Reconstruction
On 3 November, a familiar Ghent bakery product can acquire a temporary religious identity. The mastel is a soft, round wheat bun made from an enriched, yeast-raised dough, usually containing milk, butter, egg and sugar and scented with cinnamon or related spices. Its central depression or small opening gives it a ring-like appearance. Modern Ghent bakeries sell mastellen during the year, but some have batches blessed by a priest for Saint Hubert’s feast, turning ordinary bread into gewijde mastellen—blessed mastellen.
The ceremony belongs to a broader Catholic tradition of Saint Hubert bread found in Belgium and parts of the Netherlands. Hubert, an eighth-century bishop associated with Liège, became the patron of hunters and was invoked against rabies in humans and animals. Stories that he encountered a crucifix-bearing stag or cured a rabid sufferer with bread are devotional legends rather than contemporary biography. Nevertheless, Saint-Hubert institutions became important centres of religious responses to rabies, while blessed bread and the heated “Saint Hubert key” were among the protective practices used before modern germ theory and vaccination.
Tradition prescribed that Hubert bread be eaten dry and before other food. Pieces might also be given to dogs, horses, livestock or poultry, reflecting the danger rabies posed to households whose work depended upon animals. In some communities worshippers carried their own rolls to church; elsewhere bread was distributed after Mass alongside blessings of hunters, hounds and horses. Ghent localized this widespread observance by using its characteristic mastel. Contemporary preparation involves kneading the enriched dough, allowing it to rise, shaping individual rounds, pressing or opening the centre and baking them briefly at high heat. Blessing changes their ritual status, not their physical composition.
The wider Hubert-bread custom is medieval, and eighteenth-century religious confraternities elsewhere in the Southern Netherlands distributed such bread. The date at which Ghent specifically began blessing cinnamon mastellen, however, has not been securely established by the consulted evidence. The assigned eighteenth-century setting is therefore a reasonable context for the underlying devotional practice, not a documented origin date for the Ghent form. Likewise, stories about the mastel’s great antiquity should be distinguished from firmer evidence that its name occurred in sixteenth-century Flanders.
Pasteur’s successful rabies vaccination work in the 1880s gradually replaced devotional protection with biomedical prevention, although blessing ceremonies survived as expressions of identity and memory. Today the custom links a living regional bread with Catholic ritual, hunting culture and the historical fear of a nearly always fatal disease. A related modern Ghent preparation, the gestreken mastel, is cut open, spread with butter and brown sugar, wrapped and pressed with a hot iron until flat and caramelized; that culinary elaboration probably developed only in the nineteenth century.
Nutrition
| Nutrient | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 290–330 kcal | calculated |
| Protein | 7.5–9.5 g | calculated |
| Fat | 6–9 g | calculated |
| Carbohydrate | 48–55 g | calculated |
| Fibre | 1.5–2.5 g | estimated |
| Glycaemic index | 60–75 | estimated |
| Glycaemic load | 29–41 | estimated |
| Micronutrients | ||
| sodium | 250–400 mg | calculated |
| calcium | 40–70 mg | estimated |
| iron | 0.9–1.8 mg | estimated |
Typical serving: one modern plain Ghent mastel, approximately 45–55g
Historical context
At this time, Ghent was a substantial but fluctuating textile city: historical demographic reconstruction estimates about 38,000 inhabitants in 1736–1745 and roughly 51,000 in 1786–1795. After 1714 it belonged to the Austrian Netherlands rather than the Spanish Netherlands, and in 1795 it was incorporated into revolutionary France. The Coupure canal, opened in 1751, improved commercial connections, while textile manufacturing revived before mechanized spinning arrived in 1801. Catholic confraternities and blessings remained prominent parts of communal life, and rabies was still addressed through quarantine, killing suspected animals, cautery, devotional intercession and protective objects rather than vaccination.
Evidence
Written sources
LimitedHistorical and folkloric sources document Saint Hubert bread as protection against rabies, but no consulted early source securely dates the specifically Ghent practice of blessing cinnamon mastellen to 1700–1799.
Recipe evidence
StrongModern Ghent and Belgian descriptions consistently identify mastellen as enriched wheat buns containing milk, butter, sugar, egg and cinnamon or related spices.
Food identification
StrongMunicipal tourism material, bakery listings and local reporting consistently identify the modern mastel as a round, soft, cinnamon-flavoured Ghent bread with a central depression or opening.
Dating
LimitedThe general Saint Hubert bread custom is described as medieval, and the term for mastel is attested in sixteenth-century Flanders, but the inception date of their specific combination in Ghent remains uncertain.
Preparation method
ModerateModern recipes document mixing, kneading, fermenting, shaping and baking the enriched dough. They describe present practice and cannot automatically be projected unchanged into the eighteenth century.
Geographic attribution
ModerateThe association between mastellen and Ghent is well supported today, while related breads called mastellen also occur elsewhere in East Flanders; exclusivity to Ghent would be misleading.
Historical interpretation
ModerateInterpreting blessed bread as a response to rabies risk is supported by medical and religious history. Claims that it functioned medically describe historical belief, not demonstrated efficacy.
Sources
- 1.Hervé Bazin (2007). Saint Hubert, guérisseur de la rage de l’homme et des animaux. Bulletin de la Société Française d'Histoire de la Médecine et des Sciences Vétérinaires. www.persee.fr/doc/bhsv_1633-0749_2007_num_7_1_95Scientific literature
- 2.Visit Gent (2019). Smakeleyck!. Visit Gent. visit.gent.be/sites/default/files/content/brochuModern synthesis
- 3.AVS redactie (2021). Waar komt traditie van de gewijde mastellen vandaan?. AVS. avs.be/culinair/waar-komt-traditie-van-de-gewijdModern synthesis
- 4.Werkplaats immaterieel erfgoed (2026). Jaarlijkse Sint-Hubertusviering in Tervuren. Immaterieelerfgoed.be. www.immaterieelerfgoed.be/en/immaterieel-erfgoedModern synthesis
- 5.Hans van Werveke (1946). De curve van het bevolkingscijfer in een Zuid-Nederlandsche stad in de 17e en de 18e eeuw. Methode en resultaten. Handelingen van het Nederlandsche Philologen-congres. www.dbnl.org/tekst/_han005194601_01/_han00519460Modern synthesis
- 6.José van den Dungen (2026). Gentse mastellen. Recept.nl. www.recept.nl/recepten/gentse-mastellen/Modern synthesis
Limitations
- majordate start/date end
The consulted evidence does not securely date Ghent’s specific custom of blessing cinnamon mastellen to 1700–1799. Saint Hubert bread has medieval roots, but the first combination of that rite with the Ghent mastel remains undetermined.
- majorpolity
Ghent was in the Spanish Netherlands only until 1714. It formed part of the Austrian Netherlands from 1714 to 1795 and was under French rule from 1795, so “Spanish Netherlands” cannot describe the full 1700–1799 range.
- moderatedescription
The statement that fish sellers along the Flemish coast carried consecrated loaves through the streets was not substantiated by the curated sources and should remain unconfirmed pending a reliable historical citation.
