This is a longshot but I'm wondering if anyone has access to Burke's Landed Gentry 4th Edition 1958. This particular edition I haven't been able to find online so I was hoping someone might have a copy.
In the vague hope that someone on here has this specific version, I'm looking for the entry on Johnson of Strathaird, in the 3rd volume of the 18th Edition of Burke's Landed Gentry, which was published in 1972. If you have this book I'd love to get a photo/scan of the relevant pages!
The British Gentry is a class of nobility that is unique because it is not granted by the Monarch but self-assumed through:
- (Usually) posession of large amounts of land or descent from such a landowner, or male-line descent from a Peer (so all people who have the surname Windsor or Mountbatten-Windsor but no title are technically part of the Gentry)
- An ideally old coat of arms
The Gentry is the equivalent of Continental "lower nobility". Most Gentry families live or have historically lived in a Manor and performed agriculture, but some families are said to be "of a professional background" (i.e. entrepreneurs and managers), suggesting that anybody who amasses significant merits and wealth and is officially granted a Coat of Arms can assume Gentry status in time. I'm not going with Lyon Innes who says that a Coat of Arms automatically ennobles every time.
Are there any official prerequisites for entry into the class of Gentry? What are the criteria for the inclusion of a family in Burke's Landed Gentry?
And do you have any horror stories during that time?
My wife and I rented for 26 years and rented 17 different properties. Including about 1 year worth of random house sitting for friends/family. We finally bought just before xmas. FHBs at the ripe old age of 47. With 3 kids in tow. And yes, we (finally) got help from a parent to be in a position to actually buy.
Ive been through a lot but my best horror story: Being given 60 days notice when my wife was 2 weeks from giving birth to our 3rd baby. And with 2 toddlers under 4 already. We had been in the house for nearly 3 years. The agents knew we were expecting, as there had been an inspection the week before where babies and expected dates were discussed.
The LL was actually the owner of the RE agency and wanted the house for his teenage daughter and her entourage.
Thats all ignoring the real horror story: not buying a house, any house, back in the late 90s. If we had have, we would be riding the financial gravy train at full speed. But we wanted to travel etc. and actually have lives, like everyone did before us. But we just missed the ladder being pulled up from us by a few years. This really weighs on your mental heath.
I assume that the oldest son would inherit the family title and land from his father, and thus be more or less set for life off that income. But what about younger sons? Did they live off the same income as their elder brother? What about less well-to-do gentry without the ability to support multiple families with the same estate? Would it be considered inappropriate for a second or third son to become a merchant or craftsman in order to support himself and his family?
Of course, soccer(okay football) players, singers and actors are out of the question when I say self made, but rather those who became upper class through business endeavors.
This is an English language fiction book I read in class in secondary school (UK), probably around 2007-2008 as I think I would have been mid teens, but could have been 2005-10. I think it was one of a string of dystopian novels we read in class.
I reckon the book was probably much older than that though, and was relatively short (no bigger than a cm wide in a paperback size). I have a hazy memory of it being a blue ish hardback, one of the shiny library copy type things.
The plot is dystopian. I recall that it is about a country split into cities and rural areas, with people not allowed to travel between the two. The city areas are modern (ish) and largely full of workers, while the rural areas are stuck in ‘old fashioned times, eg electronics are banned, possible a sort of 1920s Downton-esque setting as the rural areas seem to be full of landed gentry and their staff.
You discover all this through one of the main characters, who lives in the rural area as one of gentry, but slowly discovers all is not right with the world. For example I think he discovers modern electronic surveillance in the rural area where nobody is supposed to know electronics exist.
For discovering this, someone in the ruling class behind this set up offers the character to join the ruling class who pull the strings. I recall that it is implied that people who cause trouble end up getting lobotomised, with some euphemism about an operation to remove something dangerous to explain it to everyone else. I think it may have had an ambiguous unsatisfactory ending.
That’s about all I can remember. I’d be very grateful if anyone has a clue what it could be!
Watching “Bridgeton” and the family of 8 kids got me thinking, what happened to the ones who didn’t inherit at title and most/all of the land that was the source of the wealth? It’s not unreasonable that a lord might have 30 grandchildren. Surely for all but the very wealthiest nobles, supporting generations of extended family from a finite amount of land wouldn’t have been possible. I would imagine that children of lords might be given allowances and some sort of inheritance, but what would happen a few generations down the line?
It would be difficult to imagine all of the progeny of a member of the landed gentry being able to stay in the ownership class. Did they become members of the bourgeois? Would they buy/start businesses? Learn professions? Fall into poverty? How would I best leverage my privilege to ensure a good life for myself and children?
