This is so well known that it needs no more than calling to mind, and, turning attention to the fact that all the handling was fundamental, it is handling that makes manners.
Even the derivation of the word does not let us forget this--_manners_ from _manieres_, from _manier_, from _main_, from _manus_, the touch of the human hand upon the art of living worthily in human society, without offence and without contention, with the gentleness of a race, the _gens_, that owns a common origin, the urbanity of those who have learned to dwell in a city "compact together," the respect of those who have some one to look to for approval and control, either above them in dignity, or beneath them in strength, and therefore to be considered with due reverence.
The handling began early in days of chivalry, no time was lost, because there would necessarily be checks on the way.

Knighthood was far off, but it could not be caught sight of too early as an ideal, and it was characteristic of the consideration of the Church that, in the scheme of manners over which she held sway, the first training of her knights was intrusted to women.

For women set the standard of manners in every age, if a child has not learnt by seven years old how to behave towards them it is scarcely possible for him to learn it at all, and it is by women only that it can be taught.

The little _damoiseaux_ would have perfect and accomplished manners for their age when they left the apartments of the ladies at seven years old; it was a matter of course that they would fall off a good deal in their next stage.

They would become "pert," as pages were supposed to be, and diffident as esquires, but as knights they would come back of themselves to the perfect ways of their childhood with a grace that became well the strength and self-possession of their knighthood.