_The Ménagier's Wife_
A PARIS HOUSEWIFE IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
The sphere of woman is the home.
--_Homo Sapiens_
The men of the middle, as indeed of all ages, including our own, were
very fond of writing books of deportment telling women how they ought to
behave in all the circumstances of their existence, but more
particularly in their relations with their husbands. Many of these books
have survived, and among them one which is of particular interest,
because of the robust good sense of its writer and the intimate and
lively picture which it gives of a bourgeois home. Most books of
deportment were written, so to speak, in the air, for women in general,
but this was written by a particular husband for a particular wife, and
thus is drawn from life and full of detail, showing throughout an
individuality which its compeers too often lack. If a parallel be sought
to it, it is perhaps to be found not in any other medieval treatise but
in those passages of Xenophon's _Economist_, in which Isomachus
describes to Socrates the training of a perfect Greek wife.
The Ménagier de Paris (the Householder or Goodman of Paris, as we might
say) wrote this book for the instruction of his young wife between 1392
and 1394. He was a wealthy man, not without learning and of great
experience in affairs, obviously a member of that solid and enlightened
_haute bourgeoisie_, upon which the French monarchy was coming to lean
with ever-increasing confidence. When he wrote he must have been
approaching old age, and he was certainly over sixty, but he had
recently married a young wife of higher birth than himself, an orphan
from a different province. He speaks several times of her 'very great
youth', and kept a sort of duenna-housekeeper with her to help and
direct her in the management of his house; and indeed, like the wife of
Isomachus, she was only fifteen years old when he married her. Modern
opinion is shocked by a discrepancy in age between husband and wife,
with which the Middle Ages, a time of _ménages de convenance_, was more
familiar. 'Seldom,' the Ménagier says, 'will you see ever so old a man
who will not marry a young woman.' Yet his attitude towards his young
wife shows us that there may have been compensations, even in a marriage
between May and January. Time after time in his book there sounds the
note of a tenderness which is paternal rather than marital, a
sympathetic understanding of the feelings of a wedded child, which a
younger man might not have compassed. Over all the matter-of-fact
counsels there seems to hang something of the mellow sadness of an
autumn evening, when beauty and death go ever hand in hand. It was his
wife's function to make comfortable his declining years; but it was his
to make the task easy for her. He constantly repeats the assurance that
he does not ask of her an overweening respect, or a service too humble
or too hard, for such is not due to him; he desires only such care as
his neighbours and kinswomen take of their husbands, 'for to me
belongeth none save the common service, or less'.
In his Prologue, addressed to her, he gives a charming picture of the
scene which led him to write his book: 'You, being of the age of fifteen
years and in the week that you and I were wed, did pray me that I would
please to be indulgent to your youth and to your small and ignorant
service mewards, until that you should have seen and learned more, to
the hastening whereof you did promise me to set all care and
diligence, ... praying me humbly, in our bed as I remember, that for the
love of God I would not correct you harshly before strangers nor before
our own folk, 'but that I would correct you each night or from day to
day in our chamber and show you the unseemly or foolish things done in
the day or days past, and chastise you, if it pleased me, and then you
would not fail to amend yourself according to my teaching and correction,
and would do all in your power according to my will, as you said. And I
thought well of, and praise and thank you for, what you said to me and I
have often remembered it since. And know, dear sister[D], that all that
I know you have done since we were wed up to this day, and all that you
shall do hereafter with good intent has been and is good and well hath
pleased, pleases and shall please me. For your youth excuses you from
being very wise, and will still excuse you in everything that you do
with good intent to please me. And know that it doth not displease, but
rather pleases me that you should have roses to grow and violets to care
for and that you should make chaplets and dance and sing, and I would
well that you should so continue among our friends and those of our
estate, and it is but right and seemly thus to pass the time of your
feminine youth, provided that you desire and offer not to go to the
feasts and dances of too great lords, for that is not seemly for you,
nor suitable to your estate nor mine[1].'
[Footnote D: He addresses her throughout as 'sister', a term of
affectionate respect.]
Meanwhile he has not forgotten her request that he would teach and
correct her in private, and so he writes a little book (but it was a big
book before he had finished) to show her how to comport herself; for he
is sorry for this child, who has for long had neither father nor mother,
and who is far from kinswomen who might counsel her, having 'me only' he
says, 'for whom you have been taken from your kinsfolk and from the land
of your birth.' He has often deliberated the matter and now here is 'an
easy general introduction' to the whole art of being a wife, a
housewife, and a perfect lady. One characteristic reason, apart from his
desire to help her and to be comfortable himself (for he was set in his
ways), he gives for his trouble and recurs to from time to time, surely
the strangest ever given by a husband for instructing his wife. He is
old, he says, and must die before her, and it is positively essential
that she should do him credit with her second husband. What a reflection
upon him if she accompanied his successor to Mass with the collar of her
_cotte_ crumpled, or if she knew not how to keep fleas from the
blankets, or how to order a supper for twelve in Lent! It is
characteristic of the Ménagier's reasonableness and solid sense that he
regards his young wife's second marriage with equanimity. One of his
sections is headed, 'That you should be loving to your husband (whether
myself or another), by the example of Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel.' How
different from those husbands (dog-in-the-manger, or anxious for the
future of their children under a possibly harsh stepfather) whose wills
so often reveal them trying to bind their wives to perpetual celibacy
after their deaths, such husbands as William, Earl of Pembroke, who died
in 1469, admonishing his lady: 'And wyfe, ye remember your promise to me
to take the ordere of wydowhood, as ye may be the better mastre of your
owne to performe my wylle.'
