Accessibility Links

The official website for BBC History Magazine, BBC History Revealed and BBC World Histories Magazine

  1. Home
  2. Period
  3. General Early Modern
  4. The history of manners

The history of manners

Keith Thomas explores how ideas of civilisation shaped society 500 years ago

Keith Thomas on how ideas of civilisation shaped society 500 years ago.

Distinguished historian Sir Keith Thomas reflects on how concepts of civility and civilisation shaped society in the early modern period.

How to download the History Extra podcast

Distinguished historian Sir Keith Thomas reflects on how concepts of civility and civilisation shaped society in the early modern period.

Advertisement

How to download the History Extra podcast

Tags

More on: United Kingdom

Equestrian portrait of Geoffrey Chaucer from the Ellesmere manuscript of his Canterbury Tales (14th century). "The world in which Chaucer moved was very outward-looking," says Marion Turner. (Photo by Universal History Archive/Getty Images)
Learn more about this subject

You may like

Podcast Website large Simon Schama
Roman

Schama on ‘Civilisations’

Podcast-Website-large-James-Scott-3ec9ead
General prehistory

The origins of civilisation

The reconcilliation between Thomas Becket and Henry II. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Ancient Greece

From the handshake to the high-five: a brief history of gestures

podcast-logo_v4_20-e0ddec3
Cold War

The end of the Cold War and British culture