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Archiver > GEN-MEDIEVAL > 1999-07 > 0931458252


From: Michael Burley <>
Subject: Re: William Carter yeoman?
Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 11:24:12 -0700


dkoskie wrote:
>
> Could someone please enlighten me as to the meaning of yeoman? I have read
> that it is (1) Someone who has worked in the home of a "great". (2) An
> assistant to a Sheriff. (3) A farmer. I have a William Carter of
> Bedfordshire who is a freeman in 1548 and the same William Carter of Bromham
> as a yeoman. Does anyone know which is correct? This William was married to
> Elizabeth Cranfield in 1522. Would the meaning of "yeoman" possibly
> evolved with the passing of time, and if so, what might have it meant during
> the early 1500's? I am also seeking any information I can find about
> William's parentage.
> thanks.
> --
> Debbie

>From Encyclopaedia Britannica:

yeoman, in English history, a class intermediate between the gentry and the
labourers; a yeoman was usually a
landholder but could also be a retainer, guard, attendant, or subordinate
official. The word appears in
Middle English as yemen, or yoman, and is perhaps a contraction of yeng man or
yong man, meaning young man, or attendant. Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales
(late 14th century) depicts a yeoman who is a forester and a retainer. Most yeomen
of the later Middle Ages were probably occupied in cultivating the land; Raphael
Holinshed, in his Chronicles (1577), described them as having free land worth £6
(originally 40 shillings) annually and as not being entitled to bear arms.

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