Wastel

Obs. exc. Hist. Forms: 4–7 wastell, (7 vastell), 5 wastelle, (wastle, wastyl(le, wastil), 9 Sc. wastell, 4– wastel; also, by confusion with wassail, 6, 9 wassell. [a. OF. wastel, north-eastern var. of guastel, gastel (mod.F. gâteau). In Anglo-L. records the word often occurs latinized as guastellum, wastellum: see examples under SIMNEL and TREAT sb.² 2.]

  1.  Bread made of the finest flour; a cake or loaf of this bread. (See note s.v. TREAT sb.² 2.)

[1194.  in Palgrave, Doc. & Rec. Scot. (1837), I. Illustr. p. xxviii. Habere solebant … singulis diebus … duodecim de dominicis guastellis nostris et totidem de simenellis nostris dominicis et duodecim sextercia vini.]

c. 1300.  Havelok, 878. Þe bermen let he alle ligge, And bar þe mete to þe castel, And gat him þere a ferthing wastel. Ibid., 779 [see SIMNEL 1].

1377.  Langl., P. Pl., B. V. 293. Þow hast no good grounde to gete þe with a wastel.

c. 1420.  Liber Cocorum (1862), 52. Storve myed wastel with colde ale þen.

1421.  Coventry Leet Bk., 23. We commaunde ȝou … þat euery Baxster … bake & sell iiij wastels for a peny.

c. 1430.  Two Cookery-bks., 22. Þen take … Roysonys y-hole, or hard Wastel y-dicyd.

c. 1470.  Golagros & Gaw., 223. Thus refreschit he his folk in grete fusion, With outin wanting in waill, wastell or wyne.

1530.  Tindale, Lev. xxiv. 5. And thou shalt take fine floure and bake .xii. wastels thereof.

c. 1530.  Assyse of Breade (Wyer), A iij b. A farthynge Wastell.

1557.  R. Edgeworth, Serm., i. 6 b. Like as a Molle if a man would feede her with wine and wastel, she will none thereof.

c. 1638.  Order Priv. Counc., in Penkethman, Artachthos, H 3. That no Baker … shall make or bake to bee sold any other … sorts of bread (except Simnell, Wastell, and Horse-bread, allowed by the Lawes … of this Realm).

  fig.  c. 1430.  Pilgr. Lyf Manhode, II. iii. (1869), 117. I blowe with thilke belyes the herth to thilke, that of his soule wole make a wastel to the maister devel.

  b.  attrib. as wastel bread, cake.

c. 1386.  Chaucer, Prol., 147. Of smale houndes hadde she þat she fedde With rosted flessh or Milk and *wastel breed.

c. 1430.  Lydg., Min. Poems (Percy Soc.), 184. Thouhe I were fedde with mylke and wastelbrede.

1569.  in N. & Q., 9th Ser. X. 27/1. Two acres of land called wassell-land, out of which there hath been paid two bushels of wheat yearly, to be made in wassell-bread and given to the poor.

1655.  Fuller, Ch. Hist., VI. ii. § 8. 285. The Abbot … had Vastellum, that is, not common bread, but vastell bread, or simnels for his diet.

1820.  Scott, Monast., xii. A skin as white as her father’s finest bolted flour, out of which was made the Abbot’s own wastel-bread. Ibid., xvi. I will send up in secret, not only household stuff, but wine and wassell-bread.

1843.  F. E. Paget, Warden of Berkingholt, 66. Time was, when the wastel-bread, and the mortrel pottage, and the trencher of flesh or fish as the day required, were bestowed as a pittance to sixty of the poorest and most deserving persons in the neighbourhood.

1820.  Scott, Monast., xxvi. Mysie made no answer, but began to knead dough for *wastel-cake.

1912.  Sir H. Maxwell, Early Chron. Scot., v. 194. From the moment he entered England, the King of Scots [K. Wm.] was to be supplied with twelve royal wastel cakes and twelve royal simnel loaves.

  2.  Her. TORTEAU 1.

1486.  Bk. St. Albans, Coat-arm., b iv b. Tortlettis be calde in armys wastell.

1562.  [see TORTEAU].

c. 1828.  Berry, Encycl. Her., I. Gloss.