The plan of the book 'in three sections, containing nineteen principal
articles', is most exhaustive. The first section deals with religious
and moral duties. In the words of the Ménagier, 'the first section is
necessary to gain for you the love of God and the salvation of your
soul, and also to win for you the love of your husband and to give you
in this world that peace which ought to be had in marriage. And because
these two things, to wit the salvation of your soul and the comfort of
your husband, are the two things most chiefly necessary, therefore are
they here placed first.' Then follows a series of articles telling the
lady how to say her morning prayer when she rises, how to bear herself
at Mass, and in what form to make her confession to the priest, together
with a long and somewhat alarming discursus upon the seven deadly sins,
which it assuredly never entered into her sleek little head to commit,
and another, on the corresponding virtues.[2] But the greater part of
the section deals with the all-important subject of the wife's duty to
her husband. She is to be loving, humble, obedient, careful and
thoughtful for his person, silent regarding his secrets, and patient if
he be foolish and allow his heart to stray towards other women. The
whole section is illustrated by a series of stories (known as _exempla_
in the Middle Ages), culled from the Bible, from the common stock of
anecdotes possessed by jongleur and preacher alike, and (most
interesting of all) from the Ménagier's own experience. Among the
Ménagier's longer illustrations is the favourite but intolerably dull
moral tale of Melibeu and Prudence, by Albertano of Brescia, translated
into French by Renault de Louens, whose version the Ménagier copied, and
adapted by Jean de Meung in the _Roman de la Rose_, from which in turn
Chaucer took it to tell to the Canterbury Pilgrims. Here also are to be
found Petrarch's famous tale of patient Griselda, which Chaucer also
took and gave a wider fame, and a long poem written in 1342 by Jean
Bruyant, a notary of the Châtelet at Paris, and called 'The Way of
Poverty and Wealth', inculcating diligence and prudence.[3]
The second section of the book deals with household management and is
far the most interesting. The range of the Ménagier's knowledge leaves
the reader gasping. The man is a perfect Mrs Beeton! The section
comprises a detailed treatise on gardening and another on the principles
which should govern the engagement of servants and the method by which
they should be managed when hired; the modern problem of servants who
leave does not seem to have presented itself to him. There are
instructions how to mend, air, and clean dresses and furs, get out
grease spots, catch fleas and keep flies out of the bedroom, look after
wine, and superintend the management of a farm.
At one point he breaks off, addressing his wife thus: 'Here will I leave
you to rest or to play and will speak no more to you; and while you
disport yourself elsewhere I will speak to Master John, the Steward, who
looks after our possessions, so that if there is anything wrong with any
of our horses, whether for the plough or for riding, or if it is
necessary to buy or exchange a horse, he may know a little of that it
behoves him to know in this matter.' There follow several pages of wise
advice as to the good points of horses, how to examine them and to find
their ages and defects under the eye of the horse dealer, the practical
'tips' of a man who evidently knew and loved his horses, together with
advice upon the treatment of their various diseases. Among the various
recipes which the Ménagier gives to this intent are two charms; for
instance, 'when a horse has glanders, you must say to him these three
words, with three paternosters: _abgla_, _abgly_, _alphard_, _asy_,
_pater noster_, etc.'[4]
Last, but not least, there is a magnificent cookery book, arranged in
the form sacred to cookery books from that day to this, beginning with a
list of specimen menus for dinners and suppers, hot or cold, fast or
feast, summer or winter, giving hints on the choice of meat, poultry,
and spices, and ending with a long series of recipes for all manner of
soups, stews, sauces, and other viands, with an excursus on
invalid's cookery!
The third section of the book was intended by the Ménagier to contain
three parts: first of all, a number of parlour games for indoor
amusement; secondly, a treatise on hawking, the favourite outdoor
amusement of ladies; and thirdly, a list of amusing riddles and games of
an arithmetical kind ('concerning counting and numbering, subtle to find
out or guess'), presumably of the nature of our old friend, 'If a
herring and a half cost three ha'pence.' Unfortunately, the Ménagier
seems never to have finished the book, and of this section only the
treatise on hawking has survived. It is a great pity, for we have
several such treatises, and how interesting an account of indoor games
and riddles might have been we may guess from a passage in the
Ménagier's version of the story of Lucrece, when he describes the Roman
ladies 'some gossiping, others playing at _bric_, others at _qui féry_,
others at _pince merille_, others at cards or other games of pleasure
with their neighbours; others, who had supped together, were singing
songs and telling fables and stories and wagers; others were in the
street with their neighbours, playing at blind man's buff or at _bric_
and at several other games of the kind.'[5] In those days, before the
invention of printing had made books plentiful, medieval ladies were
largely dependent for amusement upon telling and listening to stories,
asking riddles, and playing games, which we have long ago banished to
the nursery; and a plentiful repertoire of such amusements was very
desirable in a hostess. The Ménagier was clearly anxious that his wife
should shine in the amenities as well as in the duties of social life.
Such was the monumental work which the Ménagier de Paris was able to
present to his awed but admiring wife; and though it has been sadly
neglected by historians it deserves to be well known, for it gives us a
picture of a medieval housewife which it would be hard indeed to
surpass. There is hardly a side of her daily life upon which it does not
touch, and we may now with advantage look more closely upon her, and see
in turn the perfect lady, whose deportment and manners do credit to her
breeding; the perfect wife, whose submission to her husband is only
equalled by her skill in ministering to his ease; the perfect mistress,
whose servants love her and run her house like clockwork; and the
perfect housewife, the Mrs Beeton of the fifteenth century.
