Gentry and gentility

Images of society: the three estates

• ‘You know that there are three estates of men’ (John Gower, Vox Clamantis, c.1377)• ‘There be in this world three manners of men,

clerks, knights, and commonalty’ (Middle English sermon, c. 1415)

– Oratores (those who pray)– Bellatores (those who fight and protect society)– Laboratores (those who work)

• Developments of the model– Geoffrey Chaucer, General Prologue (c. 1390)• Knight, Plowman, Parson• Merchant, Shipman, Cook, Doctor, Manciple, etc.; Wife

– Edmund Dudley (1509)• ‘all the clergy of this realm’• ‘all the chivalry of this realm’ • ‘the commonalty of this realm’ (‘the merchants,

craftsmen and artificers, labourers, franklins, graziers, farmers, tillers, and generally the other people of this realm’)

Images of society: the ‘body politic’

– The Describing of Man’s Members (c.1413)• Head=king• Neck=a justice (judge)• Chest=priesthood• Shoulders and back=lords; arms=knights;

hands=esquires; fingers=yeomen• Ribs=men of law• Thighs=merchants• Legs=craftsmen, feet=ploughmen• Toes=servants

Estates / orders

– Functional (rather than economic) perspective: society as organic whole

– Changeless, divinely ordained– Hierarchical– Presupposes inequality and its acceptance by

members of society (‘deference society’)– Normative rather than descriptive?

Terminology

• Aristocracy/nobility/gentry – as ranks– ‘greater’ and ‘lesser’ aristocracy– nobility/peerage (greater aristocracy)– gentry (lesser aristocracy)• Knights • Esquires• Gentlemen

• Gentility / nobility – as qualities

Nobility and gentility

• ‘He who would judge a person’s gentility (gentilesce) ought to know three things: the first if his father was gentle (gentil). The second, if his mother was a gentlewoman (genti femme) as well. The third, if he holds himself in words and deeds as gentle (gentil) and a friend of the company of gentlemen (gentils)’ (Henry of Lancaster, 1354)

• ‘the noble honour that ought to be grounded in every gentleman’ (re. the duke of Somerset, 1465)

Ranks of the aristocracyc. 1300 c. 1500

Duke

Marquis

Earl Earl

Viscount

Baron Baron

Banneret (Banneret)

Knight Knight

Esquire

Gentleman

1363 sumptuary legislationKnights 400 m. -

£1000Knights £200

Esquires 200 m. Merchants, citizens, burgesses

£1000

Esquires & gentlemen £100 Merchants, citizens, burgesses

£500

‘people of handicraft and yeomen’

Grooms & servants of lords and artificers

Grooms & servants of merchants etc.Carters, ploughmen etc.

<40 s.

1379 Graduated Poll Tax

10m Duke Archbishop£4 Earl / his widow Mayor of

LondonBishop, some abbots/priors

60s. Benefices over 500m.

40s. Baron / banneret / knight / widow

Serjeant at law Alderman of London

Benefices £200 – 500 m.

20s. Knight / esquire / their widows

Other apprentice at law

Benefices 100m. - £100

13s. 4d. ‘sufficient merchant’

Benefices £40 – 100m.

6s. 8d. ‘Esquire of lesser estate’ / widow

Apprentice of lesser estate

‘franklin’

6s. 8d. Esquire in service (without lands)

Ranks of the aristocracyc. 1300 c. 1500

Duke

Marquis

Earl Earl

Viscount

Baron Baron

Banneret (Banneret)

Knight Knight

Esquire

Gentleman

Reasons for the changes?

What was a gentleman?(as distinct from a yeoman/from an esquire)

• ‘ought not to meddle with tilling or ploughing of lands or keeping of beasts or occupying of merchandise’

• ‘he is counted nowadays as noble who is so taken and called’– (Nicholas Upton, 1447)

• The Book of St Albans

What was a gentleman?

• Income? (How much?)• Arms?• Land? (what kind? Manor?)• Lineage?• Kinship?• Office? (monetary qualifications)• Lifestyle?

• “Whosoever studieth the lawes of the realm, who studieth in the universities, who professeth liberal sciences, and (to be short) who can live idly and without manual labour, and who will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called ‘master’ … and shall be taken for a gentleman” (Thomas Smith De republica Anglorum [1562-65] i. ch. 20)

• John Townsend (d. 1466): lands worth £40 a year, including two manors: but not styled a gentleman

• John Harrington: ‘his father will declare him unto you a poor gentleman born, though he were never taken here but for a yeoman’

• aliases

What was a knight?

What was a knight?

• Someone who had been knighted• Sir or dominus• Someone who ought to have been knighted?• Income– £100 (1471-2, Black Book)– £40 (distraint of knighthood)

• Arms• A soldier?

What was an esquire?

The estate of a knight of blood, property, and might,Is not the equal of that of a poor simple knight....Set each person fittingly without a miss,According to their birth, property, dignity, as I have taught you this.

from the Boke of Nurture by John Russell, c. 1450

How do historians identify the gentry?

• Tax returns• Other lists (e.g. oaths taken in 1434, rolls of

arms)• Office-holding• Landholding• Records of status in charters, brasses, etc.

1436 income taxNumbers Total income Average income

Greater knights (£100+)

183 £38,000 £208

Lesser knights (£40-100)

750 £45,000 £60

Esquires (£20-39) 1,200 £29,400 £24 10s.

Gentleman (£10-19)

1,600 £19,000 £12

Yeomen (£5-9) 3,400 £19,000 £5 13s.

Regional differences

• ‘the gentlemen of Essex…are so well-appointed that the Lancashire men may see, that there are gentlemen of such great substance that they are able to buy all Lancashire’– William Paston III to John Paston III, 1487

Incomes from land in 1412£5-19 £20-39 £40-99 £100-99 £200-99 £300-99

Berkshire 41 32 9

Essex 24 106 56 4 1 2

Kent 3 94 51 9

Nottinghamshire 38 57 19

• the differences between an earl and an esquire ‘were matters of quantity not quality’ (C. Dyer)

• poor gentlemen ‘had much more in common with the peers than they had with even the richer merchants’ (J. Lander)

• ‘a wide gulf, economic and social, separated the higher and lower gentry’ (S. Waugh)

• ‘the gentry as a whole lacked coherence as a class’ (G. L. Harriss)