y, and we find in the regulations of St. Chrodegand that if,
in consequence of a bad year, the acorn or beech-nut became scarce, it was
the bishop's duty to provide something to make up for it. Eight centuries
later, when Rene du Bellay, Bishop of Mans, came to report to Francis I.
the fearful poverty of his diocese, he informed the king that the
inhabitants in many places were reduced to subsisting on acorn bread.

[Illustration: Figs. 72 and 73.--Corn-threshing and
Bread-making.--Miniatures from the Calendar of a Book of
Hours.--Manuscript of the Sixteenth Century.]

In the earliest times bread was cooked under the embers. The use of ovens
was introduced into Europe by the Romans, who had found them in Egypt.
But, notwithstanding this importation, the old system of cooking was long
after employed, for in the tenth century Raimbold, abbot of the monastery
of St. Thierry, near Rheims, ordered in his will that on the day of his
death bread cooked under the embers--_panes subcinericios_--should be
given to his monks. By feudal law the lord was bound to bake the bread of
his vassals, for which they were taxed, but the latter often preferred to
cook their flour at home in the embers of their own hearths, rather than
to carry it to the public oven.

[Illustration: Fig. 74.--The Miller.--From an Engraving of the Sixteenth
Century, by J. Amman.]

It must be stated that the custom of leavening the dough by the addition
of a ferment was not universally adopted amongst the ancients. For this
reason, as the dough without leaven could only produce a heavy and
indigestible bread, they were careful, in order to secure their loaves
being thoroughly cooked, to make them very thin. These loaves served as
plates for cutting up the other food upon, and when they thus became
saturated with the sauce and gravy they were eaten as cakes. The use of
the _tourteaux_ (small crusty loaves), which were at first called
_tranchoirs_ and subsequently _tailloirs_, remained long in fashion even
at the most splendid banquets. Thus, in 1336, the Dauphin of Vienna,
Humbert II., had, besides the small white bread, four small loaves to
serve as _tranchoirs_ at table. The "Menagier de Paris" mentions "_des
pains de tranchouers_ half a foot in diameter, and four fingers deep," and
Froissart the historian also speaks of _tailloirs_.

It would be difficult to point out the exact period at which leavening
bread was adopted in Europe, but we can assert that i