Bread Baking for King Richard?

[bcwatson]

I'm interested in leaning more about how people baked bread back during the reign of King Richard theLionhearted of England.
For a renaissance faire...
It would be around the last half of the12th century....
Do you have any idea how they did that?
What their ovens looked like?
Do you know of any web links that would point to how to build an authentic looking oven like one that might have been used back then?

Thanks,
Barry Watson

[Jed]

Re: Bread Baking for King Richard?

H Barry,

Welcome to the forum.

I'll be interested to see if any of our forum members have any clues on your question.

These wood ovens have been used over most of the world for thousands of years. Except China, I haven't seen anybody report any period over time when the Chinese used retained heat ovens for cooking.

The French had community ovens and the Kings would restrict the building of ovens, so the only oven available in a village was "The Kings". And the villagers would have to schedule a time to use the community oven, and pay for the privilege of using the oven. I don't know if the same system was in place in England.

Maybe some of our forum members from the UK will have some experience with the subject and can direct your research efforts...

Do report back with the information you find, it will be interesting to know!

JED