2-713-354 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

December - baking, 15th century, (1939). Man and woman using a long-handled wooden paddle to bake bread in an oven. Behind are balls of raw dough ready to be baked. A woman leaning out of a window looks on. A mainstay of the medieval diet, bread was eaten with many dishes, and was cut into thick slices that were used as plates or 'trenchers'. Detail of a page from the "Heures de Charles d'Angoulême", a book of hours commissioned by Charles of Orléans (1459-1496), with miniatures mostly painted by Robinet Testard, and now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Published in "Verve - No. 8, Vol. II". [Verve, France, 1939]