Food and dining in the Roman Empire and a pesto-like preparation, somewhat similar to pizza or focaccia. Maintaining a bread oven is labor-intensive and requires space, so apartment dwellers probably prepared their dough at home, then had it baked in a communal oven. Mills and commercial ovens, usually combined in a bakery complex, were considered so vital to the wellbeing of Rome that several religious festivals honored the deities who furthered these processes—and even the donkeys who toiled in the mills. Vesta, the goddess of the hearth, was seen as complementary to Ceres, the goddess of grain, and donkeys were garlanded and given a rest on the
Hearth tax and became widespread in the 14th century when the royal finances were unable to bear the rising costs of war and state agents. In particular, "fouages" were levied in 1342 and 1349. The "hearth-penny" was an Anglo-Saxon term for "Peter's pence". In England, hearth tax, also known as hearth money, chimney tax, or chimney money, was a tax imposed by Parliament in 1662, to support the Royal Household of King Charles II. Following the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, Parliament calculated that the Royal Household needed an annual income of £1,200,000. The hearth tax was a supplemental tax to