A culture of “pleasing”?

Abstract This paper seeks to explain the development of European politeness as a result of courtly behaviour where “complaisance” played an important role. As traces left in the so-called “language of politeness” of numerous European linguacultures show, mutual “pleasing” determined social performance in hierarchically organised societies by merging aesthetic concepts of form and order with ethical values of benevolence and charity. An analysis of the lexical item placere (‘to please’) in Early