19. The cookery book occupies sec. II, arts. 4 and 5 (II, pp. 80-272).
20. II, pp. 222-3. Translated by Dr Furnivall in A Booke of Precedence (E.E.T.S.), pp. 152-3.
21. II, pp. 108-18, 123. The feast was still a thing of the future when the Ménagier thus gathered all the details. He calls it 'L'ordenance de nopces que fera maistre Helye en May, à un mardy ... l'ordonnance du souper que fera ce jour.'
22. 'The office of the woman is to make provision of tapestries, to order and spread them, and in especial to dight the room and the bed which shall be blessed.... And note that if the bed be covered with cloth, there is needed a fur coverlet of small vair, but if it be covered with serge, or broidery, or pinwork of cendal, not.'--II, p. 118. The editor quotes the following ceremony for blessing the wedding bed: 'Benedictio thalami ad nuptias et als, Beredic, Domine, thalamum hunc et omnes habitantes in eo, ut in tua voluntate permaneant, requiescant et multiplicentur in longitudinem dierum. Per Christum, etc. Tunc thurificet thalamum in matrimonio, postea sponsum et sponsam sedentes vel jacentes in lecto suo. Benedicentur dicendo: Benedic, Domine, adolescentulos istos; sicut benedixisti Thobiam et Sarram filiam Raguelis, ita benedicere eos digneris, Domine, ut in nomine tuo vivant et senescant, et multiplicentur in longitudinem dierum. Per Christum, etc. Benedictio Dei omnipotentis, Patris et Filii et Spiritus sancti descendat super vos et maneat super vobiscum. In nomine Patris, etc.'--Ibid., I, Introd., p. lxxxvi.
23. Chaucer, Tale of Melibeus, § 15.