Courtesy (from the wordcourteis, from the 12th century) isgentlepoliteness andcourtlymanners. In theMiddle Ages in Europe, the behaviour expected of the nobility was compiled incourtesy books.

The apex of European courtly culture was reached in theLate Middle Ages and theBaroque period (i.e. roughly the four centuries spanning 1300–1700). The oldest courtesy books date to the 13th century, but they become an influential genre in the 16th, with the most influential of them beingIl Cortegiano (1508), which not only covered basicetiquette anddecorum but also provided models of sophisticatedconversation andintellectual skill.^[1]

The royal courts of Europe persisted well into the 18th century (and to some limited extent to the present day), but in the 18th century, the notion ofcourtesy was replaced by that ofgallantry, referring to an ideal emphasizing the display of affected sensitivity in direct contrast with the ideals of self-denial and dignified seriousness that were the Baroque norm. During the late medieval and early modern period, the bourgeois class tended to emulate the courtly etiquette of their betters. This changed in the 19th century, after the end of theNapoleonic Wars, with the emergence of amiddle class with its own set ofbourgeois etiquette, which in turn was mocked in the classist theory ofMarxism aspetite bourgeoisie.

The analogue concept in the court culture ofmedieval India was known by theSanskrit termdakṣiṇya, literally meaning "right-handedness", but as in Englishdexterity having a figurative meaning of "apt, clever, appropriate", glossed as "kindness and consideration expressed in asophisticated andelegant way".^[2]

• Military courtesy

• "Courtesy" .Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 7 (11th ed.). 1911.