The Ménagier's views on deportment are incongruously sandwiched into his
section on spiritual duties, under the general headings of getting up in
the morning and going to church. His ideas on the subject of clothes are
very clearly defined: a sweet disorder in the dress was in no way to
his taste:
Know, dear sister, that if you wish to follow my advice you
will have great care and regard for what you and I can afford
to do, according to our estate. Have a care that you be
honestly clad, without new devices and without too much or
too little frippery. And before you leave your chamber and
house, take care first that the collar of your shift, and of
your _blanchet, cotte_ and _surcotte_, do not hang out one
over the other, as happens with certain drunken, foolish or
witless women, who have no care for their honour, nor for the
honesty of their estate or of their husbands, and who walk
with roving eyes and head horribly reared up like a lion (_la
teste espoventablement levée comme un lyon!_), their hair
straggling out of their wimples, and the collars of their
shifts and _cottes_ crumpled the one upon the other, and who
walk mannishly and bear themselves uncouthly before folk
without shame. And if one speaks to them about it, they
excuse themselves on the ground of their industry and
humility, saying that they are so diligent, hardworking, and
humble that they care not for themselves. But they lie; they
care so much for themselves that if they were in an
honourable company, never would they be willing that men
should wait less upon them than upon the wiser ladies of like
lineage with themselves, nor that they should have fewer
salutations, bows, reverences and speech than the rest, but
rather they desire more. And they are unworthy of it, for
they know not how to maintain their own honourable fame, nay,
nor the fame of their husbands and of their lineage, which
they bring to shame. Therefore, fair sister, have a care that
your hair, wimple, kerchief and hood and all the rest of your
attire be well arranged and decently ordered, that none who
see you can laugh or mock at you, but that all the others may
find in you an example of fair and simple and decent
array.... When you go to town or to church go suitably
accompanied by honourable women according to your estate, and
flee suspicious company, never allowing any ill famed woman
to be seen in your presence. And as you go bear your head
upright and your eyelids low and without fluttering, and look
straight in front of you about four rods ahead, without
looking round at any man or woman to the right or to the
left, nor looking up, nor glancing from place to place, nor
stopping to speak to anyone on the road.[6]
Such was the model of female deportment in the Middle Ages.
Let us pass from the lady to the wife. On the attitude of wife to
husband the Ménagier's ideas are much the same as those of the rest of
his age. They may be summed up as submission, obedience, and constant
attention. She must be buxom at bed and at board, even in circumstances
when buxomness hides a heavy heart. The good sense of the burgess does
not prevent him from likening the wife's love for her husband to the
fidelity of domestic animals towards their masters: 'Of the domestic
animals you see how a greyhound, or a mastiff, or a little dog, whether
on the road, or at table, or in bed, always keeps near to the person
from whom he takes his food, and leaves and is shy and fierce with all
others; and if the dog is afar off, he always has his heart and his eye
upon his master; even if his master whip him and throw stones at him,
the dog follows, wagging his tail and lying down before his master,
seeks to mollify him, and through rivers, through woods, through thieves
and through battles follows him.... Wherefore for a better and stronger
reason women, to whom God has given natural sense and who are
reasonable, ought to have a perfect and solemn love for their husbands;
and so I pray you to be very loving and privy with your husband who
shall be.'[7] Patience is an essential quality in wives, and, however
sorely tried they must never complain. The Ménagier tells three stories
to illustrate how a wife should bear herself in order to win back the
love of an unfaithful husband. One of these is the famous tale of
Griselda, but the two others are drawn (so he says) from his own
experience. In the first of these he tells of the wife of a famous
_avocat_ in the _parlement_ of Paris, who saw to the nurture and
marriage of her husband's illegitimate daughter; 'nor did he ever
perceive it by one reproach, or one angry or ugly word.' The second is
the charmingly told story of how John Quentin's wife won back her
husband's heart from the poor spinner of wool to whom it had strayed.[8]
All seem to show that the Ménagier's simile of the little dog was
selected with care, for the medieval wife, like the dog, was expected to
lick the hand that smote her. Nevertheless, while subscribing to all
the usual standards of his age, the Ménagier's robust sense, his hold
upon the realities of life, kept him from pushing them too far. The
comment of another realist, Chaucer, on the tale of Patient Griselda
will be remembered.
Grisilde is deed and eek hire pacience,
And bothe at ones buryed in Ytaille;
For which I crie in open audience,
No wedded man so hardy be t'assaille
His wyves pacience in hope to fynde
Grisildes, for in certein he shal faille!
O noble wyves, ful of heigh prudence,
Lat noon humylitee youre tonge naill,
Ne lat no clerk have cause or diligence
To write of yow a stone of swich mervaille
As of Grisildis pacient and kynde,
Lest Chichivache[E] yow swelwe in hire entraille!...
[Footnote E: Chichevache, the lean cow who fed on patient wives, while
her mate Bicorne grew fat on humble husbands (A.W. Pollard).]
His creation of the Wife of Bath was an even more pointed commentary.
Here is what the Ménagier has to say to his young wife on the
same subject:
And I, who have put [the tale of Griselda] here only to teach you, have
not put it here to apply it to you, for I am not worthy thereof, and I am
not a marquis and I have not taken you as a beggar, nor am I so foolish,
so conceited or so lacking in sense that I know not that 'tis not for me to
assault nor to assay you thus, nor in like manner. God keep me from trying
you thus under colour of false simulations.... And forgive me that
the story speaks (in my opinion) of too great cruelty and beyond reason.
And know that it never befel so, but thus the tale runs and I may nor
correct nor alter it, for a wiser than I hath made it. And it is my desire
that since others have read it you also may know and be able to talk about
everything even as other folk do.[9]
Moreover, in spite of the ideal of submission which he sets before his
wife, the Ménagier has some charming words to say about love--with a
sigh, perhaps, for his own advanced though not crabbed age, and a
glance at that younger husband of the future who shall one day enjoy his
little bride.
