courtesy

thumb Courtesy (from the word , from the 12th century) is gentle politeness and courtly manners. In the Middle Ages in Europe, the behaviour expected of the nobility was compiled in courtesy books.

==History== The apex of European courtly culture was reached in the Late Middle Ages and the Baroque period (i.e. roughly the four centuries spanning 1300–1700). The oldest courtesy books date to the 13th century, but they become an influential genre in the 16th, with the most influential of them being Il Cortegiano (1508), which not only covered basic etiquette and decorum but also provided models of sophisticated conversation and intellectual skill.