A Genealogy of Manners: Transformations of Social Relations in France and England from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Century (review)

Short Notices Arditi, Jorge, A Genealogy ofManners: Transformations of Social Relations France and England from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Century, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 1998; pp. 312; R.R.P. US$35.00 (cloth), US$17.00 (paper). This is an interesting, lively book that will evoke discussion. It is book that illustrates the difficulty inherent in cross-disciplinary studies. Professor Arditi, exploring 'manners, social relations, and power' (that phrase forming the title of his opening chapter) examines 'infrastructures of social relations' (p. 8), by which he means 'the patterns of association and differentiation in a society and...the practices through which these patterns are produced and reproduced' (p. 8). H e focuses on the terms 'courtoisie', 'civility' and 'etiquette', seeking to reveal the social practices, the world views, that gave meaning to each. His is therefore no mean task and one learns from his attempt; but the attempt is not without its problems, as the author himself was of course not unaware. Following Foucault and Elias, and carefully acknowledging where he does follow or diverge from them, Arditi presents as a major part of his argument that the link between manners and ethics has never been given due recognition by historians of manners—certainly, in any event, by Elias. Therefore, he suggests, to give appropriate recognition to that link is to understand more comprehensively and accurately the relations between 'detachment' and manners. That is to say, one can thus more accurately bring together the terms 'etiquette' and 'detachment' precisely because eighteenth-century writers on etiquette, unlike their predecessors theorising Short Notices 297 'courtoisie' and 'civility', detach manners from ethics: 'detachment' is indeed built into the theory of enlightenment social relations. O n e problem arises here. Some eighteenth-century English writers on or about manners stress the connections between manners and ethics, even if others m a y dissociate the two. Austen criticism since the 1940s has variously made that point when considering the representations of courtesy, of manners, in Austen's novels and the lineages of those representations. What has been well-covered ground in English studies has not been so in other disciplines. That problem raises another. W h e n examining texts Arditi tends to do so broadly, or at least in a w a y which suggests that exploring the nuances of literary texts is not something he has much occasion to do professionally (see, on p. 162, the discussion of a speech by Falstaff). It could be added that some of what Arditi has to say about 'courtoisie', 'civility' and 'etiquette' is not very new, as the author himself points out where appropriate. Such matters aside, however, this remains an engaging and useful book. A. D. Cousins Department of English Macquarie University Ayton, Andrew, Knights and Warhorses: Military Service and the English Aristocracy under Edward 111, Woodbridge, The Boydell Press, rpt. 1999; paper; pp. xiv, 304; 9 tables; R.R.P. £19.99, US$35.00. Destrier, courser, rouncy, trotter, hobby, palfrey, hackney, sumpter: deserve a place in the history of medieval warfare, but it is the destrier, the magnus equus of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, that is considered by m a n y to be the true warhorse. A very expensive thoroughbred, the destrier possessed the size, strength and stamina required to carry a plate-armoured rider into battle. Barded and massive, the magnus equus was a mobile battering-ram—the panzer of the period and a potent symbol of chivalry. Andrew Ayton has produced a compelling and detailed survey into the use of the horse in the Edwardian campaigns of the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. H e uses two main document sources: the horse ...