Quote:
Originally Posted by Anthony
The concept of gentleman is timeless and universal, of course (in reality, codes of proper behavior in warfare, gentlemen or otherwise, have mostly only worked when the banned behavior is not very effective, or the ban is beneficial to both sides).
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Yes but the details are not. For instance there was nothing about. "don't shoot at generals" in WW2. Come to think of it there was nothing about sentries not randomly shooting at each other and that was one of the more sensible portions of the code(everyone has work tomorrow and needs sleep). However SOMETIMES prisoners got treated a lot better even if they were from Other Ranks(sometimes they got treated a lot worse too).
As for the concept of gentleman being timeless if I remember one Elizabethan on a foundering ship let his friend aboard a plank then drew his rapier and made sure every one else stayed away. In Vicky's day he would have gone to Coventry for that.
For that matter can you imagine a Norman knight behaving in what you would call a remotely gentlemanly manner? Except of course by the original definition which is,"Having a successful thug for an ancestor" and fortunately of no more then etymological interest.