Transactions. 9 



used by the ancient world (as seen in the bakers' sliops at Pompeii, 

 and also in the paintings of the catacombs) was in the shape of 

 round, flat cakes. The note is a curious one, and illustrates how 

 even a most intelligent Englishman may fail to understand matters 

 in Scotland. The Dean says — " A curious example of an adven- 

 titious sacredness attaching itself to a particular form of sacra- 

 mental bread is to be found in the use of ' shortbread ' instead of 

 the ordinary leavened or unleavened bread amongst the 'hill men' 

 of Scotland." " I myself," writes a well-informed minister of the 

 Church of Scotland, " thirty years ago assisted at an open-air 

 Communion in the parish of Dairy, in Galloway, where this had 

 been the custom from time immemorial. The minister's wife sent 

 so many pounds of fresh butter to a distant baker, and received 

 back preparatory to the Communion so many cakes of ' shortbread,' 

 i.e., brittle bread, which was kept nearly as carefully as a Eoman 

 Catholic would keep his wafer." The note is interesting, although 

 the good people in Dairy would be surprised to hear themselves 

 called " hill men," and that they attached any particular sacred- 

 ness to the form of the bread used in the Lord's Supper. Dr John 

 Lee, in his " History of the Church of Scotland," vol. i., p. .389, 

 has an appendix in which he gives extracts from Session and 

 Burgh Eecords relative to the dispensation of the Communion. 

 In the Edinburgh Session Records under " L560, Sonda) 2nd of 

 March, ye Communion ministrat to John Knox in the hie kirk of 

 Edinburgh. To H. Meffen, for vi** breid to the Communion, 

 40s ; 8i- gallons wyne, 3/ 8s. 8th June, Second Communion, iij* 

 breid, 30s; 8 gallons wine, 4/ 16s. 8th September. Third Com- 

 munion, 24 breid, 28s; 6^ gallons wyne, 3/ 10s," There are 

 several similar entries down to 9th May, 1574. In them all the 

 bread is entei-ed .simply as bread. Am I right in inferring that 

 shortbread in the Lord's Supper was unknown to John Knox, 

 that it was simply household bread that he employed, and that 

 the use of shortbread must have been confined to districts away 

 from the Metropolis, where old practices would not be so easily 

 dislodged 1 What is the origin of this practice once so largely 

 characteristic of the South of Scotland % Can it be because of the 

 ease with which shortbread, i.e., brittle bread, can be broken for 

 distribution among the communicants at a time when oat cakes, 

 hard and not easily broken by the hand or the teeth, would be the 

 bread in daily use among the mass of the people, or can it be that 



