The history of bread : from pre-historic to modern times / by John Ashton.
- John Ashton
- Date:
- 1904
Licence: In copyright
Credit: The history of bread : from pre-historic to modern times / by John Ashton. Source: Wellcome Collection.
Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.
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![corn,’ a practice which the natives of Aleppo, and some other Eastern places, still religiously observe. How Gideon (Jud. vi. n) or Oman (I. Chron. xxi. 20) threshed, whether by oxen or by flail, we cannot tell, but in Isaiah xxviii. 27, 28, we find five methods of threshing then in vogue. ‘ For the fitches [this is supposed to be the Nigella saliva, whose seeds are used as a condiment, like coriander or caraway] are not threshed with a threshing instru- ment, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin ; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised ; because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen.’ In Lowth on Isaiah we find this passage made somewhat clearer: ‘The dill is not beaten out with the corn-drag; Nor is the Wheel of the Warn made to turn upon the cummin. But the dill is beaten out with the Staff, And the cummin with the Flail, but The bread corn with the Threshing-Wain; And not for ever will he continue thus to thresh it, Nor vex it with the Wheel of its Wain, Nor to bruise it with the Hoofs of his Cattle.’ The Staff and Flail were used for that grain that was too tender to be treated in any other method. The Drag consisted of a sort of frame of strong planks, made rough at the bottom with hard stones or iron ; it was drawn by horses or oxen over the corn sheaves spread on the threshing floor, the driver sitting upon it. The Wain was much like the former, 3i](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b21538682_0037.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
