Examination of Communal Ovens
Korea Minjok Leadership Academy
International Program
Term Paper, AP European History, December 2018
I. Introduction
II. Masonry Oven
III. Communal Ovens
IV. Factors that influenced communal ovens
IV-a. Fire Hazards
IV-b. Banalité
IV-c. Cost/Efficiency
IV-d. Industrial Revolution
V. Conclusion
Bibliography
I. Introduction
Bread is an essential part of the diet of Europeans throughout history. On average, over 50 percent of all income was spent on bread from the 18thcentury to the 19thcentury. [i]However, contrary to the numerous methods of baking bread and the types of different breads, the form of the oven has remained relatively unchanged for centuries.
Communal ovens in the form of masonry ovens have been used from ancient Rome as early as 125 BC[ii]. In this paper, the factors that influenced communal ovens will be examined. This paper focuses on the 17thcentury to the 19thcentury AD. Various factors that caused communal ovens to be used for such a long time to factors that caused the change from communal ovens to personal ovens will be explored.
II. Masonry Oven
The earliest form of the wood-fire, front-loaded bread ovens that we know of today originated in ancient Greece from as early as the 17thcentury BC[iii].
Various scenes on vases depict the Gods banqueting with cakes like plakous or petramis on the table. [iv]
Sculptures were found showing various scenes of the process of bread baking, including a female baker taking bread from an oven.[v]
Ancient Greeks used clay ovens called ipnos to bake their bread.[vi]In Deipnosophistae, a book about banquets by Athenaeus of Naucratis written in the Early third century AD, oven baked breads are one of the many different types of Ancient Greek breads mentioned.
And from a peculiar way of baking or roasting it, there is a loaf called ipnites (or the oven loaf) …
And seeing there a tray before me full
Of smoking oven-loaves, I took and ate them (b. III, 74)
I come now, having left the baker’s shop,
The seat of good Thearion’s pans and ovens. (b. III, 78)[vii]
The masonry ovens in Greece functioned by burning wood inside a clay oven and later pushing the ashes and embers aside or sweeping them out of the oven to bake bread. This form of ovens is called black ovens, given its name because the fire burnt inside the ovens generates soot on the roof of the oven.
This similar form of black ovens was used for centuries, with the black oven being found in various cookbooks of the 19thcentury.
A good oven in necessary for the production of good bread. If the oven be heated, as in country places, by dry wood, furze, or fern, burnt in the oven itself, it ought to be built round, not long, as there will be in the former case a greater equality of heat[viii].
After the black ovens came the white ovens. Unlike the black ovens, white ovens are heated from the outside so the fire and soot never touches the inner walls, leaving them white.
On this principle, I would rather prefer the furnace as the cleanest way of using such a dirty article as coal. …Hence the necessity of some alteration, and the furnace was very properly substituted in the place of the brander. The principle of both, however, are the same, they are built upon the same construction, and the dampers are one and the same in number, but the coals are thrown into the furnace on the outside of the oven.[ix]
These masonry ovens were widely used for a long period of time, namely since ancient Greece to World War II. While wood was the original fire source, developments made coal and later on electricity the source of power.
