Gentleman
A gentleman is a chivalrous, courteous, or honorable man. Originally, gentleman was the lowest rank of the landed gentry of England, ranking below an esquire and above a yeoman; by definition, the rank of gentleman comprised the younger sons of the younger sons of peers, and the younger sons of a baronet, a knight, and an esquire, in perpetual succession. As such, the connotation of the term gentleman captures the common denominator of gentility ; a right shared by the peerage and the gentry, the constituent classes of the British nobility.
Thus, the English social category of gentleman corresponds to the French gentilhomme, which in Great Britain meant a member of the peerage of England. English historian Maurice Keen further clarifies this point, stating that, in this context, the social category of gentleman is "the nearest contemporary English equivalent of the noblesse of France." In the 14th century, the term gentlemen comprised the hereditary ruling class, which is whom the rebels of the Peasants' Revolt meant when they repeated:
In the 17th century, in Titles of Honour, the jurist John Selden said that the title gentleman likewise speaks of "our English use of it" as convertible with nobilis and describes the forms of a man's elevation to the nobility in European monarchies. In the 19th century, James Henry Lawrence explained and discussed the concepts, particulars, and functions of social rank in a monarchy, in the book On the Nobility of the British Gentry, or the Political Ranks and Dignities of the British Empire, Compared with those on the Continent.
Gentleman by conduct
In The Tale of Melibee, Geoffrey Chaucer says: "Certes he sholde not be called a gentil man, that... ne dooth his diligence and bisynesse, to kepen his good name"; and in The Wife of Bath's Tale :Loke who that is most vertuous alway
Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can
And take him for the gretest gentilman
In the French allegorical poem The Romance of the Rose, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun described the innate character of a gentleman: "He is gentil bycause he doth as longeth to a gentilman." That definition develops until the 18th century, when in 1710, in the Tatler No. 207, Richard Steele said that "the appellation of Gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his Behaviour in them." Hence, the apocryphal reply of King James II of England to a lady's petition to elevate her son to the rank of gentleman: "I could make him a nobleman, but God Almighty could not make him a gentleman."
Selden said "that no Charter can make a Gentleman, which is cited as out of the mouth of some great Princes have said it," because "they, without question, understood Gentleman for Generosus in the antient sense, or as if it came from Genii/ in that sense." The word gentilis identifies a man of noble family, a gentleman by birth, for "no creation could make a man of another blood than he is." In contemporary usage, the word gentleman is ambiguously defined, because "to behave like a gentleman" communicates as little praise or as much criticism as the speaker means to imply; thus, "to spend money like a gentleman" is criticism, but "to conduct a business like a gentleman" is praise.
William Harrison
In the 16th century, the clergyman William Harrison said that "gentlemen be those whom their race and blood, or at the least their virtues, do make noble and known." In that time, a gentleman usually was expected to have a coat of arms, it being accepted that only a gentleman could have a coat of arms, as indicated in an account of how gentlemen were made in the day of William Shakespeare:Gentlemen whose ancestors are not known to come in with William duke of Normandy do take their beginning in England after this manner in our times. Who soever studieth the laws of the realm, who so abideth in the university, giving his mind to his book, or professeth physic and the liberal sciences, or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel given at home, whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall for money have a coat and arms bestowed upon him by heralds and thereunto being made so good cheap be called master, which is the title that men give to esquires and gentlemen, and reputed for a gentleman ever after. Which is so much the less to be disallowed of, for that the prince doth lose nothing by it, the gentleman being so much subject to taxes and public payments as is the yeoman or husbandman, which he likewise doth bear the gladlier for the saving of his reputation. Being called also to the wars what soever it cost him, he will both array and arm himself accordingly, and show the more manly courage, and all the tokens of the person which he representeth. No man hath hurt by it but himself, who peradventure will go in wider buskins than his legs will bear, or as our proverb saith, now and then bear a bigger sail than his boat is able to sustain.
