In the 21st century we have become accustomed to reality TV shows about artisanal pursuits, and none, perhaps, have captured the public imagination quite like The Great British Bake Off. So far, the show has had thirteen seasons, and is widely loved by young and old, men and women alike, with millions of viewers tuning in for the most recent final which aired on BBC One. It is interesting to note that of the thirteen winners of the programme since its inception in 2010, seven have been women, making for a more or less equal gender division. However, while today female celebrity bakers such as Mary Berry are iconic role-models, the situation was not always so favourable for women in baking. Indeed, in early modern Scotland (c.1450-c.1750), bakers were much more like Paul Hollywood than Mary Berry, as the ‘baxter’ trade was an exclusive, corporate occupation, wholly dominated by men. In fact, it was not even enough to be male to become a baxter. If Hollywood or Berry found their way back to 17th-century Aberdeen or Edinburgh, neither of these skilful bakers would have been able to set up shop, because the right to work was not about skill. One first needed the appropriate connections to the chartered and privileged incorporations to be able to work in the trade, and only then was their sufficiency considered, but this was how ‘corporatism’ worked. It protected the privileged few, or the ‘freemen’, and excluded the great majority, who society termed ‘unfreemen’, whether they knew how to bake or not.
Of course, this binary free and unfree system is only a shorthand, as the reality was far more complex. Freemen relied on the apprentices and journeymen who laboured in their booths. Freemen’s wives were often heavily involved in the business, and when freemen died, their widows often carried on their businesses. Indeed, a range of unfree people were allowed to work in free trades due to their connection to the household of the free masters. Still others found toleration due to the services and goods they offered, as corporate privilege was held in tension with the common weal of
