Gentry



(from genterie, from gentil, “high-born, noble”) are “well-born, genteel and well-bred people” of high. A person or member of the gentry is a class of persons with the, use s, and ride s. The most fundamental distinction in status in  societies is that between  (nobles) and  (commoners). Gentlefolk are better treated by the, which protects the. In a dispute between a noble and a simple person, there is rarely doubt as to the outcome.

Gentle status may be granted under complex rules by those who already have it or may be obtained by birth or marriage. A person whose parents are gentle is of. This has somewhat more status than obtaining gentility by marriage or grant, although the grantor may lend some of his own status to the grant. For example, a man knighted by the has more status than one knighted by an impoverished.

s and s have s that remain with the family unless formally stripped by higher authority. Anyone who holds a heritable title, is married to, or offspring of such a person, is considered gentle. Gentlefolk with such titles are usually knights, but few knights have heritable titles.

Gentry, in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to, upper levels of the , and “gentle” families of long descent who in some cases never obtained the official right to bear a. The gentry largely consists of landowners who could live entirely from, or at least have a country ; some were. In the, the term gentry refers to the : the majority of the land-owning social class who typically had a coat of arms, but did not have a. The adjective “” (“of or like a person of high social rank”) describes in comparison other analogous traditional based in cities, such as  of Italy ( and ), and the  of Germany, Switzerland, and the.

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