No one hurried women walked in dainty steps and men in moderated strides. Men had to learn how to move elegantly in stiff, padded Elizabethan doublets, with swords at their sides - though their clothing became less restrictive as time passed. When sitting or walking, women had to manage farthingales, trains, hoop skirts, or bustles, covered with voluminous petticoats and skirts, as fashion changed, all the while constrained by the wooden Elizabethan bodice (which led to wooden movements) or its successor, the corset. In some countries in the seventeenth-century, outer shoes had very thick cork soles, which resulted in a careful, slow manner of walking. The pantofle was removed indoors, particularly while dancing, so that one could ‘trip light-footed’. For example, out-of-doors, well-to-do Elizabethans wore two pairs of shoes, an inner slipper and the outer shoe (pantofle), which required some practice to keep on while walking. Dancing schools acquired a particular importance, for dance involves gracious movement.Īs many of the conventions of good deportment in Europe involved the wearing and handing of voluminous clothes, which reflected high social status, the rules did not readily apply to the peasantry. When greeting a superior, a gentleman doffed his hat, making certain that he executed this courtesy with the proper arm and body movements. Sliding the left foot backward, while bending the knee, gave rise to the expression ‘bow and scrape’. The bow and curtsy, very similar in the Middle Ages, diverged by the seventeenth century. The control of the features in laughing, eating, and talking, and the control of larger movements in walking, sitting, standing, and greeting someone, formed the subjects of careful instruction. Noblemen's houses thus functioned as finishing schools for the young. For example, a fifteenth-century page learned how to display a proper demeanour, to defer to superiors, to effect the proper stances for serving and conversing, and to become skilled in aristocratic amusements such as riding, singing, dancing, and playing musical instruments. Deportment was informed by the persistent notion that the inner character revealed itself through outward bodily movement.Įconomic and social changes in the early modern period enabled people to rise in social standing by learning proper deportment in the service of the nobility as knights, squires, pages and ladies-in-waiting. Men received admonitions against poor table manners, and knights received advice on the proper way to approach a woman in the open. Thirteenth-century prescriptions for women's deportment focused on the manner of walking, the method of riding a horse, modesty of glance, and proper management of the gown. A romanticized notion of chivalry, with an elaborate code of conduct, began to emerge. Later on, however, as economic and political developments during the twelfth century enabled knights to settle, the focus of chivalry moved away from the military and towards the social realm of ritual and ceremony. From the ninth through the eleventh centuries, codes governing knights' behaviour reflected crude and practical military exigencies. A somewhat problematic causal relationship between chivalry and the development of courtesy exists. By the thirteenth century, however, the disciplined restraint dominating the visible conduct of nuns became a model for the laity, and eloquent poems and texts on courtesy began to appear in Italy. Throughout the Middle Ages a person's position within the social hierarchy of the nobility determined proper deportment. Since antiquity, rules for deportment have guided the behaviour of the more privileged classes and those who served them. Such ceremonial rules contrast with the more substantive rules of morality and law. These rules helped to provide social stability in changing times, and people clung to them to maintain the appearance of stability. The term ‘deportment’ came into English usage around 1600, and is allied with the earlier ideas of chivalry and courtesy, and the later ideas of etiquette and good manners - in short, with conduct according to the rules of behaviour accepted by polite society. Deportment consists in how one carries and moves one's body.
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