Good Afternoon - In reply to Donna of Santa Cruz, CA. tenantsrights@sbcglobal.net. I apologise in advance in case anyone got more than of these but there seems to be a fault with my outbox - sorry I was asked this by some cousins of mine in NC and they said that a Yeoman was equivalent to a gentleman, not realising of course that a gentleman can also be a Yeoman and/or Farmer amongst many other things. No doubt there will QUITE a few responses to this but I shall quote from the excellent book "Dictionary of Genealogy" by Terrick VH Fitzhugh. The whole description amounts to almost a quarter page of detail which I hope will please. YEOMAN "In the Plantagenet period, the word meant a knight's servant or retainer. There were also Yeomen of the King's Chamber, who were minor court officials under the chamberlain. At that period, there was a class of freemen called Franklins, and under the Tudors the name of yeoman gradually became attached to them. Broadly speaking, they constituted a stratum of cultivators of the soil, either freeholders or tenants, who differed from the minor gentry more by their way of life than by any economic category. The yeoman would put his own hand to work that the gentlemen would employ servants to do, and his wife likewise; but many a young man of gentle and even armigerous family was styled yeoman, as long as he lived like one [i.e.., until he inherited his father's estate)- [What would he become then I must wonder?] Below the yeoman class came the equally ill-defined stratum of Husbandman, whose land-holding was normally smaller. The standing of yeomanry is reflected in the later use of the word for the local volunteer force, mounted on their own horse, as distinct from the militia (infantry)" Kind Regards June & Roy <http://www.btinternet.com/~roy.cox/index.htm> http://www.btinternet.com/~roy.cox/index.htm Kind Regards June & Roy http://www.btinternet.com/~roy.cox/index.htm

In message <!~!UENERkVCMDkAAQACAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAABgAAAAAAAAAhE8CT1AVkES4 nn1C4wtrT8KAAAAQAAAAqQgAX3vUP0+HNc+sMBGFhQEAAAAA@btinternet.com>, Roy >I was asked this by some cousins of mine in NC and they said that a Yeoman >was equivalent to a gentleman, that is precisely what he isn't. A gentleman, strictly, is a man of coat armour, the level above yeoman. A gentleman should be idle and not cultivate land, whereas a yeoman definitely did. >YEOMAN > >"In the Plantagenet period, the word meant a knight's servant or retainer. >There were also Yeomen of the King's Chamber, who were minor court officials >under the chamberlain. At that period, there was a class of freemen called >Franklins, and under the Tudors the name of yeoman gradually became attached >to them. > >Broadly speaking, they constituted a stratum of cultivators of the soil, >either freeholders this is the essential qualification in the C16 and 17. > or tenants, this was allowed in the C18, if the tenanted farm was large enough and preferebly rented or held from a peer. > who differed from the minor gentry more by >their way of life than by any economic category. some were indeed richer from time to time. But they milked their own cows anmd ploughed their own land. > > >The yeoman would put his own hand to work that the gentlemen would employ >servants to do, and his wife likewise; >Below the yeoman class came the equally ill-defined stratum of Husbandman, >whose land-holding was normally smaller. It gets complicated, because men who were manifestly yeomen by status sometimes described themselves as husbandmen by occupation in the C16-17. the word 'farmer' only came in slowly (and meant something else originally) > >The standing of yeomanry is reflected in the later use of the word for the >local volunteer force, mounted on their own horse, you could only join if you did bring your own mount, so effectively, it was composed of sons of yeomen and s afew of the younger yeomen themselves. -- Eve McLaughlin Author of the McLaughlin Guides for family historians Secretary Bucks Genealogical Society

> The word 'farmer' only came in slowly (and meant something else > originally) > Eve McLaughlin > Excuse my ignorance, but what did "farmer" mean originally? And, from when till when (roughly) did the change occur? Gordon Barlow