Yeoman

A Yeoman Warder at the Tower of London in London, England

"Yeoman" could refer to a free man holding a small landed estate, a minor landowner, a small prosperous farmer (especially from the Elizabethan era to the 17th century), a deputy, assistant, journeyman, or a loyal or faithful servant. Work "performed or rendered in a loyal, valiant, useful, or workmanlike manner", especially work requiring a great deal of effort or labor, such as would be done by a yeoman farmer, came to be described as yeoman's work.[1] Thus yeomen became associated with hard toil.[2]

Yeoman was also a rank or position in a noble or royal household, with titles such as Yeoman of the Chamber, Yeoman of the Crown, Yeoman Usher, and King's Yeoman. Most of these, including the Yeomen of the Guard, had the duty of protecting the sovereign and other dignitaries as a bodyguard, and carrying out various duties for the sovereign as assigned to his office.[1]

In modern British usage, yeoman may specifically refer to

In the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, a yeoman is a rating usually with secretarial, clerical, payroll or other administrative duties.

In the Royal Navy, the Canadian Navy, the Royal Australian Navy and other maritime forces which follow British naval tradition, a Yeoman of Signals is a signalling and tactical communications petty officer.[3]

Contents

Etymology

The word yeoman was spelt in various ways in the Middle Ages, such as yeman, yoman, yoeman, and may be derived from an Anglo-Saxon or other Germanic word yongeman or yongerman, yonge man or iunge man ("young man"). This may possibly have referred to a freeborn servant (serviens or sergeant) ranking between an esquire (shield escort, from scutum) and a page (pagus, meaning "rustic" and later "young errand boy"). The term yongermen is found in text as early as the 12th century, and the term geongramanna is found in Beowulf at a much earlier period (700-800). Serving men of districts, since the days of the Gau polities in Germania, and the stretches of the Germanic peoples throughout Western Europe immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire would most likely be young men, or young men of the district. Yeoman or gauman within the definition of both land and/or service of a young man appeared mostly settled around the border regions or remote country sides of their districts, or kingdoms (both modern and ancient); thus a connection or association with pagus (pages), or rustics to the term yeoman. In the 14th century the English language increasingly replaced Latin and Norman French in noble circles, and the French term valet and the Latin term valectus were replaced by the term yeoman. The term yeoman, primarily identified as "servant", is noted throughout the Calendar Patent Rolls in the early 14th century.

The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale appears in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

History

Middle Ages

The term "yeoman" is also used to define a man who follows a chief, or a lord, in ancient times known as gau judices (district chiefs). The term is similar in concept to geneatas, meaning a warrior companion. Heartho-geneatas were hearth warriors, who formed the "comitatus" or warrior retinues of lords. Geneatas is the origin of the more modern term knight. In the Brythonic languages the term gweis (modern Welsh gwas) is similarly used in the same context as a young freeborn person in service.

Throughout the medieval period the term yeoman was used in royal and noble households to indicate a servant's rank, position or status. A yeoman often fought in feudal or private warfare.

Long before chivalry developed, the term "knight" (from cniht) meant "boy". Terms such as radman, radcniht, or radknight ("riding man", "road man", "riding boy", "road boy/page") were used. The different terms helped to distinguish the young riding men (yeomen) from the riding boys (pages) who provided a riding or road service. It also indicates a path of career progression within a noble or royal household.

There also 'socmen' or 'sokemen', probably derived from Anglian or Danish, equivalent in status to 'radman', thus combining land status and servile status as equals.

The classes of fighting men in the Middle Ages, from the knights (including knights bachelor), squires, yeomen, to pages, were often young servants; their relative statuses changed over time. Many serving men (servientes or sergeants) would be promoted to positions of importance within the king's or lord's household.

In the earlier Anglo Saxon period, the class of 'geneatas' would most likely be the classification a 'yeoman' in this period as an aristocratic peasantry.

In the early Middle English period (noted in the text Pseudo Cnut De Foresta Constitutiones written in the late 11th century), the ‘yonger men’ chosen of liberi homini mediocre were to range the royal forests and is the first known use of the word yeoman being associated with the forests (both greenwood and royal or manorial hunting forests). The chief forester of such royal forests was stationed at the nearest castle and was also the constable of the castle with his deputy foresters or yeomen assisting in the maintenance and affairs of the royal forests.

