The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.

  • Palmer, Abram Smythe.
Date:
[1908]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    24/542 (page 8)
    descended from one of the Germanic conquerors of the Roman provinces [Id. p. 348). The statute 33, Edw. Ill, c 22, 1360, distinguishes between ‘simples hommeand ‘ gentils hommeapparently, i.e., between one who has not a surname or family name and one who has [Id. p. 349). An old Icelandic poem, Rigs-thula, gives an account of the origin of the three sons of the god Heimdal—Thrall, Karl or Yeoman, and the youngest Kin or Gentleman, who ‘ knew hidden things, everlasting mysteries, mysteries of life, and how to save men’s lives, and stay wound’s bleeding, and allay sorrows.’ All culture, accomplishments, science, and spiritual knowledge belong to Gentleman as his birth- right. Vigfusson & Powell, Corpus Poeticum Boreale, vol. i, pp. 234, 515. [See also V. Rydberg, Teutonic Mythology, PP- 93-^4-] An ambiguity in the English word gentle, which we use for both well-horn and well-mannered, has occasioned a more general application of the word gentleman than its etymology warrants. In strict propriety, it belongs to none who is not descended from one of the Germanic conquerors [in mediaeval Latin gentiles'] of the Roman provinces ; and, by consequence, in England it should be restricted solely to the descendants of the Saxons, for the Normans were a band who invaded France nearly four centuries after the great distinction between the barbarian or Gentile nations, and the Romans or subjugated, had been made, and continued to the descendants of the two races. But, in another point of view, it is questionable whether even the descendants are entitled to the term gentlemen, because it nowhere appears that the subjugators of Britannia adopted the distinction. In this case, gentleman must be regarded as an exotic title, and its precise signification is to be found, not in the circum- stances of its origin, but in its subsequent history. . . . In the fourteenth century, gentilesse, gentility, denoted nobility. The son of Thomas Mowbray, the duke of Norfolk, who was beheaded in 1399, petitioned the King in that year for an annual allowance from his father’s estates, ‘ pur