What did it mean to be "civilized" in medieval England? This collection of conduct books and treatises, compiled by Frederick Furnivall from manuscripts dating back to the 15th century, offers a startling answer. Here are the rules for dining, the hierarchies of the household, the precise choreography of a medieval feast - rules that will seem both wildly foreign and strangely familiar. The texts included here, particularly John Russell's influential "Boke of Nurture," were written for the children of nobles and gentry, teaching them how to sit, how to serve, how to eat in ways that would mark them as proper members of their class. These were not suggestions - they were the foundations of social order, the skills that separated a gentleman from a boor, a refined household from a chaotic one. For modern readers, the fascination lies in the gap between their world and ours: the elaborate hand-washing rituals between courses, the strict prohibitions on speaking while eating, the servant's precise responsibilities. But also in what hasn't changed - the dinner table as a theater of status, the training of children in social performance, the anxiety about what constitutes proper behavior. Those curious about the deep history of etiquette, or anyone who wonders how we learned to be "civilized," will find this volume an illuminating and often amusing window into medieval English life.
