A ‘Judgement of Taste’: The courtesy texts and the social construction of bodily functions in Late Medieval England

This thesis examines the social construction of bodily functions as represented in the ‘courtesy’ literature of England between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries. Looking primarily at courtesy texts and how ideas are constituted, sustained and reinforced, it is an examination of the cultural processes, embodied experiences, and sensory modalities around bodily functions in late medieval England. It explores these constructs in the ‘courtesy genre’ in three periods which can loosely be defined as the ‘conception’ of the courtesy texts in the 12th century (characterised by Latin prose texts such as Urbanus Magnus); the peak period for courtesy treatises in the fourteenth/fifteenth century (characterised by the change to English vernacular as seen in The Boke of Curtasye); and the ‘end’ of the prose phase in the sixteenth century, with Hugh Rhodes’ Book of Nurture and a move to more descriptive narrative texts such as Erasmus De Civilitate. Part one of this dissertation provides an overview of the approach and sources used. There is discussion of the historiography and theoretical constructs that informed this research, with a focus on concepts of ‘social distinction’, ‘judgements of taste’, ‘mechanisms of shame’, ‘impression management’, and ‘social tightening’. Consideration is also given to social context in the production of the sources. Part two consists of thematic chapters examining the behavioural constraints around three bodily functions: wind, bodily waste, and spitting. Exploring their construction this section highlights the relationship to concepts of power, class, culture, identity, and as a narration of the body and the senses. This research finds that the senses play an important role in the regulation and reinforcement of social behaviour and are used purposefully to create ‘judgements of taste’ through sensorial memory response. It also points to the eminent role of the senses in the creation of social and emotional constructs such as shame and disgust in late medieval England.