The yeomanry was the first class of the commoners (peasants), in Saxon days would be the equivalent to geneatas or villager. The yeoman was more military and bound to the manor or estate, comparable to the radman or radcniht (radknight) who would provide escorts, deliver messages, erect fences for the hunt, and repair bridges. He would be given land (copyhold or sometimes freehold) by his lord for services well rendered. Many similarities exist between radmen/radknights and yeomen of the crown, as yeomen had many of the same tasks, though he was not as heavily imposed with the intense labor requirements as the radman/radknight had during his time.

Yeomen in the Middle Ages typically owned land worth 40 to 80 shillings annually: roughly between ¼ hide and 1 hide (about 30 to 120 acres, or 12 to 50 hectares). In the early 12th century, 40 acres (16 hectares) of land was worth about 40 to 50 shillings. A yeoman during the 12th century and 13th century was primarily a household and military (semi-feudal and feudal) term later associated with the days of private warfare.

The Assize of Arms of 1252 provided that small landholders should be armed and trained with a bow, and those of more wealth (wealthy yeomen) would be required to possess and be trained with sword, dagger and longbow (the war bow). That Assize referred to a class of 40-shilling freeholders, who became identified with 'yeomanry', and states "Those with land worth annual 40s-100s will be armed/trained with bow and arrow, sword, buckler and dagger". This status of landowner corresponds to the Knight's Yeoman in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales (Yeoman's Portrait in the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales).

This association of the term yeoman with degree of land ownership may have originated in early Anglo-Saxon times.

The term yeoman was still used in the 16th century to denote the more prosperous, often owning either copyhold, freehold, or leasehold land.

Not all yeomen owned land: many were indentured or feudal servants in a castle.

Thus the yeoman may be considered as a middle class of sorts, in feudal or manorial service of the king or a lord, and perhaps as a link between nobility and the peasantry. The yeoman represented a status between the aristocratic knights and the lower-class foot soldiers and household servants (pages). The yeoman archer was typically mounted and fought either on foot or on horseback, in contrast with infantry archers,

Also possibly identified within a class of libri homini (freemen) in Domesday Book, the yeoman in service to a king or lord would be known as serviens or sergeant, or valet/valectus during the Norman period.

Yeomen are also noted as providing guard escorts to deliveries of victuals and supplies (not only fighting as an elite archer but also as a guard to the baggage train as well a protector of the nobility and royalty) to the expeditions of the Hundred Years' War. They also provided escorts for the sovereign and great nobles on their journeys and their pilgrimages across the realm and overseas. Yeomen of the Crown were essentially agents of the king who were allowed to sit and dine with knights and squires of any lord's house or estate. At retirement they were offered tenure of stewardship of royal forests at the king’s choosing.

14th to 18th centuries

In the late 14th to 18th centuries, yeomen were farmers who owned land (freehold, leasehold or copyhold). Their wealth and the size of their landholding varied.

Many yeomen were prosperous, and wealthy enough to employ servants and farm labourers. Some were as wealthy as the minor county or regional landed gentry and some even leased land to gentleman landowners. Some could be classed as gentlemen but did not aspire to this status: it was cheaper to remain a yeoman. Often it was hard to distinguish minor landed gentry from the wealthier yeomen, and wealthier husbandmen from the poorer yeomen. Some yeomen in the later Tudor and Stuart periods were descended from medieval military yeomen. This is attested mainly by weapons found above fireplace mantles in the West Midlands of England (especially in the border shires).

Yeomen were called upon to serve their sovereign and country well after the Middle Ages, for example in the Yeomanry Cavalry of the late 18th century and later Imperial Yeomanry of the late 1890s.

Sir Anthony Richard Wagner, Garter Principal King of Arms, wrote that "a Yeoman would not normally have less than 100 acres" (40 hectares) "and in social status is one step down from the Landed Gentry, but above, say, a husbandman. "(English Genealogy, Oxford, 1960, pps: 125-130).

