Inglorious Baxters: Baking in mediaeval and early modern Aberdeen
History is a broad field, and one that can easily find itself focused on pivotal moments, grand causes, and big names – the factors that tend to stand out when one is looking at the past. It’s an oddity of history that it’s a lot easier to piece together the life and movements of a Prince or Lord (something which most of us have little day-to-day experience with) than it is to get a detailed look at the life of a baker . In May of 2026, I delivered a talk in Aberdeen's Maritime Museum on the subject of mediaeval and early modern bread, with the intention of getting to know more about the daily life of the mediaeval Aberdonian baker. Over my time working in the Archives, I’d seen a lot of information about the Baxter trade and the lives of bakers in passing, and I was keen to be able to flesh that impression out – to fill in the details. I got to know more. I got to know a lot more. When our researchers look for ancestors in Victorian-era school log books, the general rule is that ...