Before pointing out what these errors are, it may not be improper in the first place to say a few words relative to the different ways of heating. The first article extensively used for this purpose was wood, and in those days it was troublesome work indeed to be a baker; but as it has now become a dear article, it is in general laid aside. Some country bakers indeed still use the wood, and in London some use it still, in the shape of saw-dust, and tanners’ waste; but, in general, coals are now the article that is mostly used, as they are more convenient and better adapted to a press of work.[x]
III. Communal ovens
Public, communal ovens were common since at least Ancient Rome, 2ndcentury BC. With the Roman rule, centralization of production increased leading to the decrease of domestic ovens and the increase of larger bread ovens. Analysis of archaeological evidence from Roman provinces of Belgian Gaul and Upper and Lower Germania, Demarolle and Petit show the large number of ovens concentrated at tavern. Excavations of Lattara, a Celtic settlement in Mediterranean France suggests the existence of community ovens in the Iron Ages, when families typically produced their own food with domestic scale ovens, as ovens that are too big to be used for single families were found. [xi]
The existence of communal ovens can also be seen with the use of bread stamps. A number of loaves of bread from Pompeii are stamped with the name of the baker[xii]. As the ovens were public and most bread in Rome was baked in such ovens, bread stamps were needed to distinguish the loaves belonging to different families and bakeries.[xiii]This phenomenon can be found not only in Europe but also in widespread areas with communal ovens, such as Jordan. [xiv]
Communal ovens were common in Europe for centuries. The common practice was for families to prepare their own bread and bake it in the village bakehouse or bring them to the local baker and pay a small fee to use his oven.
IV. Factors that influenced communal ovens
a. Fire Hazard
During the Middle Ages, urbanization was apparent throughout Europe resulting in cities that were crowded more than ever. As many of the houses were closely packed together and were made of wood, fires held a great risk for the cities. Fires rapidly spread throughout cities and with the inadequate water supply, they were difficult to control resulting in massive damage[xv]. Fires were the highest risk against the physical structure of cities and the widespread damages caused by fires were extremely costly to repair.
Ovens acted as a fire hazard. The Great Fire of London, in 1666, was caused because of an oven in the bakery of Thomas Farriner, King Charles II’s baker. [xvi]
Then the fire breaks out at the house of one Farryner, the king’s baker. Farina is, as everybody knows, the Latin for meal or flour. Farinarius is a mealman, or dealer in flour…In this way Farryner is obviously an abbreviation of farinarius, mealman or flour dealer; of course, the personification of bakers and men of such-like craft.[xvii]
Some of our maids sitting up late last night to get things ready against our feast today, Jane called us up, about 3 in the morning, to tell us of a great fire they saw in the City…So down, with my heart full of trouble, to the Lieutenant of the Tower, who tells me that it begun this morning in the King’s bakers house in Pudding-lane.[xviii]
Although the Farriner claimed that his oven couldn’t have been the cause of the fire because the oven was properly raked out, the evidence points to his bakery. There are people that suggest it was his maid, one of the few people killed by the fire, who failed to put out the ovens properly before going to bed.
The reason the fire, which was initially caused by a small spark, could spread so quickly was because of the structure of London at that time. Many of the houses were made of wood and had thatched roofs, which burn quickly. With the increase of populations in cities, Cities have become more crowded and houses came closer together. With the assistance of the strong winds, the fire became widespread leading to massive damage.
As the Great Fire of London shows, ovens were extreme fire hazards. Thus, it would have been dangerous and unreasonable to have ovens in each of the closely packed, flammable houses.
b. Banalité
Banalités, or banal rights refer to the privileges of the seignior in medieval France. It was the duty of the feudal lords to provide communal facilities, which include banal mills, wine presses, and ovens. The banal ovens are called four banal. The peasants were required to pay a certain fee in order to use such facilities. While the payment for such services was originally intended to cover the construction, maintenance and operation of the facilities, it became a source of revenue. Personal ovens were outlawed, inhabitants not using such ovens subjected to a ban, or a fine.
