[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.
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