The yeoman (, ) was a social class of medieval and early modern England ranks between the peasantry and the landed gentry. The class was first documented in mid-14th century England, where it included people who cultivated their own land as well as the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household.

The 14th century witnessed the rise of the yeoman longbowmen during the Hundred Years' War, and the yeoman outlaws celebrated in the Robin Hood ballads. Yeomen joined the English Navy during the Hundred Years' War as seamen and archers. In the early 15th century, yeoman was the rank of chivalry between page and squire. By the late 17th century, yeoman became a rank in the Royal Navy for the common seamen who were in charge of ship's stores, such as foodstuffs, gunpowder, and sails.

References to the emerging social stratum of wealthy land-owning commoners began to appear after 1429. In that year, the Parliament of England re-organized the House of Commons into counties and boroughs, with voting rights granted to all freeholders. The Electors of Knights of the Shires Act 1429 restricted voting rights to those freeholders whose land value exceeded 40 shillings. These yeomen became a social stratum of commoners below the landed gentry, but above the husbandmen. This stratum later embodied the political and economic ideas of the English Enlightenment and Scottish Enlightenment, and transplanted those ideas to British North America during the early modern era.

Numerous yeoman farmers in North America served as citizen soldiers in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. The 19th century saw a revival of interest in the medieval period with English Romantic literature. The yeoman outlaws of the ballads were refashioned into heroes fighting for justice under the law and the rights of freeborn Englishmen.

Etymology

The etymology of yeoman is uncertain for several reasons.

The earliest documented use occurs in Middle English. His infantry included about 10,500–10,900 Welshmen. 2,000 men, including archers, were raised as part of the Lancashire and Cheshire levies under the Commission of Array. At the Battle of Falkirk, the English army archers opened up the Scottish schiltrons with hails of arrows. The Scottish infantrymen fled the battlefield, to be pursued and killed by the English cavalry. In 1333, his grandson, Edward III, undertook his first invasion of Scotland, which culminated with the Battle of Halidon Hill. Halidon Hill is where the 20-year old Edward III learned how to combine archers and dismounted men-at-arms – tactics that he would employ during his Crécy campaign in France. The English victory at the Battle of Crécy was followed by another victory at the Battle of Poitiers, and a final victory at the Siege of Calais. After the Battle of Agincourt, the Yeoman Archer had become as legendary as his bow. By negating the tactical advantage of large numbers of cavalry (mounted knights and men-at-arms) with their ability to rapidly fire volleys of arrows, Yeoman Archers are considered part of the Infantry revolution of the 14th century. They could be deployed as "Archers on horse" (mounted archers who could reach the scene quickly, dismount, & set up a firing line) or as "Archers on foot" (foot archers who followed as reinforcements).

Yeoman of the Guard (15th century-present)

thumb|Yeomen of the Guard in procession. Their uniform has remained relatively unchanged since the Tudor dynasty. The spears are carried in remembrance of their role in protecting Henry Tudor at Bosworth Field.

On 22 August 1485, near the small village of Stoke Golding, Henry Tudor met King Richard III in battle for the Crown of England. The War of the Roses had persisted intermittently for more than 30 years between the rival claimants of the House of York (white rose) and the House of Lancaster (red rose). In 1483, Richard, of the House of York, had deposed his young nephew, 12-year old Edward V. Henry Tudor, of the House of Lancaster, was the favored candidate to replace Richard. According to Michael Prestwich: "What was necessary was to ensure that every conceivable means of removing the King was adopted, and the procedures combined all possible precedents". Hence, establishing the legitimacy of Edward III was paramount. But it was the Knights of the Shire and Burgesses (hereafter referred to as the commons) who drove the proceedings, both before and after Edward III's coronation. Often it was hard to distinguish minor landed gentry from the wealthier yeomen, and wealthier husbandmen from the poorer yeomen.

1500–1600

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As some yeomen overlapped into the newly emerging gentry through wealth and marriage; others merged with the merchants and professions of the towns through education; some became local officials in the counties; and still others maintained their original identity as farmers.

Yeomen were often constables of their parish, and sometimes chief constables of the district, shire or hundred. Many yeomen held the positions of bailiffs for the High Sheriff or for the shire or hundred. Other civic duties would include churchwarden, bridge warden, and other warden duties. It was also common for a yeoman to be an overseer for his parish. Yeomen, whether working for a lord, king, shire, knight, district or parish, served in localised or municipal police forces raised by or led by the landed gentry. Some of these roles, in particular those of constable and bailiff, were carried down through families. Yeomen often filled ranging, roaming, surveying, and policing roles. In districts remoter from landed gentry and burgesses, yeomen held more official power: this is attested in statutes of the reign of Henry VIII (reigned 1509–1547), indicating yeomen along with knights and squires as leaders for certain purposes.

Yeoman farmer

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thumb|Coat of arms of Wisconsin during the [[American Civil War|Civil War, with yeoman on the right]]

In the United States, yeomen were identified in the 18th and 19th centuries as non-slaveholding, small landowning, family farmers. In areas of the Southern United States where land was poor, like East Tennessee, the landowning yeomen were typically subsistence farmers, but some managed to grow crops for market. Whether they engaged in subsistence or commercial agriculture, they controlled far more modest landholdings than those of the planters, typically in the range of 50–200 acres. In the Northern United States, practically all the farms were operated by yeoman farmers as family farms.

Thomas Jefferson was a leading advocate of the yeomen, arguing that the independent farmers formed the basis of republican values. Indeed, Jeffersonian Democracy as a political force was largely built around the yeomen. After the American Civil War (1861–1865), organizations of farmers, especially the Grange, formed to organize and enhance the status of the yeoman farmers.

Modern meanings

The Yeomanry

During the 1790s, the threat of French invasion of Great Britain appeared genuine.

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Further reading

Edward I

Hundred Years War

English Navy

Other

  • Allen, Robert C. Enclosure and the Yeoman (1992) Oxford U. Press 376p.
  • Broad, John. "The Fate of the Midland Yeoman: Tenants, Copyholders, and Freeholders as Farmers in North Buckinghamshire, 1620–1800", Continuity and Change 1999 14(3): 325–347.
  • Campbell, Mildred. The English Yeoman
  • Hallas, Christine S. "Yeomen and Peasants? Landownership Patterns in the North Yorkshire Pennines c. 1770–1900", Rural History 1998 9(2): 157–176.
  • Vinje, Victor Condorcet: The Versatile Farmers of the North; The Struggle of Norwegian Yeomen for Economic Reforms and Political Power, 1750–1814 (2014).
  • Knight's Yeoman
  • The Soldier in Later Medieval England, online database of all known service records from 1369 until conclusion of Hundred Years War in 1453