Medieval Bakers: Most Richer People In The Middle Ages

Medieval Bakers

Most richer people in the middle ages ate white bread with wheat because they thought it was healthier, but the peasants made darker bread out of oat and rye. There were many peasants, jobs and many other interesting things in the medieval ages. The baker was very important in medieval life, they made the bread, biscuits, and pastries for everyone including the King and Queen.

A baker was one of the jobs that a medieval peasant might have. About nine tenths of the medieval population were peasants. A peasant village house had up to 10 to 60 families. Each family lived in a house made of wood or wicker, wicker is wood woven like a basket. Then their house would be daubed with mud and covered with straw or rushes, which is a grasslike

plant. Layers of straw or reeds covered the floor, often a peasant's home would have their pigs, chickens, and other animals. The bed was a pile of leaves or straw, and they used skins of animals like a bed sheet to go over and cover the straw or leaves. A cooking fire of wood or peat, which is decayed vegetable matter; it burned all day and all night, in a clearing on their floor. Every house had a vegetable patch so it’s most likely thats where they got most of their peat. The smoke from the fire usually went out a hole in their roof, otherwise it could also go out and open half of a two-sectioned door. The only furniture was a small table, a few stools, and maybe a chest to hold their things. There also might have been a loom for women who liked to make their own cloth.
Bakers start work before daylight, so they can knead the dough and set it to rise.

They then have to add charcoal or wood to the firebox, also rake the coals to get the right amount of heat; next they would slide the loaves into the gigantic oven. Ordinary houses didn’t have ovens so peasants and townsfolk bring bread and meat for special occasions for them to bake. The peasants used the ashes of the hearth fire when baking breads and biscuits at their homes. The baker develops strong arms from kneading dough all the time, maybe because this is the result of kneading all different sized breads. They have to knead huge “knights loaves”, smaller “squire’s loaves”, and little “page’s loaves”, or rolls. Bakers can have their own specialties like two colored bread “bread with layers of wheat and rye”, bread for trenchers “thick slices that are used instead of plates”, or twice baked bread “crackers”. Bakers sweat in the summertime but in winter it is nice to have the warmth of the bakery; and there is no better smell than hot, fresh, bread! A bakers bakery is near a stream, so the village boys fill the water buckets every morning, but the bakers always worry about fire, no sensible lord allows a bakery inside his castle walls. When there’s a feast, servants have to run to the great hall with huge platters of baked

food.
The baker was very important in the medieval life but it wasn’t as easy as some may think. At some point in the medieval times, the bakers started to cheat their customers. Bread was a great steady demand in medieval times, the bakers knew that they could charge lots of money for minimal amounts of their products. Since they were doing that more and more, the kings noticed. They fulfilled laws against bakers stating that they were to lower the amount of bread for more money. The common term “A Baker’s Dozen” (meaning 13 instead of 12) came from the medieval time period. Any baker caught selling less than even a dozen was strictly and harshly punished. Bakers began to add one extra loaf just to be sure their count would be correct, so in other words for example, if one burned then they would still have the other twelve. Really amazing bakers were invited and employed by the rich and other high classes to be their personal cooks. The good thing is that when other bakers worked for the rich they got the safety of the castles. Inside the castle their duties included preparing dinners and large feasts. Bakers off all classes were allowed into the castle for a job.
As you can see, being a baker was not easy. It is probably harder than you would think in the middle ages. Bakers had the responsibility of making all the food for the peasants, serfs, knights, and if they were really good at doing there job; they would bake food for the king and queen.