GENTLEMAN, This word is an example of those compromises so frequent in Eng lish between the language introduced by the Normans, and that in possession of the country at the period of the conquest. The Norman word was, as the French word is now, gentilhomme. The first syllable was retained, whilst the second was abandoned in favor of its Saxon equiValent, man. Though commonly translated into Latin by g in erosus, which means a generous, liberal, manly person, n short, a gentleman, the word gentleman is derived from gentilis, and home, or man; and gentilis in Latin did not signify gentle, generous, or anything equivalent, but belonging to a yens, or known family or clan. See GDNS. A gentleman was thus originally a person whose kindred was known and acknowledged; which is the sense in which it is still employed when it is not intended to make any reference to the moral or social qualities of the particular individual. One who was sine gente, on the other hand, was one whom no gens acknowledged, and who might thus be said to be ignobly born.
The term gentleman is continually confounded with esquire (q.v.), even by such learned authorities as Sir Edward Coke. But they are not equivalent; and whilst some attempt can be made to define the latter, the former seems, in England, from a very early time, to have been a mere social epithet. " Ordinarily, the king," says Sir Thomas Smith, "loth only make knights and create barons, or higher degrees; as for gentlemen, they be made good cheap in this kingdom; for whosoever studieth the laws of the realm, who studieth in the. universities, who liberal sciences, and (to be short) who can live idly; and Without manual labour, and will bear the port, charge, and -countenance of a gentleman, he shall be called Master, for that is the title which men give to esquires and other gentlemen, and shall be taken for a gentleman."—Commontreakh England, i. c. 20. But though such was the real state of matters, even in the begin ning of the 17th c., the word was still held to have a stricter meaning, in which it was more nearly synonymous with the French gentilkomine, for in the same chapter the same writer remarks that "gentlemen be those whom their blood and race Both make noble and known." Even here, however, it scarcely seems that he considered
-any connection with a titled family to be necessary to confer the character, for he after wards speaks of it as corresponding, not to nobility, in the English sense, but to nobaltas, in the Roman sense, and as resting on "old riches or powers remaining in one stock." There can be no doubt that, in still earlier times, patents of gentility were granted by the kings of England. There is one still in existence by Richard II. to John de King ston, and another by Henry VI. to Bernard Angevin, a Burdelois. But these patents determine very little, for they seem to have carried the rank and title of esquire; and there is no doubt that esquires, and all persons of higher rank, were held to be gentle men, on the principle, that the greater includes the less. The difficulty is to say whether between an esquire, who certainly was entitled to the character, and a yeoman, who was not, there was an intermediate class who could claim it on any other grounds than -courtesy and social usage. These patents corresponded to the modern patents of arms which are issued by the Herald's colleges in England and Ireland, and by the Lyon •office in Scotland, and were probably given on the very same grouuds—viz., the pay ment of fees. A patent of arms confers the rank of esquire and there probably is no other legal mode by which an untitled person can acquire it, unless he be the holder of a dignified office. In present, as in former times, it is common to distinguish between a gentleman by birth and a gentleman by profession and social recognition. By a gentle man born is usually understood either the son of a gentleman by birth, or the grandson of a gentleman by position; but the phrase is loosely applied to all persons who have not themselves "risen from the ranks."