gentry

Gentry is a term that generally refers to a class of people. It has often referred to the class of people who owned land, but its precise meaning has varied both throughout history as well as according to which nation it is located within.

By nation

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Gentry is a term now in the United Kingdom particularly associated with the landed gentry. In Europe and the United States, gentry retains a wider meaning, ranging from those of noble background to those of good family (i.e. "gentle" birth). Before the Industrial Revolution, the gentry were located between the yeomanry and the Peerage, and were traditionally considered lesser aristocracy if they did not bear a coat of arms, or as the lesser nobility if the family was armigerous. Unlike yeomen, the gentry did not work the land themselves; instead, they hired tenant farmers.

In English history, landed gentry were the smaller landowners, and generally had no titles apart from Knighthoods and Baronetcies. Baronets are something of an exception, since they had hereditary titles but, not being members of the Peerage, were also considered of the gentry or lesser nobility. The landed gentry played an important role in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. The term is still occasionally employed, for example, by the publishers of Burke's Landed Gentry, ^[1] though they explain that their continued use of that term is elastic and stems, in part, from the adoption of that short title for a series first entitled "Burke's Commoners" (as opposed to Burke's Peerage and Baronetage). The term county family is commonly deemed to be co-terminous with the terms gentry and landed gentry. See Walford's County Families and gentleman.

Poland

In Poland gentry never grew strong, mainly because of competition from the omnipotent and numerous hereditary nobility. The King deprived commoners of the right to buy land-estates. However, some landed burghers or hereditary advocati and sculteti who kept land in royal, noble or Church estates can be still classified as gentry as they had their own tenants. As political and economic pressure from the peerage increased, many such families were forced to sell their titles to the nobles. Some managed to climb up into nobility but others remained commoners and with the arrival of 'second serfdom' can hardly be called 'gentry' anymore as they were bound to the land and subject to their lord's jurisdiction, and obliged to provide labour to the manor. Many commoner families that grew in wealth and importance were soon officially peered and thus cannot be called 'gentry' either. The Partitions of the Commonwealth mark the re-emergence of Polish gentry, as non-nobles were allowed to buy land-estates and, before this was later abolished, exercised manorial monopolies, electoral privileges and jurisdiction over their subjects. But they never grew in high numbers, still suffering economic and social competition from the nobles. Many of those commoners who succeeded in becoming gentry integrated socially with the nobles, camouflaging their humble origins, and thus never developed their separate group identity. The lower nobility (Knights and lower) created in the Partition period may also be classified as 'gentry' although they were 'officially' nobles but these were rather honorary titles having little in common with the vast privileges of old Polish peerage.

Portugal

In Portugal the local gentry, the fidalgos, were also numerous. These gentries owned the land in small hereditary estates (“morgadios”) that would pass to the eldest son or daughter (in case there were no surviving sons to the late “morgado”). Still nowadays these gentries form a closed class associated with the bullfights and other equestrian sports.

China

The Chinese gentry has a specific meaning and refers to the shen-shi or the class of landowners that had passed the bureaucratic examinations. They rose to power during the Tang dynasty when meritocracy triumphed over the nine-rank system which favored the Chinese nobility. The gentry were retired scholar-officials and their descendants who lived in large landed estates due to Confucianism's affinity to agriculture and hostility to commerce.

India

India had a well established gentry system in the southern state of Kerala. Nairs were the gentry class, owned all land and often had tenants cultivate the land. Nairs were banned from bearing arms after British invaded India and eventually lost control of the land. Even to this day they are addressed thampran (owners) by local people.

United States of America

In American society, gentry is sometimes taken to refer loosely to a highly educated professional upper-middle class, though this is inaccurate sociological terminology as this group usually lacks the aristocratic roots and values of true gentry. This inaccurate sense of the term is what is often perjoratively referred to in the use of the term gentrification, a term that would more accurately be called bourgeoisification. The Antebellum Southern planters were often younger sons of landed British families and continued the high culture of the British gentry in rural Virginia and in such cities as Charleston, South Carolina, where, in addition to tenant farmers and indentured servants, they also employed chattel slavery. In the north, the gentry included those offshoots of British gentry families that provided the leadership for the establishment of such cities as Boston, Massachusetts, and such institutions as Harvard and Yale Universities. Attitudes stemming from the phenomenon of this historic American gentry inform the current use of the term in U.S. society, and it is still loosely applied to people from old-monied and landed families in the United States.

See also

• Manorialism
• Feudalism
• Aristocracy
• Nobility

Notes

1. ^

      "The History of Burke's Landed Gentry" (genealogy book), 
      Burke's Peerage & Gentry, 2005, Scotland, United Kingdom, webpage:
      Burkes-Peerage-Scot15.
   

References

• Burke's Landed Gentry (genealogy book), John Burke family et al., 1826, 1898, United Kingdom.

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