Facetus and the birth of “European” politeness

Abstract

This paper aims to contribute to the study of the first stages of the development of European politeness, through the analysis of the metalanguage of politeness used in two Latin poems with the title Facetus (Facetus: cum nihil utilius and Facetus: moribus et vita), both dating from the twelfth century. These two texts established a fertile genre of behaviour manuals, developed during the Middle Ages both in Latin and in vernacular languages, and illustrate an intermediary moment of transition from ancient conceptualisations of politeness (given that they heavily draw on Roman ideas and literature) to early modern ones. The semantic analysis of the Latin politeness meta-terms used in those poems, such as facetus, decorus, mos or decus, allows us to get a glimpse, through the emic perspective offered by these meta-terms, of the moral order underlying the code of courtly behaviour.