Obs. Also 4–7 coket. [Origin unknown: the conjecture has been offered that this bread was so called because stamped with a seal (see COCKET sb.1); but evidence is wanting.]
Name of a sort of leavened bread, and of a loaf, slightly inferior in quality to the wastell or finest bread.
The name appears in the Statute of Bread and Ale, and was apparently quite obsolete before 1500, later references to it being only historical, and conjectural. Cocket-bread, Bread-cocket, are modern renderings of panis de coket.
1266[?]. Stat. Bread & Ale (51 Hen. III), Quando quarterium frumenti venditur pro xiid., tunc panis quadrantis de Wastello ponderabit sex libras et sexdecim solidos; Panis de Coket de eodem blado, & de eodem bultello, ponderabit plusquam Wastellum de duobus solidis; De blado minoris precii ponderabit plusquam Wastellum de quinque … Panis integer de quadrante de frumento ponderabit Coket & dimidium … Et panis de omni blado ponderabit duos Coketos. [16th c. transl. When a quarter of Wheat is sold for xiid. then wastel bread of a farthing shall weigh vili. & xvis. But Bread Cocket of a farthing of the same Corne and bultell, shall weigh more than wastell by iis. and Cocket bread made of Corne of lower price, shall weigh more than wastell by vs.… Bread (of a farthing) made of the whole wheat shall weigh a cocket and an halfe, that is to say, the Cocket, that shall weigh more than a wastell by v.s.… And bread of common Corne shall weigh two [great] cockets.]
1272–1307. Munim. Gildhallæ Lond. (Rolls), III. 411. Nota, quod panis coket, i. e. panis levatus … ponderabit plus quam wastellus per ij solidos.
1362. Langl., P. Pl., A. VII. 292. And þo nolde … no Beggere eten Bred þat Benes Inne coome, Bote Coket and Cler Matin an of clene whete. Ibid. (1377), B. VI. 306. But of coket or clere-matyn or elles of clene whete.
1483. Cath. Angl., 70. Cokett, effungia, est quidam panis.
Historical. 1502. Arnolde, Chron. (1811), 49. The price of a quarter whet iij.s. The ferthing symnell poise xv. vuncis and dim. q’t’. The ferthing whit loof coket poise xvij. vuncis dim. and ob’.
1638. Penkethman, Artach., C ij b. The Farthing White loafe of fine Cocket.
1678. Phillips, Cocket-bread, the finest sort of Wheaten Bread, next to that called Wastel, which is the whitest.
1860. Mun. Gildhallæ Lond. (Rolls), II. 793. Cokettus, panis, a loaf of cocket-bread.
[Cocket, sb. is given by Todd (1818), in the sense of Fr. coquet cock-boat, but app. by some error; Sherwood is named as authority; but ed. 1632 has only ‘cocke-boat.’]
