Courtesie - How important was it?

[William of Stonebridge]

Many modernly view chivalry = courtesy. Yet a man living in our period of study could be very chivalrous and not necessarily courteous.

I wonder for the sake of discussion, how important was it for one to be courteous? Who was it more important to? I imagine the origin of the word comes from "court" as "how a person should behave at court". What social rules were expected from people to display courtesy that was specific to that time? Was it more important to be preaux and chivalrous among the knightly class than courteous? Is this all based from a Victorian ideal?

Many in the SCA today value courtesy, and yet there are still churls and cads. I would guess things were the same then, but I would be interested to hear others opinion and knowledge on the subject.

[Vitus von Atzinger]

It's the most important virtue hands down.

Because it's the most difficult for competitive and violent assholes (like me) to master.

[Ernst]

KNYGHT

43: A knyght ther was, and that a worthy man,
44: That fro the tyme that he first bigan
45: To riden out, he loved chivalrie,
46: Trouthe and honour, fredom and curteisie.

[jester]

Manners are indicative of station. Therefore courtesy is highly important as the visible manifestation of franchise.

[chef de chambre]

Manners are indicative of station. Therefore courtesy is highly important as the visible manifestation of franchise.

Bingo, and thus we have a winner.

By adopting the manners of a station lower than himself, Louis XI initially brought the Great lords of France down on his head, in the War of Public Weal. His habits and manners caused him trouble repeatedly throughout his reign, although in the end he was probably the greatest Medieval King of France, and the architect of the centralized monarchy.

If he dressed a little better, and played the accepted game of manners and courtesy to his lords, he would have likely had less trouble throughout his reign, while still accomplishing his goals.

[Karen Larsdatter]

It's interesting to see the range of definitions that the Middle English Dictionary finds for "courtesy."

[Maeryk]

Manners are indicative of station. Therefore courtesy is highly important as the visible manifestation of franchise.

Bingo, and thus we have a winner.

By adopting the manners of a station lower than himself, Louis XI initially brought the Great lords of France down on his head, in the War of Public Weal. His habits and manners caused him trouble repeatedly throughout his reign, although in the end he was probably the greatest Medieval King of France, and the architect of the centralized monarchy.

If he dressed a little better, and played the accepted game of manners and courtesy to his lords, he would have likely had less trouble throughout his reign, while still accomplishing his goals.

The trick is understanding how to separate "modern" courtesy from "medieval" courtesy.

Same word, and in some cases, same idea.. in other cases, RADICALLY different idea.

See also "meek" and "obediant".

[Alric of Drentha]

Try to get your hands on Joachim Bumke, Courtly Culture: Literature and Society in the High Middle Ages, (2000), if you can. It's a good book, and it addresses many of the questions in your post.

This is a devlishly complicated question that has been beaten to death in the secondary scholarship, and there's no easy answer.

On the one hand, you have the tradition of courtly literature in which the knights are all very courteous. On the other, you have accounts of how knights actually acted in which raping a woman seems to be more common than treating her with courtesy. There was, of course, a proper way to act at court, but just how widespread this was, and how much it filtered down to interactions outside of the king's presence, is difficult. And there are definite shifts in how people behaved from the 11th century through the end of the middle ages.

[Russ Mitchell]

Well, if she's a peasant, then raping her was just fine. They're not deemed worthy of courtesy. Not much diferent than tsujigiri, really.

[Adriano]

Well, if she's a peasant, then raping her was just fine. They're not deemed worthy of courtesy. Not much diferent than tsujigiri, really.

Well, Andreas Cappellanus suggests this, or seems to. My theory is that he was a social satirist, like Chaucer, and that his work was understood that way by its intended audience at the time, even if it isn't always now.

[Russ Mitchell]

I don't think that's the case, actually. We see from various law codes that upper classes, for instance, may have paid economic damage to the "owner" of a peasant in the case of maiming or murder of said person -- we see no sense at all that the peasants themselves were entitled to any real social protections, or that they were entitled to any say whatsoever in terms of what happened to them.

