The baker says ''This is the staff of life,

The comfort of both man and wife".

The brewer cried "You stupid elf,

For this is the very life itself'.

This little piece of doggerel can be seen set into the windows of some public houses and inns and, whatever view we take of the respective merits of their claims for their products, there is no doubt that in both forms their constituents, grain and yeast, were staple items in the diet of our ancestors for many centuries.

Baking is thought to have been one of the earliest of the crafts to form trade guilds, but it is not until the Middle Ages that we start to find any record of trade guilds in this country in London and other major towns. In this early period when surnames were being adopted, the Baker surname is found both in Coventry and the surrounding villages indicating that the trade of baking was widespread.

The Bakers' Company of London is one of the oldest of the London livery companies, dating from between 1130 and 1155 according to the Pipe Rolls ( the account rolls of the King's Exchequer). There are no known surviving contemporary records to prove just when a bakers' guild was formed in Coventry, and in fact there are no known surviving guild records for any organisation in Coventry from before the late 14th century. The earliest known Merchant guild in Coventry was formed in 1340 when some wealthy merchants provided £1000 to obtain a royal licence from Edward III to found the Merchant Guild of St Mary. Other Guilds were formed but eventually with amalgamations there emerged the Corpus Christi Guild as the junior body and the Holy Trinity Guild as the senior.