THE SCENE: A noble but impoverished master explains to his servant the confusing, arbitrary, and high-stakes rules for doffing caps and greeting other people in late medieval Spain.
THE TEXT: He told me about his affairs, and said that he came from Old Castille. He said he had left his home for no other reason than he had not taken off his hat to a to a knight who was his neighbour. “Sir,” I said, “if that was what happened, and he was greater than you a were you not wrong in not having doffed your cap first? But he ought to have taken his off as well.” He went on to say that the knight did take off his cap to him; but that he had taken his off first so many times, that it was well to see what the other would do. ” It Seems to me, sir,” said I, ” that you should have doffed to one greater and richer than yourself.”
“You are only a boy,” he replied, “and cannot understand the things appertaining to honor in which, at the present time, is all the wealth of respectable people. You must remember that I am, as you know, an esquire. I swear to God that if I met a count in the street and he did not salute me, I would not salute him if I met him again. I should enter some house as if I had business there, or turn down another street before he came near me. For a gentleman owes nothing to anyone but God and the king; nor is it right for a man of honour to forego his self-respect. I remember that one day, in my country, I affronted and nearly came to blows with an officer, because whenever I saluted him he said, “May God preserve your honour” “You are a wretch,” I said, “for you are not well bred. You said to me ‘God preserve you,’ as if I was nobody.” From that time he took off his cap, and behaved properly.”
“Is it not good manners for one man to salute another,” I asked, “or to say ‘God preserve you’?” He answered, “It is only underbred people who talk thus. To gentlemen like myself, it should not be less than ‘I kiss the hands of your honor!’ or at the very least, ‘I kiss your hand, sir!’ if he who speaks is a knight. In my own land I would not suffer a mere ‘God preserve you’ nor will I suffer it from any man in the world, from the king downwards.”
– The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, 16th Century AD
