Banning the bread

Many historical sources concerning the luxurious festive loaves deal with banning or regulating the baking of these large fine wheat loaves. The people of Amsterdam went outside the city walls to avoid the regulations concerning the duivekater, a practice that was also banned in an ordinance, kept in Stadsarchief Amsterdam,13 from 13 December 1542. In 1649 bakers were banned from gifting duivekaters to their customers. And an ordinance in Amsterdam from 26 November 1698 bans the baking and selling of duivekater loaves because they were made of white flour, but bran was being added to loaves for less affluent customers, thereby lowering the quality of their loaves.