Civil Wedding Vows

Why was barley loaves used in the Roman Empire for wedding ceremonies?

Why was barley loaves used in the Roman Empire for wedding ceremonies? just a question, i was asked i have no clue so im asking in order to answer the person who asked me. THANX what i mean is why BARLEY loaves and not other herb loaves?

Public Comments

1. The type of wedding I believe you are referring to is known as Confarreatio. This type of marriage is the most sacred form of which divorce cannot end it, only death. During this type of wedding, the couple would cut a loaf of bread and offer it to Jupiter and Juno and then proceed to eat a portion of it as well. It actually isn't barley loaves, they are loaves of bread formed from the far grain, which in English is called emmer. ETA: Or perhaps if you are just thinking of the normal everyday marriage ceremony in general, it was because the grain used in Rome was barley grain, not wheat. Barley was just the commonplace grain that every baker used.
2. I remembered that this was used in the Dionysian festivals and probably in the Elusinian, so in additional to its ubiquity, it has religious significance -- wikipedia says: Wild barley comes from Epi-Paleolithic sites in the Levant, beginning in the Natufian. The earliest domesticated barley occurs at Aceramic Neolithic sites in the Near East such as the (PPN B) layers of Tell Abu Hureyra in Syria. Barley was one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East, at the same time as einkorn and emmer wheat.[3] Barley in Egyptian hieroglyphs jt barley determinative/ideogram Barley was alongside emmer wheat, a staple cereal of ancient Egypt, where it was used to make bread and beer; together, these were a complete diet. The general name for barley is jt (hypothetically pronounced "eat"); šma (hypothetically pronounced "SHE-ma") refers to Upper Egyptian barley and is a symbol of Upper Egypt. According to Deuteronomy 8:8, barley is one of the "Seven Species" of crops that characterize the fertility of the Promised Land of Canaan, and barley has a prominent role in the Israelite sacrifices described in the Pentateuch (see e.g. Numbers 5:15). In ancient Greece, the ritual significance of barley possibly dates back to the earliest stages of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The preparatory kykeon or mixed drink of the initiates, prepared from barley and herbs, was referred to in the Homeric hymn to Demeter, who was also called "Barley-mother".