From civilitas to civility: Codes of manners in medieval and early modern England

Abstract

Argues that to see the contrasts between late medieval 'courtesy books' and early modern manuals of manners as markers of changing ideals of social conduct in England is an interpretation too narrowly based on works written in English. Examination of Latin and Anglo-Norman literature shows that the ideal of the urbane gentleman can be traced back at least as far as the most comprehensive of all courtesy books, the twelfth-century Liber Urbani of Daniel of Beccles, and was itself underpinned by the commonplace secular morality of the much older Distichs of Cato. © 2002 Royal Historical Society.