http://mountandblade.wikia.com/wiki/Cheats contains some of the information I want, but it is not controlled by
Taleworlds, so I'm not going to recommend linking to it.
to enter console, ctrl-~ (with some alternatives for keyboards which don't generate the "correct" ~, standards,
gotta love them). then enable cheat menu by typing "cheatmenu". One should be able to disable cheat menu
by typing "nocheatmenu" or possibly "noncheatmenu" into the console. I haven't tested that yet.