Beschreibung:

ASSIZE OF BREAD -- Here beginneth the Booke, named the Assise of Breade, what it ought to wheygh, after the price of a Quarter of Wheate. And also the Assyse of Ale, with all maner of Wood and Cole, Lath, Boord, and Tymber, and the weyght of Butter and Cheese . London: Hugh Jackson, [c.1580]. 4° (181 x 137mm). Four woodcuts on title-page depicting aspects of bread-baking, 8 double-pages of price tables headed by 8 woodcuts of wheat, wastell and 6 types of loaves, woodcut criblé and ornamental initials. (Small, discreet marginal repairs, one heading and one rule border trimmed.) Early 20th-centutry red morocco gilt by Morrell, red sprinkled edges. Provenance : George Horace (1882-1960) and Alison Johnstone (d.1977), Trewithen, Cornwall (1933 bookplate), then by descent. ONE OF ONLY TWO KNOWN COPIES of this, the eleventh, edition of the Assize of Bread. The present copy is unrecorded in STC (citing only that at the British Library) and is very possibly the only copy of any 16th-century Assize of Bread remaining in private hands. All 16th-century editions are very rare; of the 15 printed before 1600, ten survive in one copy only and five in two copies, and no copy has been sold at auction since the Britwell sale in 1924. Laws regulating the price, weight and quality of bread and beer came into effect in 1266 and remained in effect over six centuries. The price of bread was set in relation to the price of wheat. The Assizes set out these price tables according to the type of loaf made, ranging from wastel, the standard loaf, made of fine white flour, to simnel -- the richest -- bread, to a household loaf, a brown bread made from wheat with the bran intact. The printed Assizes contain the text of the law, the price tables of bread, punishments to be meeted out to bakers contravening the law, the assizes of wood, coal, victuals, and regulations pertaining to barrels of oil, honey, eels, salmon and herring, and ends with Suffolk cheese and butter. STC 869.5 (erroneously citing 'bread' in the title).