Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The rise of civil courtesy and the duelling theory in Elizabethan and early Stuart England
- 2 The Jacobean anti-duelling campaign
- 3 Duelling, civility and honour in Restoration and Augustan England
- 4 Anti-duelling campaigns 1660–1720
- 5 Politeness, duelling and honour in Bernard Mandeville
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
1 - The rise of civil courtesy and the duelling theory in Elizabethan and early Stuart England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 The rise of civil courtesy and the duelling theory in Elizabethan and early Stuart England
- 2 The Jacobean anti-duelling campaign
- 3 Duelling, civility and honour in Restoration and Augustan England
- 4 Anti-duelling campaigns 1660–1720
- 5 Politeness, duelling and honour in Bernard Mandeville
- Epilogue
- Bibliography
- Index
- IDEAS IN CONTEXT
Summary
CIVIL COURTESY
In 1549 William Thomas, a scholar who had just returned from his five years' stay in Italy, published The historie of Italie. Dedicating the volume to the earl of Warwick, Thomas noted that ‘the Italian nacion … semeth to flourishe in ciuilitee moste of all other at this date’. Later in his work Thomas described the Italian customs in the following manner:
And generally (a few citees excepted) in maners and condicions they are no lesse agreable than in theyr speeche: so honourable, so courteise, so prudente, and so graue withall, that it shoulde seeme eche one of theim to haue had a princely bringing vp. To his superiour obedient, to his equall humble, and to his inferiour gentill and courteise, amiable to a straunger, and desyrous with courtesie to winne his loue.
There were two momentous consequences of this courtesy. First, ‘a straunger can not be better entreteigned, nor more honourablie entreated than amongest the Italians’. Secondly, the Italians were ‘sobre of speeche’, but also ‘enemies of ill reporte, and so tendre ouer their owne good name (whiche they call theyr honour)’ that ‘who so euer speaketh ill of one of theim, shall die for it, if the partie sklaundered maie know it, and finde tyme and place to do it’. The Italians' disposition to private revenges had been responsible for the fact ‘that few gentilmen goe abroade vnarmed’.
- Type
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- Information
- The Duel in Early Modern EnglandCivility, Politeness and Honour, pp. 17 - 79Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003