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The various sociability concepts of the 18th century made a decisive contribution to the transition from medieval social structure to early modern society. After the religious wars of the 17th century, there emerged a concept of peaceable, tolerant, and self-determined coexistence born of unremitting interplay between literary models, experimental group-formation, and cultural values. The tension immanent in that concept between untrammeled development of the personality and socially required norms of behaviour has remained a characteristic feature of the modern age to the present day.