Since the 13th century, Toruń gingerbread was made in Toruń, then State of the Teutonic Order (now Poland). It gained fame in the realm and abroad when it was brought to Sweden by German immigrants. In 15th-century Germany, a gingerbread guild controlled production. Early references from the Vadstena Abbey show that the Swedish nuns baked gingerbread to ease indigestion in 1444. It was the custom to bake white biscuits and paint them as window decorations. In England, gingerbread was also thought to have medicinal properties.16th-century writer John Baret described gingerbread as "a kinde of cake or paste made to comfort the stomacke."