In God's name (he says) I believe that when two good and honourable
people are wed, all other loves are put far off, destroyed and
forgotten, save only the love of each for the other. And meseems that
when they are in each other's presence, they look upon each other more
than upon the others, they clasp and hold each other and they do not
willingly speak or make sign save to each other. And when they are
separated, they think of each other and say in their hearts, 'When I see
him I shall do thus and thus to him, or say this to him, I shall beseech
him concerning this or that.' And all their special pleasure, their
chief desire and their perfect joy is to do pleasure and obedience one
to the other, if they love one another.[10]
The greater part of the Ménagier's book is concerned, however, not with
the theoretical niceties of wifely submission, but with his creature
comforts. His instructions as to how to make a husband comfortable
positively palpitate with life; and at the same time there is something
indescribably homely and touching about them; they tell more about the
real life of a burgess's wife than a hundred tales of Patient Griselda
or of Jehanne la Quentine. Consider this picture (how typical a product
of the masculine imagination!) of the stout bread-winner, buffeted about
in all weathers and amid all discomforts, nobly pursuing the task of
earning his living, and fortified by the recollection of a domesticated
little wife, darning his stockings at home by the fire, and prepared to
lavish her attentions on the weary hero in the evening. The passage is
an excellent example of the Ménagier's vivid and simple style, and of
the use of incidents drawn from everyday life to illustrate his thesis,
which is one of the chief charms of the book.
Fair sister, if you have another husband after me, know that
you should think much of his comfort, for after a woman has
lost her first husband she commonly finds it difficult to
find another according to her estate, and she remains lonely
and disconsolate for a long time[F]; and more so still, if
she lose the second. Wherefore cherish the person of your
husband carefully, and, I pray you, keep him in clean linen,
for 'tis your business. And because the care of outside
affairs lieth with men, so must a husband take heed, and go
and come and journey hither and thither, in rain and wind,
in snow and hail, now drenched, now dry, now sweating, now
shivering, ill-fed, ill-lodged, ill-warmed and ill-bedded;
and nothing harms him, because he is upheld by the hope that
he has of his wife's care of him on his return, and of the
ease, the joys and the pleasures which she will do to him, or
cause to be done to him in her presence; to have his shoes
removed before a good fire, his feet washed and to have fresh
shoes and stockings, to be given good food and drink, to be
well served and well looked after, well bedded in white
sheets and night-caps, well covered with good furs, and
assuaged with other joys and amusements, privities, loves,
and secrets, concerning which I am silent; and on the next
day fresh shirts and garments. Certes, fair sister, such
service maketh a man love and desire to return to his home
and to see his goodwife and to be distant with other women.
[Footnote F: This seems to be contrary to experience.]
And therefore I counsel you to make such cheer to your
husband at all his comings and goings and to persevere
therein; and also to be peaceable with him and remember the
rustic proverb, which saith that there be three things which
drive the goodman from home, to wit, a dripping roof, a
smoking chimney and a scolding woman.[11] Wherefore, fair
sister, I pray you that in order to keep yourself in love and
good favour with your husband you be unto him gentle, amiable
and debonair. Do unto him what the good simple women of our
country say has been done unto their sons, when the lads have
set their love elsewhere and their mothers cannot wean them
from it. It is certain that when fathers and mothers be dead,
and stepfathers and stepmothers argue with their stepsons,
and scold them and repulse them, and take not thought for
their sleeping, nor for their food and drink, their hose and
their shirts and all their other needs and affairs, and the
same children find elsewhere a good home and good counsel
from some other woman, who receives them and takes thought to
warm them with some poor gruel with her and to give them a
bed and keep them tidy, mending their hosen, breeches,
shirts, and other garments, then those lads cleave to her and
desire to be with her, and to sleep warm between her breasts,
and are altogether estranged from their mothers and fathers,
who before took no heed of them, and now want to get them
back and have them again. But it may not be, for these
children hold more dear the company of strangers, who think
and care for them, than that of their kinsfolk, who have no
care of them. Then the parents lament and weep and say that
these same women have bewitched their children and that they
are spellbound and cannot leave, but are never easy save when
they are with their enchantresses. But whatever may be said
of it, it is no witchcraft, but it by reason of the love, the
care, the intimacies, joys and pleasures, which these women
do in all ways unto the lads, and on my soul there is no
other enchantment.... Wherefore, dear sister, I pray you thus
to bewitch and bewitch again your husband, and beware of
dripping roof and smoking fire, and scold him not, but be
unto him gentle and amiable and peaceable. Be careful that in
winter he has good fire without smoke, and let him rest well
and be well covered between your breasts and thus bewitch
him.... And thus you shall preserve and guard him from all
discomforts and give him all the ease that you can, and serve
him and cause him to be well served in your house; and you
shall look to him for outside things, for if he be a good man
he will take even more care and trouble over them than you
wish, and by doing as I have said, you will make him always
miss you and have his heart with you and with your loving
service, and he will shun all other houses, all other women,
all other services and households; all will be naught to him
save you alone, if you think of him as aforesaid.... And so
on the road, husbands will think of their wives, and no
trouble will be a burden to them for the hope and love they
will have of their wives, whom they will long to see, even as
poor hermits, penitents and fasting monks long to see the
face of Christ Jesus; and husbands served thus will never
desire to abide elsewhere or in other company but will
withhold, withdraw and abstain themselves there-from; all the
rest will seem to them but a bed of stones compared with
their home.[12]
Enough has perhaps been quoted to show the Ménagier's idea of a perfect
wife; his idea of the perfect housewife is contained in a mass of
instructions which make excellently entertaining reading. So modern in
tone is his section on the management of servants, both in his account
of their ways and in his advice upon dealing with them, that one often
rubs one's eyes to be sure that what one is reading is really a book
written over five centuries ago by an old burgess of Paris. The Ménagier
evidently had a fairly large household, and he probably owned a country
as well as a town house, for he speaks several times of overseeing the
farm-hands 'when you are in the village'. To assist his wife in
superintending this large staff he has a _maître d'hôtel_, called Master
John the Steward (_le despensier_) and a duenna, half housekeeper and
half chaperon, for her young mistress, called Dame Agnes _la béguine_[G]
and a bailiff or foreman to look after the farm. The Ménagier divides
his servants and workmen into three classes--first, those engaged by the
day or by the season for special work, such as porters and carriers,
reapers, winnowers, coopers, and so on; secondly, those engaged on
piecework, such as tailors, furriers, bakers, and shoemakers, hired by
medieval households of some wealth to make what was needed from raw
material purchased at fairs or in the shops of the city; and thirdly,
the ordinary domestic servants, who were hired by the year and lived in
their master's house; 'and of all these,' he says, 'there is none who
does not gladly seek work and a master'.