At the time of the settlement of Canada, the seigniors possessed the right of banalité throughout France. In certain provinces this right existed by virtue of the law and of the customs, independently of any private agreement between the parties; in other provinces, the right of banalité was looked upon as a mere servitude, which, like all others, could not be acquired unless by virtue of a title. For the first, the right of banalité was legal and customary; for the latter, it was merely conventional. The custom of Paris being included in the latter class, it contained for that purpose a particular clause in the 71starticle, which declares, in express terms, “that the Seignior cannot oblige his tenant to go to the banal mill or oven, unless his title binds him to do so, or that there be an acknowledgement of long standing to that effect. We have already seen that the custom of Paris was introduced into the country as well as the Common law, from the time of its first settlement, and the article relating to the banalité having been introduced as well as the others, had the effect of law so long as it was not changed. Therefore at first, the right of banalité was merely conventional, and continued so during a long period of time, when we find that that obligation was imposed upon the Censitaires in almost every, or in all the deeds of concessions up to the tear 1686, when an Arret was passed which altered the law in that respect.[xix]
Banalités-(Rights possessed by the Lords of certain manors to oblige those residing on them to make use of his baking-office, mill, &c., upon payment.)-The provinces of Flandrs, Artois, and Hainault, were alone exempt from banalités. The Custom of Paris rigorously requires that this should not be exercised without written title. Every person domiciled within the circuit of the banalité was subject to it, and, most generally, even the nobles and the priests also.[xx]
Similar forms of banal rights can be found throughout medieval Europe and countries with feudal tenure. Banrechts of the Netherlands or Ehaft of Germanny can be seen as similar examples.
But this manner of proceeding led to nothing; for the feudal rights, although regulated by a legal code, which was the same throughout the whole of feudal Europe, were infinitely various in their kinds, according to the province, or even the districts, where they existed. [xxi]
With colonies in New France and New England, communal banal ovens were established in America but they didn’t become widespread. [xxii]The only banal right that became common in New France was the banal mills as the lords were required to provide such mills, benefiting the colonists.[xxiii]
After the French Revolution, the ban was lifted but the communal ovens remained. The ovens became the property of the village and people could use them for free or by paying a small fee to the bakers.
It is not the intention of the author here to write a treatise upon feudal rights, and, least of all, to attempt any research into their possible origin. It is simply his desire to point out those which were still exercised in the eighteenth century. These rights played so important a part at that time, and have since retained so large a space in the imagination of the very persons who have no longer anything to suffer from them, that it was a most interesting task to find out precisely what they were when the revolution destroyed them all.[xxiv]
Banalité played a role in the use of communal ovens because most people didn’t have the choice of personal ovens. Although four banal was created to satisfy the needs of the people, it although blocked the development of personal ovens.
c. Cost/efficiency
It was also more efficient and cheap to have communal ovens. Many people couldn’t afford to build their own ovens. Instead of having big ovens in each family, having one big oven for everybody to use was more efficient.
…the poor are often deprived of the benefit of an oven, from the expense of erecting one.[xxv]
But many people who make their own bread send it to be baked at the baker’s. We have seen good ovens attached to a stove, and heated by the kitchen fire. These are not sufficiently capacious to contain loaves enough for the consumption of a large family, but they answer the purpose of a small family very well.[xxvi]
The bakehouses themselves were quite large too. Especially in the crowded cities, there was no space for each family to have their own separate bakehouse.
At a small distance from the house, make a platform, of about six or seven feet square, of earth, stone, or wood, raise it about three feet from the ground[xxvii]
Using such ovens were also difficult and inefficient to use on an individual basis.
To heat these ovens the faggots are introduced and burnt to an ash; it is then removed, and the bottom cleaned out. This takes up a considerable space of time, during which period a great deal of heat escapes. A still farther length of time is necessary for putting in the bread, and unless much more fuel is expended than is really necessary, in heating an oven upon this principle, it gets chilled before the loaves are all set in, and the bread is, therefore, liable to fall[xxviii]
Thus, using communal ovens was the most reasonable choice for many people as it was the most time, cost, and space efficient.
d. Industrial Revolution
With the industrial revolution, baking techniques changed. Tin from mines in Cornwall allowed baking tins to be made. [xxix]
To save room, it will be necessary, in stove ovens, to bake in tins. Bread thus baked is much more smooth, and neat than when baked in the ordinary way; but the pleasant crispness of the crust is wanting.[xxx]
The influence of the industrial revolution and the introduction of baking tins can most prominently be seen in the change of pies. The pies before the popularization of baking tins, until the 18thcentury, was primarily standing crust pies. Illustrations of pies show standing crust pies with ornate shapes and decorations, such as with the hare pie[xxxi]shown below.
