Description
Book Synopsis"You said that you would not fail to improve yourself according to my teaching and correction, and you would do everything in your power to behave according to my wishes." [Prologue] "I urge you to bewitch and bewitch again your future husband, and...
Trade ReviewA cookbook section contains over 350 recipes, and if many of them are taken from authorities such as the royal chef Taillevent, the author is quite opinionated about what works and what doesn't; he improves some recipes and offers others that seem to be his own. No man before or since has known more about running an affluent household, from keeping vermin out of linen to shopping in the market to caring for hunting hawks. The work has a peculiar tone, bossy yet tender, even elegiac. In their introduction the translators emphasize the husband's firm desire to subordinate his wife, but acknowledge that they found the book more appealing than they had originally expected.
-- Paul Freedman * Times Literary Supplement *
Table of ContentsIntroduction. Maid to Order: The Good Wife of Paris
The Book: Backgrounds, Narrator, Genre, Sources
Contexts: Conduct Books and Household Books
Glossing the Tale of Griselda: The Model Wife and Marriage in Le Ménagier de Paris
Translation ProtocolsThe Good Wife's Guide: The English Text of Le Ménagier de Paris
Prologue
Introductory Note to Articles 1.1-1.3
Prayers and Orderly Dress (1.1)
Behavior and Attire in Public (1.2)
The Mass, Confession, the Vices and Virtues (1.3)
On Chastity (1.4)
Devotion to Your Husband (1.5)
Obedience (including the Story of Griselda) (1.6)
The Care of the Husband's Person (1.7)
The Husband's Secrets (1.8)
Introductory Note to Article 1.9
Providing Your Husband with Good Counsel (including the Story of Melibee) (1.9)
Introductory Note to Article 2.1
Le Chemin de povreté et de richesse (2.1)
Horticulture (2.2) 2
Choosing and Caring for Servants and Horses (2.3)
Introductory Note to Article 3.2
Hawking Treatise (3.2)
Menus (2.4)
Recipes (2.5)Glossary of Culinary Terms
Bibliography
Index
