Courtesy book

Last updated May 23, 2023

A courtesy book (also book of manners) was a didactic manual of knowledge for courtiers to handle matters of etiquette, socially acceptable behaviour, and personal morals, with an especial emphasis upon life in a royal court; the genre of courtesy literature dates from the 13th century.^[1]

Medieval

Courtesy books formed part of the didactic literature of the Middle Ages, covering topics from religion and ethics to social awareness and social conduct.^[2] While firmly normative in their bent, they also showed an awareness of the human realities that did not fit neatly under the rubric of their precepts.^[3] Such books appealed both to an aristocratic readership and to aspiring urban middle classes.^[4]

The oldest known courtesy book from Germany is the mid-thirteenth century Tannhäuser Book of Manners.^[5]

Another of the oldest known courtesy books of Germany, is the learning-poems of "Winsbecke" and "Winsbeckin", written around 1220 by an anonymous author.

The oldest known courtesy book from Italy around 1215/16 is the Der Wälsche Gast by Thomasin von Zirclaere, speaking to a German audience.

The oldest known courtesy book from England is Book of the Civilized Man by Daniel of Beccles, also known as the Liber Urbani , from the beginning of the 13th century - possibly 1190AD.

Renaissance

The Renaissance saw the re-emergence of urban civilisation in the Italian city-states, drawing on the earlier urban civilizations of ancient Greece and Rome, but developing new ideals of manners and courtesy. Three sixteenth century Italian texts on courtly manners and morals – Baldassarre Castiglione's Il Cortegiano (1528); Giovanni della Casa's Il Galateo (1558) and Stefano Guazzo's La Civil Conversazione (1574) in four volumes – had an especially wide influence both south and north of the Alps. Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, apparently had at his bedside three books: the Bible, Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince , and Il Cortegiano (The Courtier ).^[6] Through Castiglione's writings, the Italian ideals of Neo-Platonism, beauty and symmetry, and the amateur author, reached a wide humanist audience,^[7] as did the new Italianate emphasis on the self in society and the importance of social appearances.^[8]

The norms for personal boundaries and social proxemics established by figures such as della Casa still influence the Western world almost a half millennium later.^[9]

English translations and developments

In 1561, Thomas Hoby published The Courtyer, his translation of Il Cortegiano, (although he had made the translation a decade earlier). The work was read widely and influenced the writings of Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser and Ben Jonson. Robert Peterson's translation of Il Galateo appeared in 1576. George Pettie translated the first three books of Guazzo's work into The Civil Conversation in 1581; the fourth and last volume from La Civil Conversazione appeared five years later in a translation by Bartholomew Yonge.

A well-known English example of the genre is Henry Peacham's The Compleat Gentleman of 1622.^[10]

Later developments

Courtesy books continued to be written into the 1700s, the last traditional English one being Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son^[11] – memorably described by Samuel Johnson as teaching "the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master".^[12] However they took on a new form in the fiction of the time, much of it (like the work of Sir Charles Grandison) filling a similar normative role.^[13]

Related Research Articles

Andreas Capellanus, also known as Andrew the Chaplain, and occasionally by a French translation of his name, André le Chapelain, was the 12th-century author of a treatise commonly known as De amore, and often known in English, somewhat misleadingly, as The Art of Courtly Love, though its realistic, somewhat cynical tone suggests that it is in some measure an antidote to courtly love. Little is known of Andreas Capellanus's life, but he is presumed to have been a courtier of Marie de Champagne, and probably of French origin.

The Book of the Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione is a lengthy philosophical dialogue on the topic of what constitutes an ideal courtier or court lady, worthy to befriend and advise a Prince or political leader. Inspired by the Spanish court during his time as Ambassador of the Holy See (1524–1529), Castiglione set the narrative of the book in his years as a courtier in his native Duchy of Urbino. The book quickly became enormously popular and was assimilated by its readers into the genre of prescriptive courtesy books or books of manners, dealing with issues of etiquette, self-presentation, and morals, particularly at princely, or royal courts, books such as Giovanni Della Casa's Il Galateo (1558) and Stefano Guazzo's The civil conversation (1574). The Book of the Courtier was much more than that, however, having the character of a drama, an open-ended philosophical discussion, and an essay. It has also been seen as a veiled political allegory. It offers a poignantly nostalgic evocation of an idealized milieu — that of the small courts of the High Renaissance which were vanishing in the Italian Wars — with a reverent tribute to the friends of Castiglione's youth, in particular the chastely married Duchess Elisabetta Gonzaga of Urbino, to whom Castiglione had addressed a sequence of Platonic sonnets and who died in 1526. The work was composed over the course of twenty years, beginning in 1508, and ultimately published in 1528 by the Aldine Press in Venice just before the author's death. An influential English translation by Thomas Hoby was published in 1561.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Etiquette</span> Customary code of polite behaviour

Etiquette is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a society, a social class, or a social group. In modern English usage, the French word étiquette dates from the year 1750.

