The ideal of a gentleman, or, A mirror for gentlefolks : a portrayal in literature from the earliest times / by A. Smythe-Palmer.
- Abram Smythe Palmer
- Date:
- [1908]
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.
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![times. soever studieth the lawes of the realme, who so abideth in the vniversitie giving his mind to his booke, or professeth physicke and the liberall sciences, or beside his seruice in the roome of a capteine in the wanes, can line without manuell labour, and thereto is able and will beare the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman, he shall . . . be called master which is the title than men giue to esquires and gentlemen, and reputed for a gentleman euer after. 1577, W. Harrison, Description of England (ed. Furnivall), p. 128, ii, 5. Gentlemen {generosi), the lowest class of the lesser nobility in England. The appellation, however, is fitting even for the greatest; but it applies to the former generically as being the threshold of nobility, to the latter specifically, as the highest degree of the name. For we call those ‘ gentle- men ’ simply, who have no more illustrious title such as Esquire, Knight, etc. I do not find any persons mentioned with, this addition in public documents before the age of Henry VI or Edward IV, and I suppose it then took its rise from the statute i. Hen. V, cap. 5, where it is provided that in certain legal formulas the condition as well as the names of persons should be expressed. But even then it was done but sparingly. I have seen many commissions in the city of London directed to very many of the chief men in each county in the thirteenth year of Edward IV, and in these no one is styled ‘ gentleman ’ {generosus), or, as far as I remem- ber, esquire {armiger). 1626, Sir H. Spelman, ArchcBologus, p. 316. In the following Patent Roll (13 Rio. II, pars i, m. 37) King Richard II makes one Johan de Kyngeston a gentleman Nous a fyn qe le dit nostre liege soit le multz honorablement resceux [re9u] a faire puisse et perfourmir faitz et pointz d’armes luy avons resceux en lestat [I’etat] de Gentile homme, et luy fait Esquier. Prynne, Fourth Institutes, p. 68. King Richard the Good (996-1026), grandfather of William the Conqueror, would have none but gentlemen about him](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29008529_0032.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
