Georg Greflinger's Ethica Complementoria marks a transition in early modern rhetoric handbooks in Germany from a humanist theory of text production to a more comprehensive theory of conduct and behavior rooted in socially appropriate communication and ethical conduct. Joachim Knape's book offers, in equal parts, a comprehensive introduction to the text and a diplomatic edition. Its recently discovered first edition, published in Nuremberg in 1643, owned by the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg and now also available in digital form, constitutes the basis for his edition. The book was highly successful; there are thirty-six known print editions between 1643 and the early eighteenth century (67). The original text appeared anonymously, but Greflinger is generally assumed to be its author (63–65).

Its title, as Knape points out, is rather programmatic: “Complementary ethics: complementary booklet, where a proper manner and form is shown in an exemplary way how one should converse and associate in a courtly fashion with princely as well as with common persons, generally in good company, and with eligible young women and ladies.” Even though Greflinger was socialized in Regensburg, a Protestant free imperial city, the court as a center of political and social power serves as a framework of orientation and benchmark for social interactions. Greflinger does not deal with acts of state, so Knape records semi-official or informal interactions that define social relationships where the courtier (Hofmann) stands at the center as model, not the prince. Yet, a well-educated urban citizenry, not nobility, were the intended audience. Greflinger merely presented courtly models so they could be imitated by his urban audience, a certain critical attitude toward potentially corrupt courtly life notwithstanding (46). He identified his ideal reader as a “verständiger Biderman” (127), an understanding and sensible common man who acts ethically and whom Knape associates with the vir bonus, the ideal orator in classical rhetoric (9–10).

The structure of Greflinger's text follows seven basic social settings in which typical scenes and conventional conditions and frames are explored (20–21). The first three relate to institutions of power and to strategies of social positioning: good conduct at court (by far the longest chapter); legal, military, political, and scientific matters; and good society. The remaining four deal with courtship communication and the initiation of relations that lead to biological reproduction: weddings, courtship, dances, and the accompaniment of ladies. For all these settings, the Ethica Complementoria prepares communicative standards in the form of general rules of discourse and conversation.

Knape's examination of the text greatly enhances the reader's insights. First, Knape establishes the theoretical framework and then comments on individual chapters (43–62). A central point is the meaning of Ethica Complementoria and the concept of rhetoric that stands behind it. Complement to Greflinger is “Redensbefüllung” (127), literally filling with speech. It refers to verbal filling material the orator uses to convey their outlook on a matter or a person, and it generally includes a wise thought, a fitting item of knowledge, a textual feature that is intellectually elaborate or has aesthetic qualities, and even corresponding bodily gestures (17). An affinity with rhetorical topoi is evident as Greflinger instructs his readers how to generate such elements and thus demonstrate social competence, rather than delivering a catalog of set pieces, which became a common practice later in the century. Yet Greflinger shows us how complement can indeed become compliment where the display of playful, gallant verbal virtuosity evolves into an end in itself.

The added paragraph breaks and chapter headings make Knape's diplomatic edition more readable and accessible, and the ample footnotes enhance our appreciation of the source text. Both Knape's edition and informative critical examination are welcome contributions for scholars and advanced students of early modern rhetoric and, more generally, of cultural history. Knape's book also helps us understand Greflinger's unique role, matched only by his contemporary Georg Philip Harsdörffer, in the transition from a strictly language-based humanist rhetorical handbook to a rhetoric-based comprehensive code of conduct, which was oriented on the French ideal of galante conduite and fully disseminated in Germany by Christian Weise and Christian Thomasius later in the seventeenth century.