ALL THE ACTIONS TAKEN BY individuals are informed by a set of representations, ideas, and expectations shared across society, about how social interactions should unfold, what strategies are known to succeed, which kinds of conduct are socially approved and which are regarded as illegitimate. As discussed in the Introduction, the sum of these everyday representations constitutes the social imaginary. Significant aspects of it have already been encountered in the previous chapters, such as the strategic perspective informing the politics of the Amiénois aristocracy and the underlying sense in both the livres de raison and the ricordi that calculation, attention to detail, and diversified investments are the keys to socioeconomic success. But in addition to such widely shared beliefs, each milieu is characterised by specific social views and attitudes. Thus Salimbene's Franciscan ideal of witty exchanges and Galbert's notarial emphasis on proper form in collective political action reflect particular subcultures and even individual preferences, but these were not divorced from the larger social imaginary.

This chapter examines two texts in the bourgeoning late-medieval genre of vernacular conduct literature, approached here as ego-documents because both include significant references to the authors’ personal experiences. Because their authors were not professional writers but educated bourgeois who took up the quill in specific contexts, the texts resonate with the sections on social conduct in the livres de raison and ricordanze; they go further by dramatising the burden of responsibility bearing on the pater familias, which leads to an exacerbated sense of individual agency and an unwillingness to acknowledge the contributions of women and social inferiors. What sets the conduct texts apart is their decidedly prospective, indeed programmatic outlook: the authors articulate their aspirations about how social relations should function, starting with the domestic space and moving to society in general. This is a crucial, if somewhat elusive, dimension of the social imaginary, because action is rooted in one's prior desires and dreams of engaging with the world. The texts’ conduct advice is fundamentally gendered and informed by a keen awareness of the potential for agency of the seemingly disempowered subaltern, which include women as well as servants and labourers. Consequently, a systematic effort is made to control who has access to parts or all of the model of individual empowerment through reason, self-discipline, and work.