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The expression "give him the wall".
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Quote from _At Day's Close: Night in Times Past Paperback_ (A. Roger Ekirch, 2006). | |
Courtiers took the place of knights, satin and silk replaced chain | |
mail. The growing power of nation states, marked by their | |
monopolization of military force, only broadened the scope of | |
this transformation. Well-understood rules of civility governed | |
social exchanges among friends and strangers. Hence, it was thought | |
inappropriate, if walking on a street, to ask questions of a stranger | |
or to touch, much less jostle, other pedestrians. Above all, persons | |
of quality required respect, lest their dignity be affronted. Besides | |
curtsying or doffing one’s hat, commoners kept their distance along | |
with their place. Deference demanded “giving the wall” by walking next | |
to the street, where, naturally, lay the greatest danger of stepping | |
in dung or being struck by a coach. Declared The Rules of Civility, | |
published in 1685, “If occasion offers to walk with a nobleman in the | |
street, we must give him the wall and remember not to keep up directly | |
by his side, but a little behind.” 39 |
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