THE ANCESTOR 73 esquires, and gentil could not be used to distinguish untitled gentlemen from knights and esquires. Even as late as 1421 we find ' Edward Lord Hastynges ' complaining that he is penned in prison ' liker a thef or a traitour than lik a Gentilman of berthe.' ^ It is seldom that we can trace the actual year in which a new word, or an old word in a new meaning, was added to the language, but this may undoubtedly be done with our ' grand old name of gentleman/^ As a description of rank and status, or a class-name, 'gentleman' is never found before 141 3, and its sudden appearance must be attributed to the statute of I Henry V. cap. v., which laid down that in all original writs of action personal, appeals and indictments, in which process of outlawry lies, the ' estate degree or mystery ' of the defend- ant must be stated, and the town, hamlet, place or country in which he then was or had formerly been. From this time we begin to meet in the public records with husbandmen, yeomen, and occasionally with a franklin or gentieman, but it was long before the new fashion of calling oneself a gentleman came into general use. In the Record Office there are twelve sub- sidy rolls for Kent, Sussex, and the Cinque Ports between 14 14 and 142 1, and in these, though many thousands of names are entered upon them, not a single person is so described. The list of landowners in 1428 printed in Feudal Aids contains no 1 C. G. Young's Grey and Hastings (1841), xiv. 2 The first instance I have met with of the use of generosus as a description of dignity or degree is in the previous year. On April 24, 141 2, fifty-eight generosi et fide digui of Cheshire were present in the chapel of Macclesfield to witness the ceremony by which Robert Legh relinquished his claim to the castle of Pulford {Harl. MS. 2099, folio 18). It will be noticed however that five of the number were knights, and that the remainder have no addition after their names in the list of witnesses. I think that generosi here should be translated as * gentlemen.' John of Fordun, who wrote his chronicle before 1384, divides the possessors and occupiers of the Crown lands in Scotland into three classes — first, the milites, thani et principes ; secondly, the liberi et generosi (who had estates for a term of years or for life, with remainder in some cases to one or two heirs) ; and, thirdly, the agricola or yearly tenants {Fordun y iv. 43). Skene, observing that the tenants named in the second class were usually nearly related to the lords of the land, translates liberi et generosi as * free and kindly tenants.' No doubt the author meant to suggest relationship, but I think he had not lost sight of the other meaning of generosus as expressing nobility of birth. Neckam, in the twelfth century, applies the word generosus to knights, and speaks of nobility of blood as sanguinis generositas (Neckam, Chronicles and Memorials, 212—3). the Saxon vocabularies *aethelboren' is given as the meaning both oi ^ generosus^ and of'nobilisj'
