The earliest form of bread consisted of grain soaked in water, then pressed, and afterwards dried by means of the sun or fire. Another early kind of bread took the form of porridge or pudding, consisting of flour mixed with water and boiled. Next came the method of kneading dough, and the result was tough and unleavened bread. In Saxon times women made bread, and the modern title "lady" is softened from the Saxon _hlaf-dige_, meaning the distributor of bread. We learn from contemporary pictures that Anglo-Saxon bread consisted of round cakes, not unlike the Roman loaves of which we get representations in the pictures at Pompeii, and not unlike our Good-Friday cross-buns, which we are told come down to us from our Saxon forefathers. In connection with monasteries were bake-houses, and the work here would be done by the conversi or lay brothers. The holy bread in the mass was baked in the convents and churches by the priests or monks with much ceremony. Ovens were sometimes connected with old churches. Some of the monks in Saxon times do not appear to have fared well. We find it recorded that in the eighth century those at the Abbey of St. Edmund had to partake of barley bread because the income of the house was not sufficent to provide wheaten-bread twice or thrice daily. Towards the close of the thirteenth century the chief bakers who supplied London with bread lived at Stratford-le-Bow, Essex, doubtless on account of being near Epping Forest, where they could obtain cheap firewood. At a later period some were located at Bromley-by-Bow. The bread was brought to London in carts, and exposed for sale in Bread Street. The bakers attended daily excepting on Sundays and great festivals. It was no uncommon circumstance to seize the bread on its way to town for being of light weight, or made of unsound materials. It was not until the year 1302 that London bakers were permitted to sell bread in shops. A Royal Charter was granted in 1307 to the London Bakers' Company. The charter, we are told, "empowered the company to correct offences concerning the trade, to make laws and ordinances, to levy fines and penalties for non-observance thereof; and within the city and suburbs, and twelve miles round, to view, search, prove, and weigh all bread sold; and in case of finding it unwholesome, or not of due assize, to distribute it to the poor of the parish where it was found, and to impose fines, and levy the same by distress and sale of offenders' goods." When reform became the order of the day the power of the Bakers' Company passed away. There are various old-time statutes of the assize of bread in London. The earliest dates back to the days of Henry II. Another belongs to the reign of Henry III.; it regulated the price of bread according to the value of corn. A baker breaking the law was fined, and if his offence was serious he was placed in the pillory. These statutes were extended under Edward VI., Charles II., and Queen Anne.