…Raise the walls of your pye; fill it with some thing to support it and lay on the lid, bake it sufficiently to stand, but not quite enough to take off the lid, lay in the vegatables neatly in rows; thus, a row of cauliflower, a row of onions &c. add chyan, salt and beaten mace as you go on, then put on your lid again; bake your pye half an hour more, take care not to burn it; have ready good fricaffee sauce, take off the lid, pour over it the sauce, and serve it up[xxxii]
Looking specifically at the change in mince pies, mince pies also had decorative shapes with standing crusts as showed below.[xxxiii]
Mince pies were baked with raised pie methods, with stiff pastes holding up the sides with no support.
Otherways in the summer time, make the paste of cold butter; to three quarts of flour take a pound and a half of butter, and work it d y into the flour, with the yolks of four eggs and one white, then put a little water to it, and make it up into a stiff paste.[xxxiv]
However, the shape and baking methods of mince pies change greatly with the popularization of baking tins in the 19thcentury.
Make some good puff-paste by recipe No. 1205; roll it out to the thickness of about ¼ inch, and line some good-sized pattypans with it; fill them with mincemeat, cover with the paste, and cut it off all round close to the edge of the tin.[xxxv]
By the early ninetieth century, the communal bread ovens in bakehouses lost its purpose. Personal coal range ovens were being installed in kitchens and baking bread using baking tins was easier and more satisfactory than hand molding and shaping bread and baking it in masonry ovens.[xxxvi]
Many private families, who bake their own bread, have an iron oven, erected in the kitchen on one side of the fire-place, which is heated by a flue that passes from the grate.[xxxvii]
Also, with the development of machine powered mills and cheaper supplies [xxxviii], commercial baking increased as bread could be sold at a lower price point in reach of more people.
V. Conclusion
Communal ovens were used for a long time (2ndcentury BC~1940s) because it was safer as it reduced fire hazards where houses were primarily made of highly flammable materials, social regulations like banalité made communal ovens mandatory, and it was cost, time, and space efficient. However, with the industrial revolution and the developments in baking that it brought along, the use of communal ovens decreased. Ovens are essential to the diet of most Europeans, making ovens closely related with social factors. Communal ovens were a product of the needs and requirements of society. As social needs changed with the industrial revolution, the ovens changed with them.
[i]Emma Griffin, Diets, Hunger and Living Standards During the British Industrial Revolution, Past & Present, Oxford Academic, 2018;The income spent refers to both buying a finished product and preparing to bake one’s own bread.
[ii]Benjamin P. Luley, Gaël Piquès, Communal eating and drinking in early Roman Mediterranean France, Cambridge University Press, 2016
[iii]Utilitarian terracotta oven, 17thcentury BC, Museum of Cycladic Culture, Santorini
[iv]Deities as Symposiates, Athens National Archaeological Museum, 470 BC
[v]Female baker taking bread from the oven, early 5thcentury BC, Louvre Museum
[vi]Eleni Hasaki, Ceramic Kilns in Ancient Greece, University of Cincinnati, 2002
[vii]Atheanus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae, Rome, early 3rdcentury AD
[viii]Eleanor Parkinson, The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook, and Baker, Philidelphia, Lea and Blanchard, 1844
[ix]John White, A Treatise on the Art of Baking, Anderson & Bryce, Edinburgh, 1828
[x]John White, A Treatise on the Art of Baking, Anderson & Bryce, Edinburgh, 1828
[xi]Benjamin P. Luley, Gaël Piquès, Communal eating and drinking in early Roman Mediterranean France, Cambridge University Press, 2016
