From Courtesy to Civility

In any society, a foreigner learning the language must also learn what passes for good manners. The same is true for the historian trying to understand the social rules of a period and why these change. This book explores the nature and development of early modern conceptions of good manners, and examines some of the particular forms of everyday behaviour which these conceptions implied. `Courtesy' and `Civility' were among the values central to Tudor and Stuart assumptions and fears about the social and political order.