12S. IX. AUG. 6, 1921.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 117 who in translating ' Peregrine Pickle ' changed the here's name to Sir William Pickle ! There seems to have been some earlier French version of the Fables. In the interview which the Bang of Prussia had with Gellert in 1760 (see Carlyle's ' Fred- erick,' Bk. xx., chap, vi.) he says to the poet, " Tell me why we have no good Ger- man authors." Whereupon Quintus Icilius interposes, " Your Majesty, you see here one before you ; one whom the French themselves have translated, calling him thd German La Fontaine ".! EDWARD BENSLY. Much Hadham, Herts. SUNDIALS (12 S. viii. 511 ; ix. 39, 59, 78). Mr. Thomas Ross's paper on ' Ancient Sundials of Scotland,' a report of which in The Builder was mentioned at p. 59, may be read at length in the ' Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland,' vol. xii., new series, 1890, pp. 161-273. It is profusely illustrated, and has at the end a table of dated examples. In the extract from The Rochdale Observer, given at the last reference in ' N. & Q.,' " Vegetate f orate " ought surely to be "Vigilate et orate " (Matthew xxvi., 41 ; Mark xiv., 38). EDWARD BENSLY. KINDS OF BREAD IN A.D. 1266 (12 S. ix. 70). Much that is very interesting about early bakery is to be read in Mr. H. T. Riley's * Memorials of London and London Life in the 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries,' a book to which I cannot now easily refer. I think your correspondent will find there, nd elsewhere, that wastel was bread made of fine flour, as good as any ordinarily used, but perhaps a little inferior to that demanded for simnel bread and demain. The word wastel is related to the still familiar French g&teau, a cake. Cocket was somewhat inferior to wastel and was eaten by the middle classes. It is believed that its name came from the fact that in London it was stamped with the baker's seal or cocket. " Bread of a farthing " means a farth- ing's worth of the article. Such a purchase in these days would be impossible, and I wonder if I am dreaming when I seem to recall a day when a penny would buy a nice little loaf ? ST. SWTTHIN. The Assize of Bread fixed a sliding scale for the weight of tiie various kinds of bread I by reference to the weight, according to j the provisions of the Assize, of a farthing i loaf of wastel bread. There were three ordinary kinds of bread 1 sold, of which " wastel " was the, first quality, " cocket " the second quality, and " bread of treet " the third quality. Besides those there was the " simnel," a kind of ! super bread of a quality better than wastel bread. Tomline's ' Law Dictionary ' (published 1820) says : ! the wastel bread was what we now call the 1 finest bread or French bread ; the cocket bread, the second- sort of white bread ; bread of treet, ! and of common wheat, brown or household bread. I It further states that these three classes
- of bread answer to the three sorts of bread
mentioned in the Statute of Anne (by which ! the Assize fixed by the Statute of Henry | III. was repealed) and therein called white, wheaten, and household bread, and that I in religious houses they formerly dis- I tinguished bread by these several names, ! panis armigerorum, panis conventualis, and panis famulorum. Tomline says : The English simnel is panis purior or the purest white bread. It is said to come from the Latin simila, which signifies the purest part of the flour. Halliwell gives " wastel " as well baked j white bread next in quality to simnel ; ! and " cocket bread " as the second kind I of best bread. " Treet " appears to be still a dialect word for a kind of bran, for | according to Brockett's ' Glossary of North I Country Words', * " bye-bpotings," or i " sharps " are the finest kind of bran ; j the second quality being called " treet " i and the worst " chizzel." It is probable that bread of treet con- tained a good deal of the bran. Under the Assize, instead "of making the loaf of a certain weight vary in price with the price of corn, the price of the loaf remained the same, but its weight increased or dim- inished as the price of wheat fell or rose. The Assize contained a scale fixing the change in the weight of the farthing loaf for each variation of sixpence in the price of a quarter of wheat from twelve pence to twelve shillings. Barrington in his ^ Obser- vations on the More Ancient Statutes,' speaking of the Assize, p. 54, observes : It is said that there are many mistakes in the proportions between the weight of bread as settled, and the price to be paid for it, which is very possible, as the legislators in those days were not very accurate arithmeticians.
