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 I02 THE ANCESTOR Cicero and Boetius had their admirers even in the blackest days of ignorance and superstition. In later times the classical distinction between nobilis and gentilis must have been remem- bered, for though letters of nobility are common, no king ever attempted to make a gentleman.^ For these and other reasons I incline towards the classical derivation of gentily but though the point is an exceedingly interesting one, its determination in either direction will not affect my argument. In either case, gentil originally conveyed the idea of freedom, as opposed to serfdom. Throughout the middle ages some trace of the old meaning remains and is con- stantly pressing itself upon our notice. It is suggested by the phrases ' gent and free,' ' franc et gentil,* and by the description of franc tenure as gentile et nohile. It is flashed upon us with startling directness in the opening lines of the Lytel Jeste of Robyn Hode :^ — Lithe and lysten, gentylmen, That be of free bore blode ; and again in Piers the Plowman^ where the whole Jewish nation are said to have been originally ' gentel-men,' but since the death of Christ ' lowe cheorles,' ' under tribut and taillage * : — The luwes that weren gentel-men, lesu thei dispiseden, Bothe hus lore and hus lawe, now aren thei lowe cheorles. As wide as the worlde is, wonyeth ther none Bote under tribut and taillage, as tikes and cheorles. And tho that by-comen Christine, by consail of the baptist, Aren frankelayns and freo, thorgh fullyng that thei toke, And gentel-men with lesu. that clan into which he has passed, though he be born of free parents, and of such parents as have never served in bondage, yet since he does not remain in the family of his clan, he cannot remain even in its Gentilitas : so we must add : And not deprived of the citizenship. This perhaps, says he, is sufficient according to the definition of Scaevola the Pontifex : he added nothing further, so that this is the definition of Gentiles, Gentiles are those who have the same name in common, born of free parents, whose ancestors have none of them served in bondage, and where no disfranchisement {capitis diminutio) has destroyed the Gentilitas' (Boetius in Top. Cic. ed. 1497, p. 157). ^ There is perhaps an approach to this in 1389, when Richard II. stated that he had * received ' John de Kyngeston en Vestat de Gentile Homme. I take it that this is an acknowledgment of gentle birth and not a grant of gentility, but however that may be, the phrase is ambiguous and evasive when compared with the nobilitamus, nohilemque facimus et creamus of other charters. 2 Printed in 1495, but written, according to Hunter and other good judges, in the fourteenth century. ^ C. Passus, xxii. 34.