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 THE ANCESTOR 69 man. In 1399, the Earl of Salisbury, having been charged with treason by the Duke of Norfolk, replied that he was ready to defend himself comme un gentil-homme^ as the king might direct.^ In 1387-85 John Beauchamp of Holt, con- demned to be hanged as a traitor, by favour, because he was de gentil sank^ was ordered to be beheaded.^ This John, though described as chivaler^ was a baron himself, being the first so created by patent, and the descendant of a baronial house. Again, in 1377, the Sire de Gomenys was found guilty of a like offence, and in his case once more the sentence was reduced to decapitation on the ground that he was Gentil homme et Banneret} In Minot's ^ongs of the French Wars^ written before 1352, the king himself is referred to as 'Gentill Sir Edward,' ^ while in charters of the same period it is not unusual to find the phrase nohilis vh applied to a simple knight.^ At the present day no one would speak of a knight as a nobleman, or of an earl or baron as a gentleman ; but in early times there was no clear dividing line, no distinction in blood between the nobility and gentry. In legal documents, in charters, court rolls, and even in writs of summons to Parlia- ment, barons are described simply as knights or chivalers. The statute of 1 400-1 so considers them, for it speaks of a 'chivaler of lower estate than a Duke, Earl or Baron.* Higden, who wrote his Polychronicon before 1363, knew of no class intermediate between knights and dukes. The parlia- mentary nobles were not at this time described as barons or seigneurs^ for every lord of a manor was a seigneur^ and every tenant-in-chief a baron ; ® but when it was necessary to dis- tinguish them from the rest are referred to as grands seigneurs^ les grands de la terre^ optimates^ majores^ magnates^ or primates. Thus Magna Carta speaks of majores bar ones (the minor barons being the smaller tenants-in-chief), and the Statute of Arms of Edward III.'s time refers to 'the son of a great lord, 1 Freemen accused of sedition were usually tried by the ordeal of battle. Glanvill, De Legibus, liber 14, close of cap. I. 2 jiQt^ Pari iii. ^$ia. ^ Ibid. iii. 243^. ^ Ibid. iii. 12a. ^ Wright's Political Poems, i. 67. 6 Vincent's MSS. at the College of Arms, xliv. 1363. Addit. MS. (B.M.) 29,442, p. 24. 7 ii. 171. 8 See Scrope and Grosvenor, i. 113, where a lord of a manor is termed a baron.