136 SERVILE BURDENS
The communal oven, however, never seems to have been so
widespread in England as in France, and we have no very clear
details as to its administration. We have a number of entries
showing that it was often a valuable asset to the lord: sometimes
in granting a charter to a vill the lord will forgo his rights of oven,
but this is not invariable, and is in itself an indication of the
value of such rights.1 Again, we can find information respecting
its hire to individuals, or to the members of the village as a body.2
As we saw when considering the mill, the repairs were charge-
able to the lord or to the tenant, according to the arrangement
made at the time of drawing up the lease. And again, men are
fined for not baking at the oven, and so on.3 But we have no
information of the detailed working of the system, of the method
of payment, of the ease with which one could make use of the
oven, of the way in which all those wishing to bake were dealt
with, etc. As with many other of the commonest activities of the
peasant's life, the very frequency and " matter of factness" of the
operations have been our undoing. The medieval mind thought
them not worth recording.
Nevertheless the widespread activities of the village bakers are
vouched for by the way in which the name occurs everywhere
under different forms. In a Worcester Subsidy roll, for example,
we find the following names all denoting the presence of the
baker: Bakare, Bachessor, Bagster, Baxter; Bollinger, Bullinger,
Ballinger, Bellinger; Furnur', Furner, Furnagc, Fernier; Pain,
Pannier, Pottinger; Pistor, Pestour, Pastelcr; Rybbare; Wastel,
Wytbred; le Ovane, atte Novene.4
What we have lost because of the commonplace nature of the
baker's activities may be seen by looking at an entry concerning
the village oven printed by Maitland in a volume entitled The
Court Baron. In this volume there occurs a detailed account of
how to hold a court and pleas, in which the writer takes one by
one the common types of offences the steward may have to deal
with in holding the Manor Court, and sets out an imaginary case
of each. Naturally only the most frequent causes of litigation are
1 Ballard, Brit. Borough Charters (iO42~i2i6), p. 1.
2 Selden Soc. n, 25; Mamecestre> 315; Tatenhill, n, 6, 12; Kettering
Comp. 12.
8 Tatenhill, n, 62; A.A.SJR. xxxm, 330 ff,
* Wore, Hist. Soc., Lay Subsidy Roll, i Ed. Ill, p. x.