Knights and their days

by Dr. Doran

and he makes the following comment upon this well-known text:

“There be many of so gross understanding that they think to confound a gentleman, when they ask of him this question. To whom it may be said that so much grace as Adam our first father, received of God at his creation, so much nobility and gentry he received. And to understand perfectly how and after what demeanor Adam behaved himself, or how he directed the order of his life, the witnesses, I think, in that behalf are far to seek, whose behavior, if it were good and honest, then was he the first gentleman, even so much as the first earthly follower of virtues. But if there were in him no such virtue, then was he the first gentleman in whom virtues and gentle deeds did first appear.”

As a training toward excellence, our anonymous author recommends severity of discipline from the cradle upward. “Neither,” he says, “do I mean to allow any liberty to youth, for as liberty is to all eyes hurtful, so is it to youth a present poison;” but he forgets that even poisons are administered in small doses in order to cure certain diseases, and that life would be a disease, even to the young, without some measure of liberty. He is terribly afraid that freedom in childhood will spoil the man, who himself will be no man, with too much liberty, but a “Royster;” “and a ‘Royster,’” he adds, “can not do the office of a gentleman, so long I mean as a Roysterian he doth continue.”

He then informs us that there had long been in England a division of classes, under the heads of “Gentle Gentle, Gentle Ungentle, and Ungentle Gentle.” These were not classes of society generally, but classes of the orders of Gentlemen exclusively. The Gentle Gentle are those of noble birth, from dukes’ sons down to esquires, provided they join to their “gentle house, gentle manners, and noble conditions, which is the cause of the addition of the other word called gentle.” This is much such a definition of gentleman as might be now given, with the exception that the question of birth has little to do with the matter, and that gentle manners and noble conditions, as our author calls gentleman-like bearing, scholarly education, and Christian principles, now make of a man a gentleman, let him be of “gentle” house or not. Indeed, the author himself is not indisposed to accept this method of definition, for on proceeding to tell us what “Gentle Ungentle” is, he says that “Gentle Ungentle is that man which is descended of noble parentage, by the which he is commonly called gentle, and hath in him such corrupt and ungentle manners as to the judgment of all men he justly deserveth the name of ungentle.” His remedy again for preventing the gentle becoming ungentle is coercion in youth-time. He thinks that virtue is to be got from the human being like oils or other juices from certain vegetable substances, by ex-pression. Squeeze the human being tightly, press him heavily, he is sure to yield something. No doubt; but after the pressure he is often of little more use than a well-sucked orange.

We next come to the “Ungentle Gentle.” In the definition of this term, the author, with all his reverence for nobility, is compelled to allow that there is a nobility of condition as well as a nobility of birth; but others who contested this fact, gave a new word to the English tongue, or made a new application of an old word in order to support their theory and assail those whom they sought to lower.

“Ungentle Gentle,” says our author, “is he which is born of a low degree—which man, taking his beginning of a poor kindred, by his virtue, wit, policy, industry, knowledge in laws, valiancy in arms, or such like honest means, becometh a well-behaved and high-esteemed man, preferred then to great office, put in great charge and credit, even so much as he becometh a post or stay of the commonwealth, and so growing rich, doth thereby advance and set up the rest of his poor line or kindred. They are the children of such one commonly called gentleman; of which sort of gentleman we have now in England very many, whereby it should appear that virtue flourisheth among us. These gentlemen are now called ‘Up-starts,’ a term lately invented by such as pondered not the grounds of honest means of rising or coming to promotion.” Nevertheless, says our censor, there be upstarts enough and to spare. The worshipful unworthies, he tells us, abound; and the son of good-man Thomas, or good-man John, have obtained the name of gentlemen, the degree of esquires or knights, and possessing “a little dunghill forecast to get lands, by certain dark augmentative practices,” they are called “worshipful” at every assize. He dates the origin of this sort of nobility, knighthood and esquirearchy, from the time of the suppression and confiscation of abbeys and abbey-estates. He has a curious passage on this subject:—

“They have wrongfully intruded into gentry, and thrust themselves therein, as Bayard, the cart-jade, might leap into the stable of Bucephalus, and thrust his head into the manger with that worthy courser. The particular names of whom, if I should go about to rehearse, it would require long labor, and bring no fruit to the readers thereof. And it is well known that such intruders, such unworthy worshipful men, have chiefly flourished since the putting down of abbeys, which time is within my remembrance.”