So my biggest interest in history right now is how landed gentry came to be in Europe. It's been a question that seems to have very little scholarship done. This may be me just not knowing where to look as at best I'm just a history enthusiast I don't know exactly what journals or where I'd go for this. But I figured here would be a good place to start. So to start here's what I know that the archeological record during the migration period shows there were leaders in tribes but they weren't as strictly divided from the rest of the tribe. They also seemed to be a lot closer in status to say an ordinary person than what we would think of a noble in medieval times.
I also know that by the Carolingian Age what us layman describe as feudalism is already in full force or at least the dominant way to divide society in Europe. Now I know there are a lot misunderstandings in concerns to medieval feudalism. But for the scope of this I would like to know if we have any theories, evidence etc. that would explain how we went from leaders who were close in status with the rest of their tribes to the belief that these leaders are some how better or above the "commoners".
My pet theory which I'm sure is way off base is that this occurred because of increased fighting as more tribes began to settle around. Then at some point one tribe and warlord was able to bring other tribes in the area to heel and thus became king. All major players who helped him in this endeavor became nobles. They were probably rewarded with land from other tribes as well as maybe slaves from that tribe. This was passed down from generation to generation and as it was passed down the "I'm better than the masses" mentality came about. Though I'm sure this is wrong.
I guess what I want is three fold. First if I could get more resources to look this question up that'd be awesome, second would be is there any weight to my pet theory (does it jive with actual expert theories), Third is there any more insight that could be shared on how this came to be?
I have a good fried who has enough money to buy himself what he wants and I hate buying him gifts but he loves receiving gifts (though I think I've missed the mark in the past by a lot). He's 32 years old, British, and wishes he was part of the landed gentry or aristocracy of 1900s britian. He drinks sherry and possibly gin but is not a big drinker. he likes books and is a hobbiest historian in South Wales. He likes "kitchen things" and the best gift I ever got him was a le cruset bowl with a spout for making pancakes. He does not like food gifts really though he does like milk chocolate.
last year he got me a colander for my kitchen (from a fancy brand) and a book from the 1950s.
I don't want to spend more than £30. Help?
Luke Skywalker lives on a lawless planet, run by a intergalactic drug cartel, where slavery is legal and murder is so common that no one bats an eye when three people get killed in a bar. I think most of us would describe the state of Tatooine at the start of Star Wars as being one of a hellish narco state.
From the prequels we know that under Republic rule much of the galaxy had degenerated into a similar situation, with lawlessness and barbarity being the norm and "civilization" confined to a handful of planets near the galactic core.
So why does Luke Skywalker, who is living in this hell, so strongly oppose the Empire, whose presence on Tatooine could only improve things? Because Luke is a member of the galaxy's landed gentry.
Luke treats his admission to the Imperial Academy - the galaxy's most prestigious pilot school - as a sure thing. And why wouldn't he, after all, all of his friends are already attending. This is despite the fact that they come from a remote planet on the ass end of the galaxy.
So how are Luke and his friends getting into the Academy? Their parents own massive moisture farms on a planet where water is more valuable than gold. Luke and his friends are the privileged children of the insanely wealthy. And all of those "bad" things that are happening on Tatooine - all of the slavery, drugs, and every other vice imaginable - those things don't harm Luke and his friends. They benefit them.
Bored on a Saturday night? Well head on down to Anchorhead, shoot up some space heroin and make use of the Twilek sex slaves. Luke and his friends are leading a life of vice and excess.
And perhaps most importantly for a wealthy noble, the tax rate on Tatooine is 0%.
The Empire is getting stronger. As it gets stronger it is able to impose law and order on more planets. Luke and his friends see the Empire on the horizon. They know its just a matter of time before it extends its control to Tatooine. And when that happens the good times are over. Slavery, drugs, wild sex parties. Those are all coming to an end.
But bringing order to a planet isn't cheap. The Empire is going to impose taxes to pay for all of that stuff. Taxes that will impact Tatooine's landed gentry. Its the threat of the imposition of those taxes that have caused Luke and his friends to take up arms for the rebellion.
Which shouldn't even be that surprising. As we saw in the prequels - the Rebellion is really
... keep reading on reddit ➡
I didn't see any questions on this topic. I've read some histories of China and they mention that during the Tang the scholar-gentry supplanted the landed aristocracy as a result of the reinstatement of the examinations and attempts to break up the great estates. However, they don't go into details on the practical differences. the scholar-gentry still own large tracts of land that they passed down to decedents, right? Was the lack of a title the difference? What differences would there be between the fate of a lazy son of the scholar gentry and a lazy son of the aristocracy?
As I play more and more of the Fire Emblem series (first played FE7 on the GBA and have since gone back and at least attempted every entry in the series, even if I haven't finished any game with Marth or set in Jugdral), I can't help but get a little tired of fighting for the preservation of my holdings. Lyndis needs to reclaim her throne, Seliph needs to liberate the continent from the dude who conquered it and return it to the other unelected leaders who ran the manor.