A yeoman could be equally comfortable working on his farm, educating himself from books, or enjoying country sports such as shooting and hunting. By contrast members of the landed gentry and the aristocracy did not farm their land themselves, but let it to tenant farmers. Yeomen in the Tudor and Stuart periods might also lease or rent lands to the minor gentry. However, yeomen and tenant farmers were the two main divisions of the rural middle class, and the yeoman was a respectable, honourable class and ranked above the husbandmen, artisans, and labourers.

Isaac Newton and many other famous people such as Thomas Jefferson hailed from the yeoman class. Isaac Newton inherited a small farm which paid the bills for his academic work. Many yeomen were rich enough to send their sons to school to qualify for a gentlemanly profession. Earlier, the sons of many yeoman families served in royal or great noble households providing not menial, but honourable service, as his social status or degree in society was equal in the royal or noble household.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary, (edited by H.W. & F.G. Fowler, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972 reprint, p. 1516) states that a yeoman was "a person qualified by possessing free land of 40/- (shillings) annual [feudal] value, and who can serve on juries and vote for a Knight of the Shire. He is sometimes described as a small landowner, a farmer of the middle classes."

In some ways the ancient "yeoman" was very similar to the "yeomanry" today, volunteers of the Territorial Army of the United Kingdom. Yeoman military corps takes origin from the volunteer cavalry in the mid-18th century, later becoming known as the Yeomanry Cavalry in the 1790s.

United States

In the United States, yeomen were identified in the 18th and 19th centuries as non-slaveholding small landowning family farmers. In areas where land was poor, like eastern Tennessee, the landowning yeomen were typically subsistence farmers, but grew some crops for the market. Whether they engaged in subsistence or commercial agriculture, they controlled far more modest landholdings than those of the planters, typically in the range of 50-200 acres. In the north, practically all the farms were operated by yeoman farmers as family farms.

Thomas Jefferson was a leading advocate of the yeomen, arguing that the independent farmers formed the basis of republican values [3]. Indeed, Jeffersonian Democracy as a political force was largely built around the yeomen [4]. After the Civil War, organizations of farmers, especially the Grange, formed to organize and enhance the status of the yeoman farmers [5].

Yeoman archers and yew war bows

The English war bow, known as the longbow was the main weapon of a yeoman archer, It was typically but not always made of yew wood, often Wych Elm; but other woods were used for making bow staves. However the Spanish, French and Italian yews were also highly sought after because of their superior growth qualities and the very limited availability of English yew in the late Middle Ages.

The 'yeoman archer' was unique to England and Wales (in particular, the south Wales areas of Monmouthshire with the famed archers of Gwent; and Glamorgan, Crickhowell, and Abergavenny; and South West England with the Royal Forest of Dean, Kingswood Royal Forest near Bristol, and the New Forest). Though Kentish Weald and Cheshire archers were noted for their skills, as well the Ettrick Archers of Scotland, it appears that the bulk of the 'yeomanry' was from the English and Welsh Marches (border regions) and the Scottish Borders).

The original Yeomen of the Guard (originally archers) chartered in 1485 were most likely of Briton descent, including Welshmen and Bretons. They were established by King Henry VII, himself a Briton who was exiled in Brittany during the Wars of the Roses. He recruited his forces mostly from Wales and the West Midlands of England on his victorious journey to Bosworth Field.

The Welsh were the first to be attested to have used the 'longbow' made of yew and elm (c.AD 650) either against the Mercians, or as allies of the Mercians against Northumbria. The incident at Abergavenny Castle, where a Welsh arrow pierced through armour and the legs of an English knight, was certainly known to King Henry II, and his grandson Henry III who created or signed the Assize of Arms 1252 identifying the 'war bow' as a national weapon for classes of men who held land under 80s or 100s annually. The 'Yongermen' fell under this classification. By Edward I's reign the bulk of the archers were Welsh, who defeated the Scots and would later be employed with great success by King Edward III in the Hundred Years War. The famous yeoman archers drawn from the Macclesfield Hundred and the Forest districts of Cheshire were specially appointed as bodyguard archers for King Richard II.

