Description:Bakery regulations: a source for Shakespeare.
The woodcuts in this official government text that regulated the work of bakers show the work of kitchens with which Shakespeare would have been familiar. In his plays such as Romeo and Juliet, Coriolanus and The Comedy of Errors, there are servants preparing meals, or serving at feasts, while they comment on the action of their masters: ‘The capon burns, the pig falls from the spit; the clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell, my mistress... is so hot because the meat is cold; the meat is cold because you come not home...’ (Comedy of Errors, 1,2, lines 43-52.
See:Coriolanus, 4,5, lines 176-235; Romeo and Juliet, 1,5, lines 1-15.
Full title: The Assise of Bread, newly corrected and enlarged together with sondry good and needful ordinances, for Bakers, Brewers, Inholders, Victuallers, Vintners, and Butchers; and also other Assises in weightes and measures, etc. [revised by John Powell], London, printed by John Windet and sold by Edward White, 1608.