[Footnote G: The Béguines were a sort of religious order, or, more
correctly, a lay sisterhood, standing half-way between the lay and the
monastic life, and somewhat analogous to the Franciscan Tertiaries, or
Third Order.]
He gives an amusing account, evidently based upon bitter experience, of
the wiles of the hired workman. He says that they are commonly lazy,
rough, quick at 'answering back', arrogant (except on payday) and ready
to break into insults if unsatisfied with their pay. He warns his wife
to bid Master John always to take the peaceable ones and always to
bargain with them beforehand as to the pay for which they will do
the work.
For know that most often they do not want to bargain, but
they want to get to work without any bargain having been made
and they say gently, 'Milord, it is nothing--there is no
need--you will pay me well and I shall be content with what
you think fit.' And if Master John take them thus, when the
work is finished they will say, 'Sir, there was more to do
than I thought, there was this and that to do, and here and
there,' and they will not take what is given them and will
break out into shouting and angry words ... and will spread
abroad evil report concerning you, which is worst of all.[13]
We know from the various ordinances fixing wages from the time of the
Black Death onwards, that labour troubles were acute in France as well
as in England at the end of the fourteenth century; and the Ménagier's
advice throws an interesting sidelight on the situation.
It is, however, in his observations upon the engagement and management
of maidservants that the wisdom of the serpent is most apparent.
Incidentally he gives an account of how servants were hired in
fourteenth-century Paris, which shows that the registry office
and the character are by no means modern phenomena. There were
_recommanderesses_--women holding what we should call registry
offices--in Paris at this time, and an ordinance of 1351 (fixing wages
after the Black Death) allows them to take _1s. 6d_. for placing a
chambermaid and _2s_. for a nurse. A servant maid's wage at this time
was 30s. a year and her shoes. The Ménagier counsels his wife thus on
the delicate subject of interviewing and engaging her domestic
chambermaids and serving men:
Know, dear sister (he says), that in order that they may obey
you better and fear the more to anger you, I leave you the
rule and authority to have them chosen by Dame Agnes the
béguine, or by whichever other of your women you please, to
receive them into our service, to hire them at your pleasure,
to pay and keep them in our service as you please, and to
dismiss them when you will. Nathless you should privily speak
to me about it and act according to my advice, because you
are too young and might be deceived by your own people. And
know that of those chambermaids who are out of a place, many
there be who offer themselves and clamour and seek urgently
for masters and mistresses; and of these take none until you
first know where their last place was, and send some of your
people to get their character, to wit whether they talked or
drank too much, how long they were in the place, what work
they have been accustomed to doing and can do, whether they
have homes or friends in the town, from what sort of people
and what part of the country they come, how long they were
there and why they left; and by their work in the past you
shall find out what hope or expectation you may have of their
work in the future. And know that oft-times such women from
distant parts of the country have been blamed for some fault
in their own part of the world and that is what brings them
into service at a distance....
And if you find from the report of her master and mistress,
neighbours and others that a girl is what you need, find out
from her, and cause Master John to register in his account
book, the day on which you engage her, her name and those of
her father, mother and any of her kinsfolk, the place where
they live and her birthplace and her references. For servants
will be more afraid to do wrong if they know that you are
recording all these things and that if they leave you without
permission, or are guilty of any offence, you will write and
complain to the justice of their country or to their friends.
And not withstanding bear in mind the saying of the
philosopher called Bertrand the Old, who says that if you
engage a maid or man of high and proud answers, you shall
know that when she leaves she will miscall you if she can;
and if, on the contrary, she be flattering and ¸full of
blandishments, trust her not, for she is in league with
someone else to trick you; but if she blushes and is silent
and shamefast when you correct her, love her as your
daughter.[14]
The Ménagier's instructions as to how to look after servants when they
have been engaged are equally practical. Good order is to be maintained,
quarrels and bad language[15] prevented, and morals guarded. Each is to
have his or her work assigned and to do it promptly. 'If you order them
to do something now and these your servants answer "There is plenty of
time, it shall be done," or "It shall be done tomorrow," hold it as
forgotten, it must all be begun again, it is as nought. And also when
you give a general order to every one, each will wait for the other to
do it, and it is the same.' Not only is the work of the servants to be
carefully superintended by the mistress and by Dame Agnes, 'who is with
you', the Ménagier tells his wife, 'in order to teach you wise and ripe
behaviour and to serve and instruct you and to whom in particular I give
the charge of this matter', but she is to show herself careful and
benevolent in looking after their health and happiness. At the proper
hour she is to cause them to sit down before a hearty meal of one sort
of meat, avoiding rich viands, and one kind of drink, which must be
nourishing but not intoxicating--'the cup that cheers but not
inebriates'; probably in this case the light ale which was the habitual
drink of the Middle Ages. She is to admonish them to eat and drink
their fill, but
as soon as they begin to tell stories, or to argue, or to
lean on their elbows, order the béguine to make them rise and
take away their table, for the common folk have a saying
'when a varlet holds forth at table and a horse grazes in the
ditch, it is time to take them away, for they have had
their fill.'
