Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Esquire is a rank of gentry originally derived from Squire and indicating the status of an attendant to a knight, an apprentice knight, or a manorial lord; [43] it ranks below Knight (or in Scotland below Laird) but above Gentleman. [e] [f]
Wolfram von Eschenbach and his squire (Codex Manesse, 14th century) A squire cleaning armour A squire helping his knight, in a historical reenactment in 2009 A squire holds the warhorse of his knight, detail from monument to Sir Richard Stapledon (d.1326), Exeter Cathedral. [1] In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a ...
It was also applied to the sons of peers and the firstborn sons of baronets and knights. [5] [4] Gentleman: the lowest rank within the gentry. Gentlemen ranked above yeomen or landowning farmers. [5] The Statute of Additions of 1413 recognised gentlemen as a distinct social rank, but the line between the lower gentry and the yeomanry remained ...
The verb "to knight" (to make someone a knight) appears around 1300; and, from the same time, the word "knighthood" shifted from "adolescence" to "rank or dignity of a knight". An Equestrian ( Latin , from eques "horseman", from equus " horse ") [ 15 ] was a member of the second highest social class in the Roman Republic and early Roman Empire .
It is the lowest rank to which the descendants of a Knight, Baronet or Peer can sink. Strictly speaking, anybody with officially matriculated English or Scottish arms is a gentleman and thus noble. The term landed gentry , although originally used to mean nobility, came to be used for the lesser nobility in England around 1540.
Equestrians could in turn be elevated to senatorial rank (e.g., Pliny the Younger), but in practice this was much more difficult than elevation from commoner to equestrian rank. To join the upper order, not only was the candidate required to meet the minimum property requirement of 250,000 denarii , but also had to be elected a member of the ...
It dated from the military rank of squire, who was a personal attendant to a knight. In a more modern sense it served as a category indicating "candidates for knighthood", and was therefore typically associated with certain professions (such as judges , justices of the peace , and sheriffs ).
An order of knights is a community of knights composed by order rules with the main purpose of an ideal or charitable task. The original ideal lay in monachus et miles (monk and knight), who in the order – ordo (Latin for 'order' / 'status') – is dedicated to a Christian purpose. The first orders of knights were religious orders that were ...