But there is a use for badly-made gingerbread which perhaps some of us do not know—a gingerbread barometer. It is nothing more than the figure of a General made of gingerbread, which Clavette buys every year at the Place du Trone. When he gets home he hangs his purchase on a nail. You know the effect of the atmosphere on gingerbread; the slightest moisture renders it soft; in dry weather, on the contrary, it grows hard and tough. Every morning, on going out, Clavette asks his servant, ‘What does the General say?’ The man forthwith applies his thumb to the figure, and replies, ‘The General feels flabby about the chest; you’d better take your umbrella!’ On the other hand, when the symptoms are hard and unyielding, our worthy colleague sallies forth in his new hat.
A curious use of dough, somewhat sweetened, was made at Christmas, when it was manufactured into Yule doughs, or dows, or Yule babies, small images like dolls with currants for eyes, intended probably to represent the infant Jesus, which were presented by bakers to the children of their customers. Another Christmas custom connected with dough used to obtain in Wiltshire, where a hollow loaf, containing an apple, and ornamented on the top with the head of a cock or a dragon, with currant eyes, and made of paste, was baked, and put by a child’s bedside on Christmas morning to be eaten before breakfast. This was called a Cop-a-loaf, or Cop-loaf.
Much land in England was held by tenure, in which bread plays a part, as the following instances out of many will show.[18]
Apelderham, Sussex.—John Aylemer holds by court roll one messuage and one yard [thirty acres] land.... And he ought to find at three reap days, in autumn, every day, two men, and was to have for each of the said men, on every of such reap days, viz., on each of the two first days, one loaf of wheat and barley mixed, weighing eighteen pounds of wax, every loaf to be of the price of a penny farthing; and at the third reap day each man was to have a loaf of the same weight, all of wheat, of the price of a penny halfpenny.
Chakedon, Oxon.—Every mower on this manor was to have a loaf of the price of a halfpenny, besides other things.
Glastonbury, Somerset.—In the thirty-third year of Edward I., William Pasturell held twelve ox-gangs of land there from the abbot, by service of finding a cook in the kitchen of the said abbot and a baker for the bakehouse.
Hallaton, Leicester.—A piece of land was bequeathed to the use and advantage of the rector, who was there to provide ‘two hare pies, a quantity of ale, and two dozen of penny loaves, to be scrambled for on Easter Monday annually.’
Lenneston or Loston, Devon.—Geoffrey de Alba-Marlia held this hamlet of the King, rendering therefore to the King, as often as he should hunt in the Forest of Dartmoor, one loaf of oat bread of the value of half a farthing, and three barbed arrows, feathered with peacock’s feathers, and fixed in the aforesaid loaf.
Liston, Essex.—In the forty-first year of Edward III., Nan, the wife of William Leston, held the manor of Overhall, in this parish, by the service of paying for, bringing in, and placing of five wafers before the King, as he sits at dinner, upon the day of his coronation.
Twickenham, Middlesex.—There was an ancient custom here of dividing two great cakes in the church among the young people on Easter Day; but, it being looked upon as a superstitious relic, it was ordered by Parliament, in 1645, that the parishioners should forbear that custom, and instead thereof buy loaves of bread for the poor of the parish with the money that should have bought the cakes. It is probable that the cakes were bought at the vicar’s expense; for it appears that the sum of one pound per annum is still charged upon the vicarage for the purpose of buying penny loaves for poor children on the Thursday before Easter. Within the memory of man they were thrown from the church steeple to be scrambled for.