Gentleman

The term gentleman (from Latin gentilis, belonging to a race or gens, and "man", cognate with the French word gentilhomme, the Spanish hombre gentil, and the Italian gentil huomo), in its original and strict signification, denoted a man of good family, the Latin generosus (its invariable translation in English-Latin documents). In this sense the word equates with the French gentilhomme (nobleman), which latter term was in Great Britain long confined to the peerage. The term gentry (from the Old French genterise for gentelise) has much of the significance of the French noblesse or of the German Adel. This was what the rebels under John Ball in the 14th century meant when they repeated:

A line between classes

A frontier line between classes so indefinite could not be maintained, especially as in England there was never a "nobiliary prefix" to stamp a person as a gentleman by his surname, as in France or Germany. The process was hastened, moreover, by the corruption of the Heralds' College and by the ease with which coats of arms could be assumed without a shadow of claim; which tended to bring the science of armory into contempt.

Related Topics:
France - Germany - Heralds' College

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The prefix "de" attached to some English names is in no sense "nobiliary". In Latin documents de was the equivalent of the English "of", as de la for "at" (so de la Pole for "Atte Poole"; compare such names as "Attwood" or "Attwater"). In English this "of" disappeared during the 15th century: for example the grandson of Johannes de Stoke (John of Stoke) in a 14th-century document becomes "John Stoke". In modern times, under the influence of romanticism, the prefix "de" has been in some cases "revived" under a misconception, e.g. "de Trafford", "de Hoghton". Very rarely it is correctly retained as derived from a foreign place-name, e.g. "de Grey".

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