The four banal (English: common oven) was a feudal institution in medieval France. The feudal lord (French: seigneur) often had, among other banal rights, the duty to provide and the privilege to own all large ovens within his fief, each operated by an ovenmaster or fournier. In exchange, personal ovens were generally outlawed and commoners were thus compelled to use the seigniorial oven to bake their bread. 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. Seigniorial ovens were masonry ovens built on the Roman plan and were large enough to hold an entire community's ration of bread.