Chivalry, or the chivalric code, is an informal and varying code of conduct developed in Europe between 1170 and 1220. It was associated with the medieval Christian institution of knighthood; knights' and gentlemen's behaviours were governed by chivalrous social codes. The ideals of chivalry were popularized in medieval literature, particularly the literary cycles known as the Matter of France, relating to the legendary companions of Charlemagne and his men-at-arms, the paladins, and the Matter of Britain, informed by Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae, written in the 1130s, which popularized the legend of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. All of these were taken as historically accurate until the beginnings of modern scholarship in the 19th century.

Courtly love was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love is originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love changed and attracted a larger audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1561.

This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1528.

Sir Thomas Hoby was an English diplomat and translator.

Courtesy is gentle politeness and courtly manners. In the Middle Ages in Europe, the behaviour expected of the nobility was compiled in courtesy books.

Book of the Civilized Man, by Daniel of Beccles, is believed to be the first English courtesy book, dating probably from the beginning of the 13th century. The book is significant because in the later Middle Ages dozens of such courtesy books were produced. Because this appears to be the first in English history, it represented a new awakening to etiquette and decorum in English court society, which occurred in the 13th century. As a general rule, a book of etiquette is a mark of a dynamic rather than a stable society, one in which there is an influx of "new" men, who have not been indoctrinated with the correct decorum from an early age and who are avid to catch up in a hurry.

Giovanni della Casa, was a Florentine poet, diplomat, clergyman and inquisitor, and writer on etiquette and society. He is celebrated for his famous treatise on polite behavior, Il Galateo overo de’ costumi (1558). From the time of its publication, this courtesy book has enjoyed enormous success and influence. In the eighteenth century, influential critic Giuseppe Baretti wrote in The Italian Library (1757), "The little treatise is looked upon by many Italians as the most elegant thing, as to stile, that we have in our language."

Count Carlo Ottavio Castiglioni (1784-1849) was an Italian philologist and numismatist.

Łukasz Górnicki, was a Polish Renaissance, poet, humanist, political commentator as well as secretary and chancellor of king Sigismund Augustus of Poland. His family used Ogończyk coat of arms.

Sprezzatura is an Italian word that first appears in Baldassare Castiglione's 1528 The Book of the Courtier, where it is defined by the author as "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it". It is the ability of the courtier to display "an easy facility in accomplishing difficult actions which hides the conscious effort that went into them". Sprezzatura has also been described "as a form of defensive irony: the ability to disguise what one really desires, feels, thinks, and means or intends behind a mask of apparent reticence and nonchalance".

Bartholomew Clerke (1537?–1590) was an English jurist, politician and diplomat. He became Dean of the Arches and a contemporary of Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford.

Baldassare Castiglione, Count of Casatico, was an Italian courtier, diplomat, soldier and a prominent Renaissance author.

Edward Grimeston was an English sergeant-at-arms and one of the most active translators of his day.

Middle High German literature refers to literature written in German between the middle of the 11th century and the middle of the 14th. In the second half of the 12th century, there was a sudden intensification of activity, leading to a 60-year "golden age" of medieval German literature referred to as the mittelhochdeutsche Blütezeit. This was the period of the blossoming of Minnesang, MHG lyric poetry, initially influenced by the French and Provençal tradition of courtly love song. The same sixty years saw the composition of the most important courtly romances. again drawing on French models such as Chrétien de Troyes, many of them relating Arthurian material. The third literary movement of these years was a new revamping of the heroic tradition, in which the ancient Germanic oral tradition can still be discerned, but tamed and Christianized and adapted for the court.

Galateo: The Rules of Polite Behavior by Florentine Giovanni Della Casa (1503–56) was published in Venice in 1558. A guide to what one should do and avoid in ordinary social life, this courtesy book of the Renaissance explores subjects such as dress, table manners, and conversation. It became so popular that the title, which refers to the name of one of the author’s distinguished friends, entered into the Italian language as a general term for social etiquette.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francesco da Barberino</span>

Francesco di Neri di Ranuccio, known better as Francesco da Barberino (1264–1348), was a Tuscan notary, doctor of law and author.

References

↑ "courtesy literature", Encyclopædia Britannica Online, 2008.
↑ D. T. Kline ed., Medieval Literature for Children (2012) p. 83-94
↑ D. T. Kline ed., Medieval Literature for Children (2012) p. 98
↑ K. M. Ashley/M. D. Johnston eds., Medieval Conduct Books (2009) p. xxxii
↑ Bumke,2000
↑ Kenneth Clark, Civilisation (1969) p. 111
↑ B. Ford ed., The Age of Shakespeare (1973) pp. 23, 91, and 131
↑ K. A. Wolberg, "All Possible Art" (2008) p. 101
↑ Erving Goffman, Relations in Public (1971) p. 72
↑ See the articles "Courtesy Literature" and "Hoby" in Drabble, Margaret, ed. (1985), The Oxford Companion to English Literature , Oxford University Press.
↑ I. Ousby ed., The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English (1995) p. 212
↑ James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Penguin 1984) p. 77
↑ S. K. Marks, Sir Charles Grandison (1986) p. 14