Historical duties

Duties of yeomen were manifold from the Middle Ages through to the 19th century. They were usually constables of their parish, and sometimes chief constables of the district, shire or hundred. Many yeomen would hold status as bailiffs for the High Sheriff, or for the shire, or hundred. Other civic duties would include churchwarden, bridge warden, and other warden duties. It was also common for a yeoman to be an overseer for his parish.

Yeomen, whether working for a lord, king, shire, knight, district or parish are noted for their civic duties as localised or municipal police forces raised by or led by the landed gentry. Some of these duties and mostly that of constable and bailiff would be carried down through family traditions. Yeomen are seemingly in a role of ranging, roaming, surveying, and policing throughout their social history. In Chaucer's Canterbury Friar's Tale, a yeoman who is a bailiff of the forest who tricks the Summoner turns out to be the devil ready to grant wishes already made. Yeomen also had much wealth and free time. They were excellent farmers and did much excavating.

The earlier word Franklin was the yeoman's equivalent (a wealthy peasant landowner or freeholder or village official). Franklins in their days would typically be village leaders (aldermen), constables or mayors. Yeomen would find that status in the 14th century as many of them became leaders, constables, sheriffs, justices of the peace, mayors and significant leaders of their country districts. It was too much, for even ‘valets’ known as ‘yeoman archers’ were forbidden to be returned to parliament, indicating they even held power at a level never before held by the upper class of commoners. The further away the district from landed gentry or burgesses, the more power a yeoman held in office, as well attested in statutes during the reign of Henry VIII indicating yeomen along with knights and squires who have the leading of men to be in charge of certain functions.

Images

The term also suggests someone upright, sturdy, honest and trustworthy, qualities attributed to the Yeomen of the Crown; and in the 13th century the Yeomen of the Chamber were described as virtuous, cunning, skillful, courteous, and experts in archery chosen out of every great Noble's house in England. The King's Yeoman or King's Valectus (Valetti) is the earliest usage in a recognisable form such as King's Yeman or King's Yoman. Possibly the concept is derived from King's Geneatas, meaning either companion or a follower of a king. In ancient times before the establishments of feudalism and manorialism, a yeoman was a follower of a district (gau) chief or judice.

Comparable classes of people

The term is sometimes applied to people of similar status in other traditional societies. The ‘franklin’ is an example meaning a freeman and sometimes meaning a French or Norman freeholder. Franklin milities would basically be the equivalent of a yeoman in the middle-ages and the yeoman the equivalent of a franklin in the late middle-ages.

The yeoman belonged to a class or status of fighter (usually known as in the third order of the fighting class between that of a squire and a page). This status was very different from what was occurring on the continent in the days of feudalism, where the gap between commoners and gentry was far wider, causing much division between the two classes in medieval society. Though a middling class existed on the continent, it was not well respected or held in such high-esteem as the yeoman of England was during the time when the class existed.

Usage as a compliment or praise

This is most likely based upon the historical achievements of winning numerous battles during the Hundred Years' War when the odds and numbers were stacked against the yeoman archers in these conflicts. It also may have been used to denote the excellent or superior service given by a king’s servant performing heroic duties such as preventing an assassination attempt on his life, or protecting his castle or palace (such as we see in the modern day Yeomen of the Guard and the Yeomen Warders of the Tower of London).

The term used in context such as:

Other references to yeoman

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ "Yeoman Definition | Definition of Yeoman at Dictionary.com". Dictionary.reference.com. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/yeoman. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 
  2. ↑ "Re: Yeoman's work". Phrases.org.uk. http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/44/messages/54.html. Retrieved 2009-12-15. 
  3. ↑ Samuel C. Hyde Jr., "Plain Folk Yeomanry in the Antebellum South," in John Boles, Jr., ed., Companion to the American South, (2004) pp 139-55
  4. ↑ Steven Hahn, The Roots of Southern Populism: Yeoman Farmers and the Transformation of the Georgia Upcountry, 1850-1890 (1983)
  5. ↑ Thomas A. Woods, Knights of the Plow: Oliver H. Kelley and the Origins of the Grange in Republican Ideology (2002)

Further reading

External links