Much of the theory of manners was formulated by the sociologist Norbert Elias in his book, The Civilizing Process. Elias notes that medieval culture initially gave powerful men the ability to act like children—to live without any physical or psychic restraints. Over a span of several centuries, beginning in the 11th or 12th and maturing in the 17th and 18th, Europeans increasingly inhibited their impulses, anticipated the long-term consequences of their actions, and took other people’s thoughts and feelings into consideration. A culture of honor—the readiness to take revenge—gave way to a culture of dignity—the readiness to control one’s emotions. In the 16th century, the great Erasmus penned the first etiquette book—The Handbook of Good Manners for Children. Several other writers also published similar guidebooks. The books included such rules as: Don’t urinate in the hallway; don’t use the tablecloth to blow your nose; don’t use your personal knife to pop food into your mouth, etc. Interestingly, those rules had less to do with good hygiene than we might imagine. An understanding of microbes and infection did not arrive until well into the 19th century. The only explicit rationales stated in those books are to avoid acting like an animal and to avoid offending others. This civilizing process was long and slow. King David I of Scotland proposed that citizens who learned to eat more properly should get a tax refund. Disappointingly, that idea never caught on. The much-traveled Thomas Coryat introduced the table fork to Britain. When he returned from Italy in 1608 with this fancy novelty, he met with a torrent of ridicule. But that idea did eventually catch on. And a quarter of a century later, the table fork reached America.