LADIES HUNTING
After the painting by Henri Génois
Sometimes brawls followed the too free use of wine, as one romance tells us "you might see them throw at each other cheeses, and big quartern-loaves, and hunks of meat, and sharp steel knives." But sometimes the ladies strolled off into the gardens and played games--blindman's-buff, or frog-in-the-middle, or the like--or sang to the harp, or sewed. A great deal of time, indeed, was spent out of doors, not only in the gentler field sports, such as hawking, in which ladies participated, but also in the mere routine of daily life. In the romances many a scene of revelry as well as of love making takes place under the trees; and the ladies are not always idling away their time, either; for we find them spinning, embroidering, or at least making garlands of flowers.
Upon a table so appointed and served we can understand that some of the cautions of Robert de Blois to the ladies would be most useful. "In eating you must avoid much laughing or talking. If you eat with another (out of the same écuelle), turn the nicest bits to him, and do not pick out the finest and largest for yourself, which is not good manners. Moreover, no one should try to devour a choice bit which is too large or too hot, for fear of choking or burning herself.... Each time you drink, wipe your mouth well, that no grease may go into the wine, which is very unpleasant to the person who drinks after you. But when you wipe your mouth after drinking, do not wipe your eyes or nose with the tablecloth, and take care not to get your hands too greasy or let your mouth spill too much." The really well-bred lady, then, must be like Chaucer's Prioress:
"At mete was she wel ytaughte withalle;
She lette no morsel from hire lippes falle,
Ne wette hire fingres in hire sauce depe.
Wel coude she carie a morsel, and wel kepe,
Thatte no drope ne fell upon hire brest.