Even our TWO (yes, just two) commoner heroes, Ike and Byleth, work in the service of deposed or ambitious nobles. Which monarch/power structure would you like to support, Byleth? No matter which you choose, it will literally rule Fodlan when you're done. Do you want to be >!God-king!<, advisor to the emperor (who at least ostensibly wants to get away from the whole "inherited political power" thing, but >!she's coded as a villain!<, so that can't be good), or >!head of the church!< after you return the Rightful King to the Throne of Faerghus. Ike, of course, gets involved in his whole quest because Elincia's been deposed by Ashnard; he's a commoner, but he's working to reinstate the right hereditary noble to her throne. But guess who one of the most villainous factions in that series is: The Begnion Senate; i.e. the only non-hereditary governing body in all of Tellius.
This isn't me about to go full woke "there's nothing addressing the innate brokenness of a feudal power structure in mah medieval fantasy! (though I do find it somewhat sillyi how very rarely the Fire Emblem series brings up the problematic nature of the feudal status quo you are just assumed to want to protect)" But it is me getting kind of bored with deposed princes and invading empires. The mechanics of Fire Emblem allow for MUCH more interesting backdrops, and watching Three Houses chafe against the formula, if only a bit, got me excited for the idea of a new potential perspective for the series.
Imagine a game where we play a mercenary who just... does jobs. Not "gets wrangled into supporting one monarch in her bid to retake her throne" like Ike, but who actually has a choice. We might just say "meh, Ashnard's a bastard, but why should you just get the throne back when he's gone?" Take a job from the noble, or don't, and it causes a branch in the game. Maybe you end up just making life better for people within the Empire, maybe you defeat the Empire, but the monarch you were hired by
... keep reading on reddit ➡‘Victorian literature’ meaning both sources written in and sources written about the Victorian era. A trope I’ve seen is that an upperclass’s child is being married off to an emerging middle class spouse to ‘save’ the upperclass family. But how could upperclass families be cash poor yet still pay for servants and upkeep of their estates? Wouldn’t owning land generate income?
One of my ancestors was Anglo-Irish landed gentry. He lived from 1821-1917. Next year is the 200th anniversary of his birth, and we are planning a family reunion in Ireland. I thought it would be interesting to prepare some foods that he may have eaten.
High likelihood my question gets buried there, so I thought I'd give it a try here as well, considering it was Jane Austen who got me on the subject.
In pre-modern England, the landed gentry were a social class whose primary income typically came from rent collection on their lands. What sort of tenants (and how many) did an average estate collect from? How long were typical tenants expected to remain, and what were their lives like?
I've gone down something of a historical rabbit-hole after a recent dive into some works by Jane Austen piqued my interest. English gentlemen like the fictional Darcy, Bingley, and Mr. Bennett engage in no visible employment I can discern, yet are said to have incomes in the thousands of pounds per year.
I have learned from my research that in most cases, gentry of their type derived this income from some variable combination of landleasing (Darcy and Mr. Bennett), enterprise (Bingley, whose trade is a mystery but does not possess an estate of his own), and annuities paid from government-issued "consols" (which comprised a major financial industry all their own during the period).
What I'm having more difficulty finding is information about the tenants themselves, the lower-class folk who attached themselves to estates such as Darcy's fictional Pemberley. I understand that the majority of these folk were farmers and/or keepers of livestock. Were there any other notable trades practiced by some of these tenants? Did they live on their patron's land? Did they build homes there? Did they commonly stay for life, or even generations? Was there such a thing as a "mere resident", who did not use the land for business or self-support, but merely for housing while their incomes were derived elsewhere?
Any additional reading you can offer me would be hugely appreciated. I find the whole period fascinating.
NOTE: I acknowledge that this topic might be of marginal relevancy to this Subreddit but permit myself to proceed in posting it because I believe that I am likely to find answers here.
The British Gentry is a class of nobility that is unique because it is not granted by the Monarch but self-assumed through:
- (Usually) posession of large amounts of land or descent from such a landowner, or male-line descent from a Peer (so all people who have the surname Windsor or Mountbatten-Windsor but no title are technically part of the Gentry)
- An ideally old coat of arms
The Gentry is the equivalent of Continental "lower nobility". Most Gentry families live or have historically lived in a Manor and performed agriculture, but some families are said to be "of a professional background" (i.e. entrepreneurs and managers), suggesting that anybody who amasses significant merits and wealth and is officially granted a Coat of Arms can assume Gentry status in time. I'm not going with Lyon Innes who says that a Coat of Arms automatically ennobles every time.
Are there any official prerequisites for entry into the class of Gentry? What are the criteria for the inclusion of a family in Burke's Landed Gentry?
