Excuse the redundancy, but let me add another version of the definition of yeoman as "landowner:" Yeoman: In English law, a commoner; a freeholder under the rank of gentleman. A man who has free land of forty shillings by the year; who was anciently thereby qualified to serve on juries, vote for knights of the shire, and do any other act where the law requires one that is probus et legalis homo ["a good and lawful man"]. Obviously, this definition (from Black's Law Dict.) is somewhat anachronistic, but I think it helps give a little more flavor for where a yeoman stood in society.