(3) In order to protect the town bakers' Occupation, it was resolved by the Guild Merchant in 1520 that no country baker should bring in bread except on market days, Wednesday and Friday, "and to set down at the High Cross and sell by the 1d. worth or 2d. worth." No foreign bakers were allowed to take bread to customers "on pain of forfeiting their bread to the King, and their bodies to be imprisoned at Mr. Mayor's commandment"; but on Saturdays they might bring it to the Saturday Market, and sell it there. The country bakers were required to take the following oath:— "You shall swear you shall well and truly observe and keep all and everything contained in the three branches in the Bakers' Ordinal and which concerns the Bakers of the country and do and perform all other matters and things as in any sort concern the good orders and rules of the said trade so far forth as concerns you to the best of your knowledge, skill and ability. So help you God."
Bread forfeited under the assize was usually given away to poor people by the Mayor. In the year 1482 it was ordained that the Mayor's brethren should not bake to sell, within their houses or without, on pain of losing their office; but soon afterwards a more excellent way was found. This order was abolished, and a new provision was made, that, if the Mayor or any of his brethren were bakers, and offended against the assize, they should pay double the usual penalty.
Towards the end of the 16th century, a claim made by some Leicester bakers to bake at their own houses bread and cakes, which were not for their own consumption, was resented by the general body of the baking fraternity who used the Crown bakeries. An action was brought in the Court of the Duchy of Lancaster to test the validity of this claim. The case was that one William Becket, who was a common victualler of Leicester, used to bake at the Queen's common bakehouses, but he had also an oven in his own house, at which he was accustomed, "as divers others in that town have done," to bake "pies, pastries, and sometimes spiced bread and cakes." The defendant acknowledged his suit to the Queen's ovens, and the Court of the Duchy ordered that from thenceforth he should bake his
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