In the evening, after their afternoon's work, they are to have another
hearty meal, and then in winter time they may warm themselves at the
fire and take their ease. Then she is to lock up the house and pack them
all off to bed.
And arrange first that each have beside his bed a candlestick
in which to put his candle, and have them wisely taught to
extinguish it with the mouth or hand before getting into bed
and by no means with their shirts. And also have them
admonished and taught each and all, that they must begin
again the next day and that they must rise in the morning and
each set to upon his own work.
The Ménagier further advises his wife that chambermaids of fifteen to
twenty years of age are foolish girls who do not know the world, and
that she should always cause them to sleep near her in an antechamber,
or a room without a skylight or a low window looking on to the street,
and should make them get up and go to bed at the same time as herself.
'And you yourself,' he adds, 'who, if God please, will be wise by this
time, must keep them near to you.' Moreover, if any of her servants fall
ill, 'do you yourself, laying aside all other cares, very lovingly and
charitably care for him or her, and visit him and study diligently how
to bring about his cure'.[16]
But it is perhaps in his capacity as Mrs Beeton that the Ménagier is
most amusing. His infinite variety of household knowledge is shown in
the incidental recipes which he gives when he is describing the measures
which a wife must take for her lord's comfort, and the work of the
servants. There are elaborate instructions concerning the costly
medieval garments, worn year after year for a lifetime and often
bequeathed in their owner's will, instructions for cleaning dresses and
furs and for preserving them from moths, and instructions for removing
stains and grease spots. The Ménagier gives seven recipes for taking out
grease spots, but he is rather sceptical about one or two of them, which
he has evidently copied from a book without trying them for himself. 'To
get rid of stains on a dress of silk, satin, camlet, damask cloth or
another,' runs one of these, 'dip and wash the stain in verjuice and the
stain will go; even if the dress be faded, it will regain its colour.
_This I do not believe'_. The chief impression left, however, is that
the medieval housewife was engaged in a constant warfare against fleas.
One of the Ménagier's infallible rules for keeping a husband happy at
home is to give him a good fire in the winter and keep his bed free from
fleas in the summer. He gives six recipes for getting rid of such small
livestock, which must indeed have been a very common trial to our
forefathers:
In summer take heed that there be no fleas in your chamber nor in your
bed, which you may do in six ways, as I have heard tell. For I have
heard from several persons that if the room be scattered with alder
leaves the fleas will get caught therein. Item, I have heard tell that
if you have at night one or two trenchers of bread covered with birdlime
or turpentine and put about the room with a lighted candle set in the
midst of each trencher, they will come and get stuck thereto. Another
way which I have found and which is true: take a rough cloth and spread
it about your room and over your bed and all the fleas who may hop on to
it will be caught, so that you can carry them out with the cloth
wheresoever you will. Item, sheepskins. Item, I have seen blankets
placed on the straw and on the bed and when the black fleas jumped upon
them they were the sooner found and killed upon the white. But the best
way is to guard oneself against those which are within the coverlets and
furs and the stuff of the dresses wherewith one is covered. For know
that I have tried this, and when the coverlets, furs or dresses in which
there be fleas are folded and shut tightly up, in a chest straitly bound
with straps or in a bag well tied up and pressed, or otherwise
compressed so that the said fleas are without light and air and kept
imprisoned, then they will perish and die at once.[17]
A similar war had also to be waged against flies and mosquitoes, which
rendered summer miserable. "I have sometimes," says the Ménagier, "seen
in several chambers that when one has gone to bed in them, they were
full of mosquitoes, which at the smoke of the breath came to sit on the
faces of those who slept and sting them so that they were fain to get up
and light a fire of hay to smoke them off." Against such pests he has
also six infallible recipes--to wit, a mosquito net over the bed; sprigs
of fern hung up for the flies to settle on; a bowl filled with a mixture
of milk and hare's gall, or with the juice of raw onions, which will
kill them; a bottle containing a rag dipped in honey, or else a string
dipped in honey to hang up; fly whisks to drive them away; and closing
up windows with oiled cloth or parchment.[18]
The section on cookery, which contains the Ménagier's injunctions for
"feeding the brute", is the longest in the book, and gives an
extraordinarily interesting picture of the domestic economy of our
ancestors.[19] The Ménagier must have been brother to Chaucer's
Franklin, 'Epicurus owene sone':
An housholdere, and that a greet, was he:
Seint Julian he was in his contree;
His breed, his ale, was alwey after oon;
A bettre envyned man was nowher noon.
Withoute bake mete was never his hous,
Of fissh and flessh, and that so plenteuous
It snewed in his hous of mete and drynke.
Of alle deyntees that men koude thynke.
After the sondry sesons of the yeer,
So chaunged he his mete and his soper.
Ful many a fat partrich had he in muwe
And many a breem and many a luce in stuwe.
Wo was his cook but if his sauce were
Poynaunt and sharpe and redy al his geere.
His table dormant in his hal alway
Stood redy covered al the longe day.
In this, as in all other medieval cookery books, what strikes the modern
reader is the length and elaboration of the huge feasts, with their many
courses and dishes, and the richness of the highly spiced viands. There
are black puddings and sausages, venison and beef, eels and herrings,
fresh water fish, round sea fish and flat sea fish, common pottages
unspiced, spiced pottages, meat pottages and meatless pottages, roasts
and pastries and entremets, divers sauces boiled and unboiled, pottages
and 'slops' for invalids. Some of them sound delicious, others would be
ruin to our degenerate digestions today. Pungent sauces of vinegar,
verjuice, and wine were very much favoured, and cloves, cinnamon,
galingale, pepper, and ginger appear unexpectedly in meat dishes.
