photo #7689846

This is the communal bread oven in the small village Urval, France, built in the 14th century. Above the oven is the room of the 'fournier' who was the fire-tender and also the baker. The shelves above the oven were used to place the loaves. To the right is the pigeonnier where the fournier raised his pigeons.In medieval France, the feudal lord had the duty to provide and the privilege of owning all large bakeries within his fiefdom. In exchange, private ovens were generally prohibited and ordinary citizens had to pay a tax to use the stately oven to bake their own bread. The community oven thus became a meeting point for the villages, where people gathered regularly, contributing to the lord's wealth through obligatory taxes. Also the lord owned the mills and peasants had to pay to have their grain milled.