While allowing that gentlemanly manners help to make the gentleman, and that birth is only an accidental matter, having little to do with the subject, he still can not forbear to reverence rather good men of high birth than good men of low degree. He evidently thinks that he was enjoined by religion to do so, for he remarks: “As in times past, no man was suffered to be ‘Knyght of the Roodes,’ but such one as was descended of the lyne of gentleman, whereby it appeareth that no men were thought so meet to defend the right, that is to say the faith of Christ, as gentlemen, and so to have their offices agreeable with their profession, it is most meet that all gentlemen be called to such room and office as may be profitable to the commonwealth.” This idea that the holy sepulchre was to be rescued from the infidels only by gentlemen, and the fact that it has not been so rescued, reminds me of that king of Spain, who, finding himself in danger of being roasted alive, from sitting in a chair which one of his great officers had placed too near the fire, chose to roast on, for the singular reason that there was no grandee at hand to draw his chair away again!

In 1555, this writer still accounted the profession of arms as the noblest, the most profitable to the professor, and the most useful to the commonwealth. Courage, liberality, and faithful observance of all promises; thus endowed, he thinks a man is a true gentleman. He draws, however, a happy parallel when admitting that if it become a gentleman to be a good knight and valiant soldier, it even more becometh him to be a great statesman. For, “although to do valiantly in the wars it deserveth great praise and recompense, yet to minister justice in the state of peace is an office worthy of higher commendation. The reason is, wars are nothing necessary, but of necessity must be defended when they fall. And contrariwise, peace is a thing not only most necessary, but it is called the best thing which even nature hath given unto man.” This parallel, if indeed it may be so called, is only employed, however, for the purpose of showing that certain posts in the state should only be given to gentlemen born. There is a good deal of the red-tapist in our moralist after all; and he has a horror, still entertained in certain localities, of admitting the democratic element into the public offices. Thus we find him maintaining that, “Unto a gentleman appertaineth more fully than unto any other sort of man, embassage or message to be done between kings or princes of this earth; more fitly I say, because gentlemen do know how to bear countenance and comely gesture before the majesty of a king, better than other sorts of men.” One would think that the majesty of a king was something too dazzling for a common man of common sense to look upon and live, and yet the writer is evidently aware that there is nothing in it, for he concludes his chapter on this matter by observing that “a gentleman sent of embassage unto a prince ought to think a king to be but a man, and, in reverence and humility, boldly to say his message unto him.” Surely a man of good sense might do this, irrespective of his birth, particularly at a time when the unskilfulness and ignorance of gentlemen were so great as to pass into a proverb, and “He shooteth like a gentleman fair and far off,” implied not only ill-shooting with bows and arrows, “but it extended farther and reached to greater matters, all to the dispraise of ignorant gentlemen.”

It is so common a matter with us to refer to the days in which this author wrote, as days in which old knights and country gentlemen maintained such hospitality as has seldom been since witnessed, that we are surprised to find complaint made, in this treatise, of something just the contrary. The author enjoins these knights and gentlemen to repair less to London, and be more seen dispensing hospitality in their own houses. “In the ancient times,” he says, “when curious buildings fed not the eye of the wayfaring man, then might he be fed and have good repast at a gentleman’s place, so called. Then stood the buttery door without a hatch; yeoman then had no cause to carve small dishes; Flanders cooks had then no wages for their devices, nor square tables were not used. This variety and change from the old English manner hath smally enriched gentlemen, but much it hath impoverished their names, not without just punishment of their inconsistency in that behalf.” Let me add, that the writer thinks the country knight or gentleman would do well were he to exercise the office of justice of the peace. He is sorely afraid, however, that there is a disqualification, on the ground of ignorance. A moralist might have the same fear just now, without coming to the same conclusion. Our author, for instance, argues that reverence is to be paid to the noble, quand même. Let him be ignorant and tyrannical, yet to reverence him is to give example of obedience to others. This is very poor logic, and what follows is still worse; for this writer very gravely remarks, that “We ought to bear the offences of noble men patiently, and that if these forget themselves, yet ought not smaller men to be oblivious of their duty in consequence, and fail in their respect.”