Page:The Ancestor Number 1.djvu/129

 THE ANCESTOR 89 that held by knight's service [that is to say military service, or tenure in feodo] were regularly Gentile/ and again that it was ' a badge of Gentry to hold by knight's service.' Spelman and Sir Henry Chauncy ^ adopt the same view, and it is up- held also by Nichols ^ and by Strutt. Gentlemen^ writes the latter, ^ a title borrowed from the French to distinguish the free men from the vulgar and common people. They (the gentlemen) held of the mesne lords small parcels of land by military service.' ^ This is a theory which deserves respectful consideration, for we know that in France ' every possessor of a fief was a gentleman, though he owned but a few acres of land and furnished his slender contribution towards the equip- ment of a knight.' ^ The simple gentilhomme^ mentioned in Philip de Valois' ordinance of 1338, who was to be ^ arme de tunique^ de gamhiere^ et de hassinet^ must often have been a very poor gentleman indeed.^ On the continent, military fief or franc fief so called be- cause it was free from tribute, tallage and all rustic services, suggested from the earliest times some idea of nobility. We meet in early charters with such phrases as feudum nohile et gentile (i 2/^2)^ feudum francum et honoratum (1189 and 1274), feudum liherum et honoratum (1242), feudum francum et gentile (12 74), feudum nohile (1293), feudum gentile (13 70), or fief gentil (1309).^ Feudum nohile has been supposed by some foreign writers to denote estates which are held in chief and carry with them jurisdiction over tenants, such as ' those which among the English are commonly called manors ' ; ^ and undoubtedly some forms of tenure, as for instance, by castle-guard or grand sergeanty, were more honourable than the rest. But Spelman is undoubtedly right in comprising all franc fief under the title of feudum nohile^ The phrases which I have just quoted made no alteration in the tenure, but were merely verbal additions which expressed its inherent nobility. Some form of socage holding may also have been included in franc tenure on the continent as well as in England,^ for we have a charter of ^ Hertfordshire (1700), pp. 10, 11. ^ Leicestershire, i. 170 note, 213. ^ Manners and Customs, iii. 15. ^ Hallam (1837), iii. 204. 5 Hewitt, Ancient Arms, ii. 27. ^ Du Cange under '■feudum,^ Ibid. Feudum nohile. 8 See Pasquier, Les Recherches de la France (1607), p. 213. ^ In England, free socage lands were included in frank tenure. Du Cange divides socagium into two kinds, * liherum, quod " Socage en Franc tenure " Angli