I am obviously painting with a very broad brush here, but the pattern here holds -- even up into the 15c, lords such as Sigismund discuss war and their legal right, when two nobles come to blows, to settle irresolvable issues by burning each others' lands and destroying each others' chattel -- not in assassinating each other, for instance.

That the chattel may have objected does not appear to have been of the vaguest import.

[Halfdan]

As far as rape has been mentioned, well Edward III raped the Countess of Salisbury and he is often cited as a paragon of chivalry. His son Edward killed who knows how many peasants in chevauches in France.

The idea of courtesy in the Middle Ages has everything to do with your social standing-- the higher it is the more your wrongs are glossed over. "Courtesy" was a superficial veneer whose basic function was to identify one with a certain ingroup. Not knowing the rules put one outside that certain circle of society.

[chef de chambre]

I don't think that's the case, actually. We see from various law codes that upper classes, for instance, may have paid economic damage to the "owner" of a peasant in the case of maiming or murder of said person -- we see no sense at all that the peasants themselves were entitled to any real social protections, or that they were entitled to any say whatsoever in terms of what happened to them.

I am obviously painting with a very broad brush here, but the pattern here holds -- even up into the 15c, lords such as Sigismund discuss war and their legal right, when two nobles come to blows, to settle irresolvable issues by burning each others' lands and destroying each others' chattel -- not in assassinating each other, for instance.

That the chattel may have objected does not appear to have been of the vaguest import.

In the Devonshire hunting tapestries, in the V&A, we see the social attitude recorded in art as late as 1425-1450. In one panel, a young nobleman is fondleing the Millers wife, she is in discomfort, trying to gently ward him off, while the miller looks away troubled in demeanour, but is helpless, and can do nothing. On the same tapestry, we see courtly wooing, with a young nobleman and noblewoman, pleasantly riding along with an older chaperone.

That said, it depends on when and where, and how far up or down the ladder of the 2nd estate you are. We can see from extant English letters, close relationships between gentlemen and servitors of the 3rd estate. You don't see those kinds of relationships in France at the same time, excepting Louis XI, where his treatment of preference to the Middle Classes, over the great nobles, is seen as outright scandelous.

[Destichado]

As far as rape has been mentioned, well Edward III raped the Countess of Salisbury and he is often cited as a paragon of chivalry.

Did he? Really?

Certainly Shakespeare (was it?) tells us so, but Shakespeare is about as historically accurate as Quentin Tarantino.

[Russ Mitchell]

In the Devonshire hunting tapestries, in the V&A, we see the social attitude recorded in art as late as 1425-1450. In one panel, a young nobleman is fondleing the Millers wife, she is in discomfort, trying to gently ward him off, while the miller looks away troubled in demeanour, but is helpless, and can do nothing.

And who produced and consumed said tapestries? Yep. Them nobles. These are explicit statements of power produced by one group against another.

[Donal Mac Ruiseart]

In the Devonshire hunting tapestries, in the V&A, we see the social attitude recorded in art as late as 1425-1450. In one panel, a young nobleman is fondleing the Millers wife, she is in discomfort, trying to gently ward him off, while the miller looks away troubled in demeanour, but is helpless, and can do nothing.

Could the artist have been making an artistic critique on such behaviour?

[chef de chambre]

In the Devonshire hunting tapestries, in the V&A, we see the social attitude recorded in art as late as 1425-1450. In one panel, a young nobleman is fondleing the Millers wife, she is in discomfort, trying to gently ward him off, while the miller looks away troubled in demeanour, but is helpless, and can do nothing.

Could the artist have been making an artistic critique on such behaviour?

Possibly. I don't know.

That said, the young nobleman is as serene as the one properly courting a lady of his own station with the chaperone. It is hard to tell, as the default human face in cartoons made for tapestries, or illuminations in books is 'serene'. The two peasants showing discomfort are more unusual, although you see that of course in scenes involving the hellmouth at the day of judgement, scenes of peasant armies being cut down while fleeing, etc.