Communal oven

Such use was subject to payment, in kind or money, originally intended merely to cover the costs associated to the construction, maintenance and operation of the oven.

The danger was real, as demonstrated in 1848 when a full quarter of the neighbouring hamlet of Thil-la-Ville was consumed by a fire that ignited from sparks when a housewife heated her oven.

In New France, it was the only banal right commonly established and the oven's fortified construction also served to protect the colonists during skirmishes.

The four banal system seems to have died out in France during the 18th century, though it was a time when some dormant seigneurial rights were being insisted upon by an aristocracy hard-pressed for cash, as an official mémoire suggests: The lord will do well not to raise the question, taking into consideration that times have changed, seeing the scarcity of wood and the poverty of the populace, whom the exercise of this right seems to greatly trouble.

In some rural areas of France, the old communal ovens are still extant (illustration) and are sometimes used for community celebrations.