1) Bread made of bean meal, used as fodder for animals but eaten also by poor people.
1728 poor labouring persons ... ill sett to gett a sufficiency of bean bread for their families, Horbury. It is a word for which little evidence has been noted but bread of this kind was the subject of an early detailed order in York: 1482 avysid be the Counsell that as long as the price of beyns beyn at iiijs or above that the baxters ... shall sell thre hors loffys for jd and that every loffe shall weye thre pound
and yf the price of beyns be ondyr iiijs that then every baxter ... shall sell thre hors loffys for jd and that every lofe shall weye fowr pound weght. It may therefore have developed as an alternative term for horse-bread. Later York records provide additional details: 1589 dyvers bakers of this cittie have of laite used to sell course meale ... they buy evell corne ... mingle rie barley beans and oates ... and grind the same into meale .