The third section of the book was intended by the Menagier 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 Menagier 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 Menagier’s version of the story of Lucrece, when he describes the Roman ladies ’some gossiping, others playing at bric, others at qui fery, 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 Menagier 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 Menagier 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 Menagier’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: