Black death but cheap bread
Posted by: Epicurean on: October 9, 2010
A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe
The price of bread in particular was not much raised for in the beginning of the year, viz in the first week in March, the penny wheaten loaf was ten ounces and a half; and in the height of the contagion it was to be had at nine ounces and a half, and never dearer, no, not all that season. And about the beginning of November it was sold ten ounces and a half again; the like of which, I believe, was never heard in any city, under so dreadful a visitation, before.
Bread alone ...
Neither was there (which I wondered much at) any want of bakers or ovens kept open to supply the people with the bread; but this was indeed alleged by some families, viz that their maidservants, going to the bakehouses with their dough to be baked, which was then the custom sometimes came home with the sickness (that is to say the plague) upon them.
