fallen to nothing, through the absence of the Master, as he rarely resided.1

Bartholomew, who was Bishop of Exeter from the year 1161 to the year 1184, with the assent of the Chapter of St. Peter, of Exeter, granted, for a perpetual alms to the Lepers of St. Mary Magdalen of Exeter, five marks of silver to be received yearly from his Treasury, and also the tenth of a certain Toll, and the profit which should arise from the bark of his wood at Chudleigh,—and the Chapter further granted to them for a perpetual alms, fourteen loaves, to be received weekly from their common stock.2

By the Will of JOHN SLUGGE, in 1486, it appears that, before he sold his house in Exeter to WILLIAM HURST, he gave and devised out of the same 20s. annually, to be paid in Bread every Midsummer, to the use of the poor, by the Stewards of the City at the Guildhall,—but that 1 Rep. vii. p. 765. 2 Rep. vIII, p. 54.

WILLIAM HURST being lothe to be troubled with the distribution of this bread, compounded with the City, and gave about 201. to The Corporation, for them thenceforth to pay the same.3

ANCIENT AND LOCAL

DENOMINATIONS OF BREAD.

HARRISON, who wrote in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH, describes the principal Bread then in use in England, as of three sorts," Manchet, Cheat, and Ravel bread."

"Our good workmen," he observes, "deliver commonlie such proportion, that "of the flour of one bushel with another, "they make 40 cast of Manchet, of which "everie loaf weigheth 8 ounces, into the oven, and 6 ounces out.

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The second is the "Cheat, or wheaten bread, so named, because the colour thereof resembleth the graie and yellowish wheat, being cleane and well dressed,— and out of this is the coarsest of the bran (usually called gurgeons, or pollard) taken."

"The Ravelled is a kind of Cheat bread

also, but it reteineth more of the grosse, and lesse of the pure substance of the wheat, and this, being more sleightlie wrought up, is used in the Halles of the Nobilitie and Gentrie onlie,—whereas the other either is, or should be, baked in cities and good towns, of an appointed size (according to such price as the corn doth beare), and by a Statute provided by King JOHN in that behalf.”1 In Religious Houses the Ravel Bread was the coarser bread which was made for ordinary guests, and was distinguished from Panis Conventualis, which was pure Manchet or white bread.

Maslin, or Miscelin, is a provincial word, implying Bread made of mingled corn, as wheat with rye.

MORYSON, who wrote also in the reign of Queen ELIZABETH, remarks, that "the English husbandmen eate barley and

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rye browne bread, and preferre it to "white bread, as abiding longer in the "stomach, and not so soone digested with

1 Harrison's description of England, p. 169.

"their labour, but citizens and gentle

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men eate most pure white bread." 2

The commonest bread used in England, at that period, it is probable, was barley bread. Lord COKE mentions it, as the diet allowed to Criminals who suffered the peine forte et dure.3

Manchet and Cheat are the only kinds of Bread which are specified in the Ordinances for the Royal Household, made at Eltham, in the seventeenth year of the reign of King HENRY the Eighth, 1526.* Beans, we have already seen, were among the kinds of provision which were distributed at St. Mary's Hospital in Ripon, and even that fare poor appears to have been doled out in no large measure, a Salt cellar.5 Though it is probable, that that domestic article in those

2 Itinerary, 3d part. p. 149.

34. Inst. c. 12.-Eden's State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 117, note.

4

Regulations for Royal Households, published by The Society of Antiquaries, p. 174.

5 Rep. vii. p. 765.