The yeoman ( ) social class of medieval and early modern England ranked between the peasantry and the landed gentry. The class was first documented in mid-14th century England, where it included people who cultivated their own land as well as the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household.
The 14th century witnessed the rise of the yeoman longbowmen during the Hundred Years' War, and the yeoman outlaws celebrated in the Robin Hood ballads. Yeomen joined the English Navy during the Hundred Years' War as seamen and archers. In the early 15th century, yeoman was the rank of chivalry between page and squire. By the late 17th century, yeoman became a rank in the Royal Navy for the common seamen who were in charge of ship's stores, such as foodstuffs, gunpowder, and sails.
References to the emerging social stratum of wealthy land-owning commoners began to appear after 1429. In that year, the Parliament of England re-organized the House of Commons into counties and boroughs, with voting rights granted to all freeholders. The Electors of Knights of the Shires Act 1429 restricted voting rights to those freeholders whose land value exceeded 40 shillings. These yeomen became a social stratum of commoners below the landed gentry, but above the husbandmen. This stratum later embodied the political and economic ideas of the English Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, and transplanted those ideas to British North America during the early modern era.
Numerous yeoman farmers in North America served as citizen soldiers in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The 19th century saw a revival of interest in the medieval period with English Romantic literature. The yeoman outlaws of the ballads were refashioned into heroes fighting for justice under the law and the rights of freeborn Englishmen.
Etymology The etymology of yeoman is uncertain for several reasons.
The earliest documented use of the word occurs in Middle English. There are no known Old English words which are considered acceptable parent words for yeoman; nor are there any readily identifiable cognates of yeoman in Anglo-Norman, Old Frisian, Old Dutch, Old Saxon, or Middle Low German. The four last-named of these languages are West Germanic languages, closely related to Old English at the time they were spoken. Taken together, these facts would indicate that yeoman (1) is a word specific to the regional dialects found in England; and (2) is in no way similar to any word used in continental Europe.
Another complicating factor for the etymology is that yeoman is a compound word made by joining two other words: yeo + man. Linguists have been perplexed about the origin of yeo since scholars such as John Mitchell Kemble and Joseph Bosworth began the modern linguistic study of Old English in the early-to-mid-19th century. Two possible etymologies have been proposed to explain the origin of yeo.
Oxford English Dictionary The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) has proposed that yeoman is derived from yongerman, which first appeared in a manuscript called Pseudo-Cnut's Constitutiones de Foresta. Although the manuscript has been demonstrated to be a forgery (it was produced during the reign of King Henry II of England, rather than during the reign of King Cnut), it is considered authentic to the 11th- and 12th-century forest laws. According to the OED, the manuscript refers to 3 social classes: (1) the thegn (noble) at the top; (2) the tunman (townman) at the bottom; and (3) the lesser thegn in the middle. Yongerman is considered a synonym for a lesser thegn. OED suggested that yongerman is related to youngman, meaning a male youth or young male adult who was in the service of a high-ranking individual or family.
This proposed etymology is that youngman is in turn related to Old Norse ungmenni (youths); North Frisian ongman (lad, fellow); Dutch jongeman (youngman); and German Jungmann (deckhand, ordinary seaman); cf. also German Junker ⇐ jung[er] Herr. This etymology provides a plausible semantic link from yongerman to youngman, while at the same time providing most of the earliest definitions of yeoman.
Chambers Dictionary of Etymology The Chambers Dictionary of Etymology (CDE) is another well-respected scholarly source, as it is published by the same company which produces The Chambers Dictionary. The Chambers-proposed etymology reconstructs a possible Old English word, *ġēamann, as the parent of yeoman. (The asterisk or star as the first letter is a linguistic convention to indicate the word has been reconstructed, and is unattested in any surviving record). The reconstructed word is a compound word made from the root word ġē, ġēa (district, region) + mann (man). To further strengthen their etymology, CDE compares their reconstructed word to Old Frisian gāman (villager), and modern West Frisian gea, goa, Dutch gouw, German Gau (district, region).
Medieval meanings
In the history of the English language, the earliest recorded usage of the word yeoman occurs in the Late Middle English period, and then becoming more widespread in the Early Modern English period. The transition from Middle English to Early Modern English was a gradual process occurring over decades. For the sake of assigning a historical date, OED defines the end of Middle English and the beginning of Early Modern English as occurring in 1500. The year 1500 marks the end of nearly 200 years of political and economic upheaval in England. The Hundred Years War, the recurring episodes of the Black Death, and over 32 years of civil war known as the War of the Roses all contributed to the end of the Middle Ages in England, and the beginning of the English Renaissance. It was during this time that English gradually replaced Norman French as the official language.