Almonds were a favourite ingredient in all sorts of dishes, as they
still are in China and other parts of the East, and they might well be
used more lavishly than they are in modern European cookery. True to his
race, the Ménagier includes recipes for cooking frogs and snails.[20] To
the modern cook some of his directions may appear somewhat vague, as
when he bids his cook to boil something for as long as it takes to say a
paternoster or a _miserere_; yet for clockless kitchens in a pious age
what clearer indication could a man give? And, after all, it is no worse
than 'cook in a hot oven', which still finds a place in many modern
cookery books which should know better. Other instructions are detailed
enough. In one valuable passage he gives a list of all the meat markets
of Paris, together with the number of butchers to be found in each and
the number of sheep, oxen, pigs, and calves sold there every week,
adding also for interest the amount of meat and poultry consumed weekly
in the households of the King, the Queen and the royal children, the
Dukes of Orleans, Berry, Burgundy, and Bourbon. Elsewhere also he speaks
of other markets--the Pierre-au-Lait, or milk market; the Place de
Grève, where they sell coal and firewood; and the Porte-de-Paris which
is not only a meat market, but the best place in which to buy fish and
salt and green herbs and branches to adorn your rooms.
For his wife's further guidance the Ménagier sets out a careful
specification of the catering arrangements for several great feasts--to
wit, a dinner given by the Abbot of Lagny to the Bishop of Paris and the
members of the King's Council, the feast, comprising dinner and supper,
which one Master Elias (evidently a grave and reverend _maître d'hôtel,_
like Master John _le despensier_ himself) made for the wedding of Jean
du Chesne, upon a Tuesday in May, and the arrangements for another
wedding, "les nopces Hautecourt", in the month of September, as to which
the Ménagier observes "that because they were widower and widow they
were wed very early, in their black robes and then put on others"; he
was anxious that his widow should do the correct thing at that second
wedding of hers. The description of the wedding feast arranged by Master
Elias is particularly detailed and valuable.[21] The careful Ménagier,
perhaps because he foresaw some big entertainment which he must give to
the burgesses and gentlemen of Paris, perhaps because of his delightful
interest in all the details of material life, has set down at length not
only the menu of the dinner and supper, but a long account of the
ingredients needed, their quantities and prices, and the shops or
markets where they must be bought, so that the reader can see with his
eyes the _maître d'hôtel_ and the cooks going round from stall to stall,
visiting butcher and baker, poulterer, saucemaker, vintner, wafer maker,
who sold the wafers and pastries dear to medieval ladies, and spicer
whose shop was heavy with the scents of the East.
The Ménagier sets down also all the esquires and varlets and waiters
who will be needed to serve such a feast as this. There was the master
cook, comfortably stout and walking 'high and disposedly', as Queen
Elizabeth danced, brain pan stuffed full of delectable recipes, hand of
ravishing lightness with pastries, eye and nose skilled to say when a
capon was done to a turn, warranted without a rival
To boille the chiknes with the marybones,
And poudre-marchant tart and galyngale ...
He koude rooste and seethe and boille and frye,
Maken martreux and wel bake a pye ...
For blankmanger, that made he with the beste.
He brought his varlets with him, and in Paris he took two francs for his
hire 'and perquisites' (a pregnant addition). Then there were ushers,
'stout and strong', to keep the doors, and a clerk to add up the
account; bread-cutters and water-carriers, two squires to serve at the
dresser in the kitchen where the plates and dishes were handed out, two
others at the hall dresser to give out spoons and drinking cups and pour
wine for the guests, and two others in the pantry to give out the wine
which their varlet kept drawing for them. There were the two _maîtres
d'hôtel_ to set out the silver salt-cellars for the high table, the four
great gilded goblets, the four dozen hanaps, the four dozen silver
spoons, the ewers and alms mugs and sweetmeat dishes, and to usher the
guests to their places; a head waiter and two servitors for each table,
a flower girl to make chaplets of flowers for the guests, women to see
to the linen and deck the bridal bed,[22] and a washerwoman. The floors
were strewn with violets and green herbs and the rooms decked with
branches of May (all bought in the market in early morning), and there
was a good stock of torches and candles, small candles to stand on the
supper tables, and great torches to be set in sconces on the walls, or
to be carried in procession by the guests, for the supper ended with
'dancing, singing, wine and spices and lighted torches'. On this
occasion eight francs were given to the minstrels, over and above the
spoons and other presents made to them during the meal, and there were
also acrobats and mimes to amuse the guests. If they had to prepare a
great feast Master John and his little mistress could not go far wrong
after this, or fail to please the genial epicure who set it down for
them. The Ménagier copied many of his recipes from other cookery books,
but he must have got the details of this entertainment from Master Elias
himself, and one can see their grey heads wagging with enjoyment, as one
talked and the other wrote.
The cookery book ends with a section containing recipes for making what
the Ménagier calls 'small things which are not necessities'. There are
various sorts of jams, mostly made with honey; in the Middle Ages
vegetables were evidently much prepared in this way, for the Ménagier
speaks of turnip, carrot, and pumpkin jam. There is a delicious syrup of
mixed spices (at least the palate of faith must believe it to have been
delicious) and a powder of ginger, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, and
sugar, to be sifted over food, as sugar is sifted today; there is a
recipe for hippocras, and for 'gauffres' or wafers, and for candied
oranges. There are various sage pieces of advice as to the seasons for
certain foods and the best ways of cooking and serving them. Most
amusing of all these are a number of recipes not of a culinary
nature--to wit, for making glue and marking ink, for bringing up small
birds in aviaries and cages, preparing sand for hour-glasses, making
rose-water, drying roses to lay among dresses (as we lay lavender
today), for curing tooth-ache, and for curing the bite of a mad dog. The
latter is a charm, of the same type as the Ménagier's horse charms:
'Take a crust of bread and write what follows: _Bestera bestie nay
brigonay dictera sagragan es domina siat siat siat_.' Let us remember,
however, that the nation which produced it, some four centuries later,
produced Pasteur.
