Baker by profession
Jehan was a baker by trade. All the village baking would be done in either a communal oven or by the village
baker. During the Middle Ages, bakers were a highly respected profession. It was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually more of a public oven.
Housewives of tenant farmers would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker, who would use the oven to bake it into bread. Tenant farmers were men who leased land from rich property owners and paid rent with either crops or money earned
from the sale of crops. In the 1600's there was a tax on everything. Farmers had to pay rent to landlords, they were charged for use of the mill, bakery and winepress. If they wanted to trade land with
someone, they were taxed on that as well. Access to the court system was questionable and full of fees and commissions.
Peasants often lived by bread alone 2 pounds a day if they were lucky. The bread was dark, a mixture of wheat and rye flour. They also ate peas and beans, wine, beer and
sometimes skimmed milk. Medical treatment was little more than guesswork, and totally out of reach of the poor. Epidemics of dysentery, smallpox and typhus occurred regularly. Water supplies were contaminated.
Bathing (once feared as a method of spreading diseases) was rare.
In 1590, life had become difficult for the common people everywhere in Europe. The weather had been cold and wet for three years and there have been at least three bad harvests in a row. The League warfare
has destroyed transportation and food supplies. Bread is scarce and prices of food, fuel, and housing are high, while wages are low. The costs of war and the huge national debt have meant that taxes are also
high. There have been peasant uprisings in some provinces, sometimes with Huguenots and Catholics alike uniting against the nobility. The effects of war have been so severe in Northern France that two-thirds
of the population of Picardy are widows and orphans. The Spanish are still pressing hard against the northern border and these are bleak times, but Henri's leadership offers France some hope for the future.
Before he reached the age of twenty, Jehan Laspron married Marguerite Fiteau in La Charité sur Loire around 1589.
They had 11 children from 1590 to 1614, all born in the parish of St Jacques de La Charite sur Loire: Jacquette, Frances, Jeanne,
Anne, Peter, Francis, Mary, Jean, Estienne, Jacques and Louis.
Next: The story of Jean Laspron, born 1611 g
He would be our next ancestor in our ancestry line of decent.
Jean Laspron b. 1611 - Timeline
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