Ladies and Gentlemen in Renaissance Western Europe Eros via Thanatos

The present article offers a postmodern (re)interpretation of the 16^th century Renaissance set of social etiquettes versus the average citizen’s Weltanschauung triggered by his most natural drives and impulses. The epicentral focus of our investigation is the social network(s) built by the different, sometimes oppositional ethical, theological and epistemological codes. What types of motivation triggered certain members of different social layers to observe or to break these codes? Was there any differentiation between clergymen and (fe)male aristocracy? Most importantly, why was the epistemological positionality of men different from that of (educated) women?