William Shakespeare
In this way, William Shakespeare himself was demonstrated, by the grant of his coat of arms, to be no "vagabond", but a gentleman. The inseparability of arms and gentility is shown by two of his characters:Petruchio: I swear I'll cuff you if you strike again.
Katharine: So may you lose your arms: If you strike me, you are no gentleman;
And if no gentleman, why then no arms.
However, although only a gentleman could have a coat of arms, the coat of arms recognised, rather than created, the status. Thus, all armigers were gentlemen, but not all gentlemen were armigers. Hence, Henry V, act IV, scene iii:For he today that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother: be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition.
And gentlemen in England now abed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here
And hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks
That fought with us upon St. Crispin's Day.Superiority of the fighting man
The fundamental idea of "gentry", symbolised in this grant of coat-armour, had come to be that of the essential superiority of the fighting man, and, as Selden points out, the fiction was usually maintained in the granting of arms "to an ennobled person though of the long Robe wherein he hath little use of them as they mean a shield." At the last, the wearing of a sword on all occasions was the outward and visible sign of a gentleman; the custom survives in the sword worn with court dress.
A suggestion that a gentleman must have a coat of arms was vigorously advanced by certain 19th and 20th century heraldists, notably Arthur Charles Fox-Davies in England and Thomas Innes of Learney in Scotland. The suggestion is discredited by an examination, in England, of the records of the High Court of Chivalry and, in Scotland, by a judgment of the Court of Session. The significance of a right to a coat of arms was that it was definitive proof of the status of gentleman, but it recognised rather than conferred such a status, and the status could be and frequently was accepted without a right to a coat of arms.Confucianism
In East Asia, the characteristics of a gentleman are based upon the principles of Confucianism, wherein the term Jūnzǐ denotes and identifies the "son of a ruler", a "prince", a "noble man"; and the ideals that conceptually define "gentleman", "proper man", and a "perfect man". Conceptually, Jūnzǐ included an hereditary elitism, which obliged the gentleman to act ethically, to:The opposite of the Jūnzǐ is the Xiǎorén, "petty person" and "small person". As in English, in the Chinese usage the word small, can denote and connote a person who is "mean", "petty in mind and heart", and "narrowly self-interested", greedy, materialistic, and personally superficial.
- morally cultivate himself;
- participate in the correct performance of ritual;
- show filial piety and loyalty to whom due; and
- cultivate humanity.
Southern United States
The Southern gentleman of the Antebellum South was expected to protect the honor and property of both himself and his family members, acting as a chivalric ideal of the white planter class supposedly descended from the knights and cavaliers of the medieval and colonial eras.
Robert E. Lee's definition speaks only to conduct.The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.
The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly—the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.
The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He can not only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past. A true man of honor feels humbled himself when he cannot help humbling others. As quoted by
Lee's conception is one of the better known expositions in favor of the Southern culture of honor.Landed gentry
That a distinct order of landed gentry existed in England very early has, indeed, been often assumed and is supported by weighty authorities. Thus, the late Professor Freeman said: "Early in the 11th century the order of 'gentlemen' as a separate class seems to be forming as something new. By the time of the conquest of England the distinction seems to have been fully established." Stubbs takes the same view. Sir George Sitwell, however, has suggested that this opinion is based on a wrong conception of the conditions of medieval society and that it is wholly opposed to the documentary evidence.
The most basic class distinctions in the Middle Ages were between the nobiles, i.e., the tenants in chivalry, such as earls, barons, knights, esquires, the free ignobiles such as the citizens and burgesses, and franklins, and the unfree peasantry including villeins and serfs. Even as late as 1400, the word gentleman still only had the descriptive sense of generosus and could not be used as denoting the title of a class. Yet after 1413, we find it increasingly so used, and the list of landowners in 1431, printed in Feudal Aids, contains, besides knights, esquires, yeomen and husbandmen, a fair number who are classed as "gentilman".