YEOMEN
A yeoman by virtue of possessing free land worth 40 shillings a year had civic duties and rights,
such serving on juries and voting for the knight of the shire
Historically a social class, the word Yeoman maybe a contraction of yon' man, young man, a rank sometimes held and handed down by younger sons of the gentry and other land owning families .
A man holding and cultivating a small landed estate , sometimes a younger son of the gentry, who owns and farms his own piece of a land, a freeholder.
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (late 14th century) depicts a yeoman who is a forester and a retainer.
The English Yeoman by Mildred Campbell ( Associate Professor Of History In Vassar College) PUBLISHED 1942 by Yale University Press
The word Yeoman occurs repeatedly in 13th 14th C often used in connection to military service to the king to receive or deliver gifts of money and sometimes special messages. Later as an attendant on the Lord of the Manor in some feudal service.
Royal Household had Yeoman of the Cellar, Wardrobe, Bedchamber and many others including Yeoman of the Guard and the most famous and recognisable Yeoman of the Tower.
A yeoman was a free tenant of the lord of the manor (LOM) ranking below a Knight or Esquire or Gentleman because of his lack of wealth, rather than by inferiority of birth or blood.
A Yeoman was Free Born and eligible to become a knight if he had the money. He was expected to assume his knighthood upon acquiring sufficient wealth. In some cases they were FINED if they got rich and didn't get themselves knighted!
I wonder - A yeoman, a man who worked his land could, with low rents and high profits, massively enrich himself. Did feudal society abhor the idea that a man of the land might become richer than a local knight with his unearned income ?
The free tenant held his land 'in feodo', by fee, making his title secure held for himself and his heirs forever. He did not hold his land at the will of the LOM or for a certain number years. He also had the protection of the courts of law.
Free tenants such as Yeomen were not only advantaged by this arrangement they also had civic responsibilities. They were legales homines true and lawful men, contributing to local disputes in manorial courts and participated in jury service sitting in both trials and in Inquisition Post Mortem's.
As rents became increasingly fixed during the 15th C and with profits the Yeoman made more profit and was able to buy more land, send his eldest son to university and build a better house....and ultimately assume his knighthood...
There are famous sons of Yeomen who are immortalised by history Shakespeare, Newton, Harvey ; not to mention Cardinal Wolsey & Thomas Cromwell.
There were dozens locally amongst them the Martyn family, merchants of Exeter & William Perriam of Exeter who started from Yeoman of Freeman origins espoused the wool trade and flourished mightily .
Peryam was born in Broadclyst on the banks of the Exe estuary the son of a Franklin, a status interchangeable with that of Yeoman. As a young man he was apprenticed in Exeter to a maker of caps. As a master capper he flourished and went on to make a fortune in tin. He married and had his sons educated. His 2nd son, John, became Mayor of Exeter - which was what successful wealthy merchants did. His eldest son, William, was educated in law at Oxford and went on to be Baron of the Exchequer.
Over the centuries the application of these 'titles ' seemed to have altered slightly.
In 16th C Yeoman was the status under Gentleman who was lower than an Esquire and husbandman, although not originally a term of rank , became one later. An Esquire was not essentially superior in terms of blood and class to a Gentleman.
Quote "" a man might be styled a Gentleman and his heir was a Yeoman, with a younger son termed a husbandman...The eldest son on assuming his responsibility in the community was a yeoman, with his younger brother assuming the role of husbandman. Through their own efforts or through a gift of money, they could acquire lands of their own and some rose to became wealthy farmers and even gentleman...""
'There was a social gap between between the Yeomanry and farmers of slightly less substance, a gulf of blood' A small proportion of all yeoman families descended from ancient free tenants holding their lands for many generations, some for 500 years. They took pride in their station and many were quite averse to changing that.
The gentry and the yeomen sat on juries together, the gulf between them not just of blood but also of education, living standards and wealth, a coat of arms and lineage. Even so in some places it was hard to tell the difference from their mode of living or the social interactions between the better off Yeoman and the lesser gentry.
In case of larger landed estates the sons of the estate's yeoman were trusted retainers, with the sons of both working side by side in the management of the estate. At Christmas and at Harvest the families of the yeomen would be invited to enjoy the hospitality and celebrations provided by the Lord of the Manor often in the great barn, or in the tithe barn.
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The widow of a wealthy Yeoman , with her dower of lands , would be an attractive option for a knight or a gentleman and many sons of the gentry were willing to share their status as a fair exchange for the dowry of a well-off yeoman's daughter. This exchange helped the yeomanry to rise rapidly through the ranks during the Elizabethan and Stuart period.
The word husbandry was used to denote agriculture and its pursuits thus a person engaged in the care and cultivation of the land might rightly be called a husbandman regardless of his rank of degree.
The mighty Earl of Arundel once made a public taunt to the 1st Lord Spencer (15th century ancestor of Lady Diana Spencer who became Princess Diana) The taunt was about Spencers humble ancestry and the quick witted Spencer , who had made a living by trading in livestock and other commodities and eventually saved enough money to purchase both the Wormleighton and Althorp lands, responded that whilst his ancestors were tending sheep the earls were plotting treason.
Francis Bacon thought that the Yeomanry should be the backbone of England's military force, in a time when there was no standing army. He said that too many 'gentleman' would harm the state. Something that the wanton & pointless waste of human life, driven by untrained and sometimes apparently half witted 'gentlemen' was proved beyond doubt in the horrors of WW1.
In Devon many Yeoman were considered gentlemen and saluted as such and were on equal terms. The use of Mr or Master was used because they were considered the equal of gentlemen, having a coat of arms , the emblem of achievement, or had descended from younger brothers.
One such was Sir Isaac Newton was the son of a Yeoman of Lincolnshire others include William Harvey from Kent and William Shakespeare from Warwickshire. These exceptional men from a relatively humble background, rose to immortal fame by their achievements. That said the sons of Yeoman were more likely to have an education than those of more humble background. This was so right through until the 19th century. Prior to 1800, education for poorer children was limited to isolated charity schools. In 1808 the Royal Lancastrian Society (later the British and Foreign School Society) was created to promote schools using the system devised by Joseph Lancaster
