(G. T. G.)
BRAZZA (Serbo-Croatian, Brač; Lat. Brattia), an island in the Adriatic Sea, forming part of Dalmatia, Austria. Pop. (1900) 24,408. With an area of 170 sq. m. Brazza is the largest of the Dalmatian Islands; it is also the most thickly populated, and one of the most fertile. Its closely cultivated surface though ragged and mountainous yields an abundance of olives, figs, almonds and saffron, while its wines are of good quality. The corn-crop, however, barely suffices for three months’ food. Other local industries are fishing and silkworm-rearing. The most important among twenty small villages on the island is Milná (pop. 2579), a steamship station, provided with shipwrights’ wharves. The early history of Brazza is obscure. In the first years of the 13th century it was ruled by the piratical counts of Almissa; but after a successful revolt and a brief period of liberty it came under the dominion of Hungary. From 1413 to 1416 it was subject to Ragusa; and in 1420 it passed, with the greater part of Dalmatia, under Venetian sovereignty.
BREACH (Mid. Eng. breche, derived from the common Teutonic root brec, which appears in “break,” Ger. brechen, &c.), in general, a breaking, or an opening made by breaking; in law, the infringement of a right or the violation of an obligation or duty. The word is used in various phrases: breach of close, the unlawful entry upon another person’s land (see [Trespass]); breach of covenant or contract, the non-fulfilment of an agreement either to do or not to do some act (see [Damages]); breach of the peace, a disturbance of the public order (see [Peace, Breach of]); breach of pound, the taking by force out of a pound things lawfully impounded (see [Pound]); breach of promise of marriage, the non-fulfilment of a contract mutually entered into by a man and a woman that they will marry each other (see [Marriage]); breach of trust, any deviation by a trustee from the duty imposed upon him by the instrument creating the trust (q.v.).
BREAD, the name given to the staple food-product prepared by the baking of flour. The word itself, O. Eng. bréad, is common in various forms to many Teutonic languages; cf. Ger. Brot, Dutch, brood, and Swed. and Dan. bröt; it has been derived from the root of “brew,” but more probably is connected with the root of “break,” for its early uses are confined to “broken pieces, or bits” of bread, the Lat. frustum, and it was not till the 12th century that it took the place, as the generic name of bread, of hlaf, “loaf,” which appears to be the oldest Teutonic name, cf. Old High Ger. hleib, and modern Ger. Laib.
History.—Bread-baking, or at any rate the preparation of cakes from flour or parched grain by means of heat, is one of the most ancient of human arts. At Wangen and Robenhausen have been found the calcined remains of cakes made from coarsely-ground grain in Swiss lake-dwellings that date back to the Stone Age. The cakes were made of different kinds of grain, barley and one-grained wheat (Triticum monococcum) being among the ingredients. This bread was made, not from fine meal, but from grain crushed between some hard surfaces, and in these lake-dwellings many round-shaped stones have been found, which were evidently used for pounding or crushing grain against the surface, more or less concave, of another stone (see [Flour and Flour Manufacture]). Perhaps the earliest form of bread, if that word may be used, was prepared from acorns and beech nuts. To this day a sort of cake prepared from crushed acorns is eaten by the Indians of the Pacific slopes. The flour extracted from acorns is bitter and unfit to eat till it has been thoroughly soaked in boiling water. The saturated flour is squeezed into a kind of cake and dried in the sun. Pliny speaks of a similar crude process in connexion with wheat; the grain was evidently pounded, and the crushed remnant, soaked into a sort of pulp, then made into a cake and dried in the sun. Virgil (Georgics, i. 267) refers to the husbandman first torrefying and then crushing his grain between stones:—”Nunc torrete igni fruges, nunc frangite saxo.”
The question naturally arises, how did the lake-dwellers bake their cakes of bruised grain? Probably the dough was laid on a flat or convex-shaped stone, which was heated, while the cake was covered with hot ashes. Stones have been found among prehistoric remains which were apparently used for this purpose. In ancient Egyptian tombs cakes of durra have been found, of concave shape, suggesting the use of such baking-slabs; here the cake was evidently prepared from coarsely-cracked grain. In primitive times milling and baking were twin arts. The housewife, and the daughters or handmaids, crushed or ground the grain and prepared the bread or cakes. When Abraham entertained the angels unawares (Genesis xviii.) he bade his wife Sarah “make ready quickly three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes upon the hearth.” Professor Maspero says that an oven for baking bread was to be found in the courtyard of every house in Chaldaea; close by were kept the grinding stones. That bread prepared by means of leaven was known in the days of the patriarchs may be fairly inferred from the passage in Genesis ML, where it is said of Lot that he “made a feast, and did bake unleavened bread.” Whether the shew-bread of the Jewish tabernacle was leavened is an open question, but it is significant that the Passover cakes eaten by Jews to-day, known as Matzos, are innocent of leaven. Made from flour and water only, they are about 12 in. in diameter, and have somewhat the look of water biscuits.
The ancient Egyptians carried the art of baking to high perfection. Herodotus remarks of them, “dough they knead with their feet, but clay with their hands.” The practice of using the feet for dough kneading, however repulsive, long persisted in Scotland, if indeed it is yet defunct. The Egyptians used for their bread, wheat, spelt, barley and durra (sorghum). In the opinion of Dr Wallis Budge, barley was in Egypt the grain of most primitive culture. However that may be, it is certain that even in ancient Egypt white bread made from wheat was used by the rich. The form of the bread is revealed by ancient monuments. A common shape was a small, round loaf, something like the muffin of to-day. Other loaves were elongated rolls, and curiously enough were sprinkled on the top with seeds like modern Vienna bread.