Document of the Month September 2008
List of bakers in Aberdeen showing their individual marks, 6 February 1457
© Aberdeen City Council
This month’s document is from volume 5 of the council registers covering 1 April 1448 to 18 July 1568. Aberdeen City Archives hold an almost complete run of council minutes dating back to 1398 up to the present day, meaning we have the finest and most complete collection of medieval and early modern burgh records in Scotland. The entry above shows a list of 'baxstars', or bakers, along with their unique identifying stamps or marks. These would have been imprinted into every loaf of bread they made so that they could be identified as the baker. It also meant that if their bread was not up to standard, then the authorities knew who had made it. Bakers had high standards to maintain and if inferior flour was used then the baker was punished as a result.
The entry reads as follows:
Item on the baxstars of bred quhilk falows the craft and na o[th]ers
In the first Androw baxstar w[i]t[h] his mark
Willim club
William atkynson
Thom of spens
Willim buchan
Thom Imlach
Willim catnes
Rob[er]t ranyson
John gahuthud
Will baxstar
Thom ghil
Androw Mair
The entry is an interesting one as it gives us an idea of the kinds of things the council and others had authority over. For example, an entry dated 5 September 1442 states that "the penny lafe wey 24 vnce of bakin brede at the leste", meaning that the loaf had to weigh at least 24 ounces once baked.
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