Civility, Cultural Exchange, and Conduct Literature
Funded by a Swiss National Science Foundation grant, ‘Civility, Cultural Exchange and Conduct Literature in Early Modern England, 1500-1700’ seeks to highlight the interrelated role played by production and reception in the development of early modern conduct literature. The Civility Project brings together researchers from across Western Switzerland to unravel the multifaceted history of the conduct book in the British Isles.
Why Civility and Conduct?
Manners and norms of good conduct, once seen as trivial aspects of social life, are now regarded by cultural historians as having had a profound impact on modern identity. While the codification of manners is to be found in all cultures and historical periods, the genre of conduct literature was particularly influential in Europe between the 16th and 18th centuries. Our project charts this type of literature from a distinctively English perspective, but as embedded within a wider European context.
We draw on insights from intellectual history and current research in the history of the book to shed fresh light on the history of manners and the interplay of gender and genre. We apply methodologies from digital humanities and analytical bibliography in order to improve understanding of the ways in which conduct literature was marketed between 1500 and 1700. Our open-access, relational database (to be launched in Summer 2023) will provide a valuable resource for further scholarship.
What are Conduct Books and Why Do They Matter?
Put simply, conduct books are texts which tell their readers how to behave. These readers might be royal heirs, gentlewomen, tradesmen, or young girls; the object of regulation might be table manners, the art of complimenting, the formation of Christian subjectivity, or how to secure the best possible husband. Whatever their specific audience or subject of address, the books of interest to the Civility Project are texts which propose norms to which their readers should adhere.
Such instructive literature was popular right from the beginning of printing, and remains so into the twenty-first century. Consider the numerous “self-help” books on offer in most respectable bookshops, or the slew of tutorials available on online platforms like YouTube. The remarkable presence of conduct-oriented discourse, from the earliest works of classical philosophy to today’s saturated media realm(s), attests to the enduring interest in self-improvement across the centuries.
That said, the emergence of early modern books of courtesy and conduct marked an important evolution from classical and medieval attitudes to good conduct. Renaissance conduct literature, in its pronounced emphasis on self-fashioning,is distinctly modern. Books like Erasmus’s De Civilitate Morum Puerilium (1530) gave instructions regarding positive behavioural modification, and others such as Henry Peacham’s The Compleat Gentleman (1622) showed how these instructions might lead to better social standing. This emphasis reflected and fostered concomitant shifts in philosophical and political thought that continue to undergird how we behave today.