The first single-language dictionary of the English language, Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, was published in 1604. The dictionary only included unusual English words, and loan words from foreign languages such as Hebrew, Greek, Latin, or French. Yeoman is not included in this dictionary. This suggests that in 1604, yeoman was a very commonly used English word. A more comprehensive, or general dictionary, was published in 1658. Edward Phillips' The New World of English Words contained basic definitions. Yeoman is included – probably for the first time in an English-language dictionary – but only a legal definition was given: (1) a social class immediately below a Gentleman; and (2) a freeborn man who can sell "his own free land in yearly revenue to the summe of 40 shillings Sterling". The fact that only the legal definition (introduced in the Electors of Knights of the Shires Act 1429) was given is another suggestion that yeoman was a common word at the time.
Between the 12th-century Pseudo-Cnut de Foresta and The New World of English Words in 1658, linguists have had to re-construct the meanings of yeoman from the surviving manuscripts. The various meanings of yeoman were apparently widely understood by the document author and his audience, and were not explained in the manuscripts. Linguists have deduced these specific historical meanings based on the context in which yeoman was used within the document itself. It is these meanings which are described in the following sections.
Household attendant or servant (14th century-present)
'Household servant' is one of the earliest documented uses of the word yeoman. During the 14th century, it referred to a servant or attendant in a royal or noble household, usually one who was of higher rank in the household hierarchy. This hierarchy reflected the feudal society in which they lived. Everyone who served a royal or noble household knew their duties, and knew their place. This was especially important when the household staff consisted of both nobles and commoners. There were actually two household hierarchies which existed in parallel. One was the organization based upon the function (duty) being performed. The other was based upon whether the person performing the duty was a noble or a commoner.
Similar household duties were grouped into Household Offices, which were then assigned to one of several Chief Officers. In each Household Office, the servants were organized into a hierarchy, arranged in ranks according to the level of responsibility. Sergeant The highest rank, which reported directly to the Chief Officer and oversaw an individual Household Office. The word was introduced to England by the Normans, and meant an attendant or servant. Yeoman The middle rank of the Household Office. Groom The lowest rank of the Household Office. It generally referred to a menial position for a free-born commoner. The Chief Officers were nobles, but the servant ranks of Sergeant, Yeoman, and Groom could be filled by either commoners or members of noble families. Any household duties which required close contact with the lord's immediate family, or their rooms, were handled by nobles. For example, the Steward oversaw the Offices concerned with household management. Procurement, storage, and preparation of food, waiting at table, and tending to the kitchen gardens, were some of the duties for which the Steward was responsible. Under the Steward during the reign of King Edward III, there were two separate groups of yeomen: Yeomen of the King's Chamber and Yeomen of the Offices. The first group were members of noble families who waited only on the King, and the second group were commoners who performed similar duties for other household residents and guests in the Great Hall, kitchen, pantry, and other areas.
Yeoman service
Yeoman service (also yeoman's service) is an idiom which means "good, efficient, and useful service" in some cause. It has the connotations of the work performed by a faithful servant of the lower ranks, who does whatever it takes to get the job done.
The sense – although not the use – of the idiom can be found in the Gest of Robyn Hode, dated to about 1500. In the First Fitte (the first section of the ballad), Robin gives money to a poor knight to pay his debt to the abbot of St Mary's Abbey. Noticing that the knight was traveling alone, Robin offers him the service of Little John as a yeoman:
Here, Robin vouches for Little John as a yeoman, a faithful servant who will perform whatever duties are required in times of great need.
The phrase yeoman's service is used by William Shakespeare in Hamlet (published in 1601). In act V, scene 2, Prince Hamlet tells Horatio how he discovered the king's plot against himself in a commission (document). Hamlet then says he has substituted for the original a commission which he himself wrote:
Hamlet remarks that he "wrote it fair", that is, in elegant, gentlemanly prose; a style of writing which he tried very hard to forget. But in composing the fake commission, Hamlet had to resort to "that learning". He tells Horatio that "it did me yeoman's service", that is, his learning stood him in good stead. Standing one in good stead is another idiom very similar in meaning to yeoman service. Note that it was used in the third line of Stanza of the Gest of Robyn Hode quoted in the paragraph above.
Attendant or assistant to an official (ca 14th–17th centuries)
Marshalsea Court was a court of the English royal household, presided over by the Steward and the Knight-Marshal. The court kept records from about 1276 until 1611. Unfortunately, only a few survive from the years 1316–59. Some information on the yeomen of the Marshalsea Court can be found in the Household Ordinance of King Edward IV from about 1483. The author of the Ordinance, looking back to the earlier household ordinances of King Edward III wrote: "Our sovereign lord's household is now discharged ... of the Court of Marshalsea, and all his clerks and yeomen." The writer was referring to the transfer of the Marshalsea Court from the royal household.