[Illustration: V. THE MÉNAGIER'S WIFE HAS A GARDEN PARTY]
Enough has been said about this entrancing book to show how vividly it
brings not only the Ménagier, but the Ménagier's young wife before our
eyes after these many years. In the morning she rises, much earlier than
ladies rise nowadays, though not so early as nuns, who must say matins,
for that, her husband tells her, is not a fitting hour for married women
to leave their beds. Then she washes, much less than ladies nowadays,
hands and face only perchance, and says her orisons, and dresses very
neatly, for she knows whose eye is upon her, and so goes with Dame Agnes
the béguine to Mass, with eyes on the ground and hands folded over
her painted primer. After Mass, and perhaps confession, back again to
see if the servants are doing their work, and have swept and dusted the
hall and the rooms, beaten the cushions and coverlets on the forms and
tidied everything, and afterwards to interview Master John the steward
and order dinner and supper. Then she sends Dame Agnes to see to the pet
dogs and birds, "for they cannot speak and so you must speak and think
for them if you have any". Then, if she be in her country house, she
must take thought for the farm animals and Dame Agnes must superintend
those who have charge of them, Robin the shepherd, Josson the oxherd,
Arnoul the cowherd, Jehanneton the milkmaid, and Eudeline the farmer's
wife who looks after the poultry yard. If she be in her town house she
and her maids take out her dresses and furs from their great chests and
spread them in the sun in the garden or courtyard to air, beating them
with little rods, shaking them in the breeze, taking out spots and
stains with one or other of the master's tried recipes, pouncing with
lynx eyes upon the moth or sprightly flea.
[Illustration: VI. THE MÉNAGIER'S WIFE COOKS HIS SUPPER, WITH THE AID OF
HIS BOOK]
After this comes dinner, the serious meal of the day, eaten by our
ancestors about 10 a.m. What the Ménagier's wife gives to her lord and
master will depend upon the time of year and upon whether it be a meat
or a fast day; but we know that she has no lack of menus from which to
choose. After dinner she sees that the servants are set to dine, and
then the busy housewife may become the lady of leisure and amuse
herself. If in the country she may ride out hawking with a gay party of
neighbours; if in town, on a winter's day, she may romp and play with
other married ladies of her tender years, exchange riddles or tell
stories round the fire. But what she most loves is to wander in her
garden, weaving herself garlands of flowers, violets, gilly flowers,
roses, thyme, or rosemary, gathering fruit in season (she likes
raspberries and cherries), and passing on to the gardeners weighty
advice about the planting of pumpkins ("in April water them courteously
and transplant them"), to which the gardeners give as much attention as
gardeners always have given, give still, and ever shall give, world
without end, to the wishes of their employers. When she tires of this,
the busy one gathers together Dame Agnes and her maids, and they sit
under the carved beams of the hall mending his mastership's doublet,
embroidering a vestment for the priest at his family chantry, or a
tapestry hanging for the bedchamber. Or perhaps they simply spin (since,
in the words of the Wife of Bath, God has given women three
talents--deceit, weeping, and spinning!); and all the while she awes
them with that tale of Griselda, her voice rising and falling to the
steady hum of the wheels.
At last it is evening, and back comes the lord and master. What a bustle
and a pother this home-coming meant we know well, since we know what he
expected. Such a running and fetching of bowls of warm water to wash his
feet, and comfortable shoes to ease him; such a hanging on his words and
admiring of his labours. Then comes supper, with a bevy of guests, or
themselves all alone in the westering sunlight, while he smacks
connoisseur's lips over the roast crane and the blankmanger, and she
nibbles her sweet wafers. Afterwards an hour of twilight, when she tells
him how she has passed the day, and asks him what she shall do with the
silly young housemaid, whom she caught talking to the tailor's 'prentice
through that low window which looks upon the road. There is warm
affection in the look she turns up to him, her round little face
puckered with anxiety over the housemaid, dimpling into a smile when he
commends her; and there is warm affection and pride too in the look the
old man turns down upon her. So the night falls, and they go round the
house together, locking all the doors and seeing that the servants are
safe abed, for our ancestors were more sparing of candlelight than we.
And so to bed.
We may take our leave of the couple here. The Ménagier's wife evidently
had a full life.
Some respit to husbands the weather may send,
But huswiues affaires haue neuer an end.
There was no room in it for the idleness of those lovely ladies, with
their long fingers, whom Langland admonished to sew for the poor.
Moreover, exaggerated as some of her husband's ideas upon wifely
submission appear today, the book leaves a strong impression of good
sense and of respect as well as love for her. The Ménagier does not want
his wife to be on a pedestal, like the troubadour's lady, nor licking
his shoes like Griselda; he wants a helpmeet, for, as Chaucer said, 'If
that wommen were nat goode and hir conseils goode and profitable, oure
Lord God of hevene wolde never han wroght hem, ne called hem "help" of
man, but rather confusioun of man.'[23] Ecclesiastical Jeremiahs were
often wont to use the characteristically medieval argument that if God
had meant woman for a position of superiority He would have taken her
from Adam's head rather than his side; but the Ménagier would have
agreed with the more logical Peter Lombard, who observed that she was
not taken from Adam's head, because she was not intended to be his
ruler, nor from his feet either, because she was not intended to be his
slave, but from his side, precisely, because she was intended to be his
companion. There is something of this spirit in the Ménagier's attitude
towards his little wife, and it is this which makes his book so charming
and causes it to stand head and shoulders above most other medieval
books of behaviour for women. But, above all, its social and historical
value lies in the fact that it gives us, in hues undimmed by time, a
full length portrait of a medieval housewife, who has her place (and it
is a large one) in history, but concerning whom historians have almost
invariably been silent.