Good Wife's Guide (Le Menagier de Paris)

L. Greco Gina, M. Rose Christine

Description

In the closing years of the fourteenth century, an anonymous French writer compiled a book addressed to a fifteen-year-old bride, narrated in the voice of her husband, a wealthy, aging Parisian. The book was designed to teach this young wife the moral attributes, duties, and conduct befitting a woman of her station in society, in the almost certain event of her widowhood and subsequent remarriage. The work also provides a rich assembly of practical materials for the wife's use and for her household, including treatises on gardening and shopping, tips on choosing servants, directions on the medical care of horses and the training of hawks, plus menus for elaborate feasts, and more than 380 recipes.The Good Wife's Guide is the first complete modern English translation of this important medieval text also known as Le Menagier de Paris (the Parisian household book), a work long recognized for its unique insights into the domestic life of the bourgeoisie during the later Middle Ages. The Good Wife's Guide, expertly rendered into modern English by Gina L. Greco and Christine M. Rose, is accompanied by an informative critical introduction setting the work in its proper medieval context as a conduct manual. This edition presents the book in its entirety, as it must have existed for its earliest readers.The Guide is now a treasure for the classroom, appealing to anyone studying medieval literature or history or considering the complex lives of medieval women. It illuminates the milieu and composition process of medieval authors and will in turn fascinate cooking or horticulture enthusiasts. The work illustrates how a (perhaps fictional) Parisian householder of the late fourteenth century might well have trained his wife so that her behavior could reflect honorably on him and enhance his reputation.

Sujets

• Córcega
• History of Europe
• Corsica
• France

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 juin 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801461965
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

TheGoodWife’sGuide

The Good Wife’s Guide

Translated, with Critical Introduction, by

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First published

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               

: Le MÉnagierMS A, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, fonds français, fol.. Small image before the

beginning of the text (Chiere

seur . . .) of a man and

woman conversing.

               

Contents

Prefaceix Introduction. 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 inLe MÉnagier de Paris Translation Protocols

The Good Wifes Guide: The English Text ofLe MÉnagier de Paris Prologue Introductory Note to Articles.. Prayers and Orderly Dress (.) Behavior and Attire in Public (.) The Mass, Confession, the Vices and Virtues (.) On Chastity (.) Devotion to Your Husband (.) Obedience (including the Story of Griselda) (.) The Care of the Husbands Person (.) The Husbands Secrets (.) Introductory Note to Article. Providing Your Husband with Good Counsel (including the Story of Melibee) (.) Introductory Note to Article. Le Chemin de povreté et de richesse (.) Horticulture ( .) Choosing and Caring for Servants and Horses (.) Introductory Note to Article. Hawking Treatise (.)

vii

Menus (.) Recipes (.)

Glossary of Culinary Terms Bibliography Index

viiiContents

Preface

This project began when Christine Rose decided to teachLe MÉnagier de Parisin a Medieval Women class. She discovered that Eileen PowersGoodman of Paristranslation was out of print and permission to photocopy it for the class could not be obtained. No alternative translation provided a substantial repre sentative section of the book. When Gina Greco, a friend and a meticulous Old French scholar, agreed to collaborate on a scholarly English translation, it seemed incredibly fortuitous, and we began the long trek through the text. We feel espe cially qualied to partner in this undertaking and are blessed by how our train ing in palaeography and languages complement one another. It has been a most satisfactory collaboration in every way. Impetus to nish the translation came from academic colleagues who heard Roses conference papers onLe MÉnagier de Parisand inquired when a translation might appear, since they found it a crucial text for medieval studies. We appreci ated and took seriously the comments and questions we received, especially from Polish colleagues at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan and Professors Jacek Fisiak, O.B.E., and Liliana Sikorska, who arranged two outstanding symposiums where Rose had the opportunity to discuss her research on the text. As the vol ume gradually took shape, the tasks were divided, with Greco as the primary translator of Middle French, and Rose in charge of the introduction, notes, and rendering the text into readable and interesting modern English. But there was in deed much crossover in our duties. We were not prepared to love the book as much as we did, and do, despite its darker aspects. While the last parts of the translation and introduction were rened, Greco was in Burkina Faso, Africa, on a Fulbright grant, and then in Angers, France, and the les ew through cyber space between there and Seattle and Portland. While one translator slept, the other was probably working onLe MÉnagier.Each version of our translation trav eled back and forth multiple times for netuning, astonishing us with the won der and the ease of the partnership from opposite ends of the earth and with the wealth of electronic aids found at Portland State and the University of Washing ton libraries, as well as on the Worldwide Web. We strove to make sure that the translation not stray from the exact sense of the Middle French. Correct readings of crucial terms cropped up in many and diverse places, including databases of medieval cookbooks and Old French dic tionaries; French equestrian clubs; farmers markets in France; websites on cow anatomy, falconry, horse dentistry; books of penitential reading; and, of course,

ix