[Illustration: Fig. 75.--The Baker.--From an Engraving of the Sixteenth
Century, by J. Amman.]
At a later period public bakers established themselves, who not only baked
the loaves which were brought to them already kneaded, but also made bread
which they sold by weight; and this system was in existence until very
recently in the provinces.
Charlemagne, in his "Capitulaires" (statutes), fixed the number of bakers
in each city according to the population, and St. Louis relieved them, as
well as the millers, from taking their turn at the watch, so that they
might have no pretext for stopping or neglecting their work, which he
considered of public utility. Nevertheless bakers as a body never became
rich or powerful (Figs. 76 and 77). It is pretty generally believed that
the name of _boulanger_ (baker) originated from the fact that the shape
of the loaves made at one time was very like that of a round ball. But
loaves varied so much in form, quality, and consequently in name, that in
his "Dictionary of Obscure Words" the learned Du Cange specifies at least
twenty sorts made during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and amongst
them may be mentioned the court loaf, the pope's loaf, the knight's loaf,
the squire's loaf, the peer's loaf, the varlet's loaf, &c.
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