The sobado bread was given to the soldiers because it has the exceptional characteristic of lasting for days, even weeks. It arrived in French Normandy through the Kingdom of Navarre in the times of Charles II 'the Bad', married to Joan of France. It gave rise to the so-called Norman pain brié (also, pain de chapître, 'town hall bread'), very similar to candeal. Later the Spanish Tercios brought sobado bread to France, Italy, Flanders and other parts of Europe. The Italian bakers adopted Spanish sobado bread and created its own delicacies, such as coppia ferrarese. Even in the Maghreb there is a bread derived from candeal called pain espagnole. Instead, what in Italy is called pan di Spagna ("Spanish bread") refers to the sponge cake, which according to Italian tradition was made by a baker in Spain. The name has passed into Greek as pantespani (Παντεσπάνι) and into Turkish as pandispanya.
