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Last active August 29, 2015 14:01
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The expression "give him the wall".
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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