"—— If no gentleman, why then no arms,"[69:A]
exclaims our poet; the aspirants, therefore, to this distinction were numerous, and in the Gentleman's Academie; or, The Booke of St. Albans, published by Gervase Markham in 1595, which he says in the dedication was then absolutely "necessarie and behovefull to the accomplishment of the gentlemen of this flourishing ile—in the heroicall and excellent study of Armory," we find "nine sortes" and "foure maner" of gentlemen expressly distinguished.
"Of nine sortes of gentlemen:
"First, there is a gentleman of ancestry and blood.
"A gentleman of blood.
"A gentleman of coat-armour, and those are three, one of the kings badge, another of lordship, and the third of killing a pagan.
"A gentleman untriall: a gentleman Ipocrafet: a gentleman spirituall and temporall: there is also a gentleman spirituall and temporall.—
"The divers manner of gentlemen:
"There are foure maner of gentlemen, to wit, one of auncestrie, which must needes bee of blood, and three of coate-armour, and not of blood: as one a gentleman of coate-armour of the kings badge, which is of armes given him by an herauld: another is, to whome the king giveth a lordeshippe, to a yeoman by his letters pattents, and to his heires for ever, whereby hee may beare the coate-armour of the same lordeshippe: the thirde is, if a yeoman kill a gentleman, Pagan or Sarazen, whereby he may of right weare his coate-armour: and some holde opinion, that if one Christian doe kill an other, and if it be lawfull battell, they may weare each others coate-armour, yet it is not so good as where the Christian killes the Pagan."