[xii]Fossilized bread with an impression of a stamp, mid 1stcentury AD, Naples National Archaeological Museum
[xiii]Camera di Commercio di Matera, Bread Stamps, Google Arts and Culture, https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/gQHN9bJ3
[xiv]Randa Kakish, Ancient bread stamps from Jordan, Mediterranean Archaeology and Archaeometry, Greece, 2014
[xv]Ulf Christian Ewert, Water, Public Hygiene and Fire Control in Medieval Towns, Historical Social Research, Germany, 2007
[xvi]Rozina Sabur, The Great Fire of London, 350thanniversary, The Telegraph, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/the-great-fire-of-london-350th-anniversary-how-did-it-start-and/
[xvii]Pieter Maritzburg, The Narrative of the Fire of London, James Hogg & Sons, London, 1869
[xviii]Samuel Pepeys, The Diary of Samuel Pepeys Vol. 7, London, 1666
[xix]MM. Lelièvre & Angers, Seigniorial questions, Office of La Minerve, Quebec/Montreal, 1856
[xx]Alexis de Tocqueville, On the state of society in France before the revolution of 1789, John Murray, London, 1856
[xxi]Alexis de Tocqueville, On the state of society in France before the revolution of 1789, John Murray, London, 1856
[xxii]Old & Interesting, Bakehouses and Community Bread Ovens, Old and Interesting, 2011, http://www.oldandinteresting.com/communal-bread-ovens.aspx
[xxiii]Claude Bélanger, Banal Rights, Quebec History, 2005, http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/encyclopedia/BanalRights-Segniorialsystem-NewFrance.htm
[xxiv]Alexis de Tocqueville, On the state of society in France before the revolution of 1789, John Murray, London, 1856
[xxv]Abraham Edlin, A Treatise on the Art of Bread-making, London, J. Wright, 1805
[xxvi]Eleanor Parkinson, The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook, and Baker, Philidelphia, Lea and Blanchard, 1844
[xxvii]Abraham Edlin, A Treatise on the Art of Bread-making, London, J. Wright, 1805
[xxviii]Abraham Edlin, A Treatise on the Art of Bread-making, London, J. Wright, 1805
[xxix]Federation of Bakers, History of bread-Industrial age, Federation of Bakers, https://www.fob.uk.com/about-the-bread-industry/history-of-bread-antiquity/history-bread-industrial-age/
[xxx]Eleanor Parkinson, The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook, and Baker, Philidelphia, Lea and Blanchard, 1844
[xxxi]John Thacker, The Art of Cookery, I. Thompson and Company, Newcastle,1758
[xxxii]Sarah Marin, The New Experienced English Housekeeper, London, 1795
[xxxiii]T. Hall, The Queen’s Royal Cookery, the Sun and Bible, London, 1713
[xxxiv]Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook of the Art and Mystery of Cookery, London, 1671
[xxxv]Isabella Beeton, The Book of Household Management, S. O. Beeton, London, 1861
[xxxvi]World History of Food Products and Bakery Products, http://shodhganga.inflibnet.ac.in/bitstream/10603/148766/15/11_chapter%204.pdf
[xxxvii]Abraham Edlin, A Treatise on the Art of Bread-making, London, J. Wright, 1805
[xxxviii]Mark Williams, Bread and Beer, More Industrial Revelations, Discovery, 2005, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_HrYdMlppE; The History of Bread, Doves Farm, https://www.dovesfarm.co.uk/hints-tips/bread-making/the-history-of-bread
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4. Female baker taking bread from the oven, early 5thcentury BC, Louvre Museum
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6. Atheanus of Naucratis, Deipnosophistae, Rome, early 3rdcentury AD
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8. John White, A Treatise on the Art of Baking, Anderson & Bryce, Edinburgh, 1828
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10. Fossilized bread with an impression of a stamp, mid 1stcentury AD, Naples National Archaeological Museum
11. Camera di Commercio di Matera, Bread Stamps, Google Arts and Culture, https://artsandculture.google.com/exhibit/gQHN9bJ3
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