Course:History 344 Nasty Families/Titles and Status/Etiquette
Etiquette has long been seen as a primary determinate in social standing, particularly in pre-modern times. Specifically, in the Stuart Age, it played an important role in determining who was regarded as a gentleman, especially during times of economic instability and for a society constantly redefining its social standards. What was considered gentlemanly behaviour, as has been agreed upon by many modern historians, appears to be a complex combination of wealth and blood, as well as with style of life and social image. In this dynamic society, cultural practises came to determine status more and more [1].
Though money was of great importance to social status, it played its role indirectly. Rather than directly determining status, it was a means to the presentation of a constantly improving social image. This improvement was done through investment in architecture and patronage of the arts, entertainment within the household, application to changing educational practices, and to personal and physical behaviour and demeanour[2]. Moreover, Sir Thomas Smith stated that “Whosoever studieth the laws of the realme, who studieth in the universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and to be shorte, who can live idly and without manuall labour, and will beare the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called master … and shall be taken for a gentleman.” [3]
A gentleman looking for information on how to be more ‘noble’ could refer to handbooks such as Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman or Hero-Paideia: or the Institution of a Young Nobleman by James Cleland [4]. These handbooks for the English gentleman offered advice on everything from how to dress to how to conduct oneself in public, and so on. They differed from those written for gentlemen on the continent by the prerogatives of the nobility present within them such as their position before the law, freedoms to hunt, and their expectations to be involved and consulted in state affairs [5]. In The English Gentleman (1630) by Richard Brathwait, a puritanical expression of politeness was viewed as the ultimate determinate of noble behaviour [6]. For Cleland, service and civil behaviour toward the country as a whole was seen as the determinate of value in the English gentleman [7].
In terms of appearance and conduct, an acceptable style of life for gentry consisted of many elements. For one, gentlemen were expected to act with the utmost grace, which involved avoiding faults such as whistling, yawning and shuffling of the feet. This was due to the fact that portrayal of a positive social impression, no matter the company, was key to upholding a gentlemanly image. Gentlemen were always expected to pay polite salutation and gallantries to women as a symbol of respect. To this effect, society as a whole was expected to acknowledge the separation between those who paid less or more respect as having lower or higher status [8]. Actions became defined by their level of ‘civility’ or ‘savagery’ [9] and as time went on, expression of personal address, dress, and demeanour became more important determinates for an aspiring gentleman [10].
- ↑ Anna Bryson, “The Rhetoric of Status: Gesture, Demeanour and the Image of the Gentleman in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England,” In Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c. 1540-1660, ed. by Lucy Gent and Nigel Llewellyn (London: Reaktion Books Ltd., 1990), 136.
- ↑ Bryson, 137.
- ↑ Bryson, 136.
- ↑ Jorge Arditi, A Genealogy of Manners: Transformations of Social Relations in France and England from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Century (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 170.
- ↑ Arditi, 171-2.
- ↑ Arditi, 172.
- ↑ Arditi, 173.
- ↑ Bryson, 143.
- ↑ Bryson, 149.
- ↑ Bryson, 147.