tried that, but I'm not getting the same results you are - I get a couple of books that talk about how much more Stratford's loaf costs than London's loaft, but that specific book is one I can't find. I suspect that Google UK is slightly different from Google USA. Could one of you wonderful people grab me the link?

Hoepfully this long link works

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

It did when I just tried it. FYI, that info is on page 292 of the document.

http://books.google.com/books?id=5NRUAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA292&lpg=PA292&dq=%22halfpenny+wheaten+loaf%22&source=bl&ots=oPrEEVdNCc&sig=-buqc0FEiDlemqWmuB1UdvXeZX8&hl=en&sa=X&ei=6ibdUtXLE66-sQS0yIGADw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22halfpenny%20wheaten%20loaf%22&f=false

also

[bytchearse.livejournal.com]

A 3-ounce white bread roll (such as I sell when running the Tavern) is roughly the size of a 4-ounce canning jar. Thought that reference might be of help as well

Re: also

[chrisilin.livejournal.com]

Thank you! That helps a lot, and yea, Google as accessed from the UK refused to find that one, so thank you for the link!