This literary study examines representations of social communication in the European literature of the 12th to the 16th centuries. It describes the social constellations and communicative practices (such as narration, discussion), which mark social situations. It demonstrates that the basic principles of being social already shaped literature in the Middle Ages. Besides texts of Middle High German literature, the study focuses on the concepts of social communication in two texts by Boccaccio (Filocolo, Decameron ), which exercised an especially powerful influential on the European literature of the late Middle Ages.