Jasper County Democrat, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 December 1905 — What Was a Yeoman? [ARTICLE]

What Was a Yeoman?

The following quotation from Bishop Latimer’s “First Sermon Preached Before King Edward VI.” March 8, 1549, is a good illustration of the meaning of the word yeoman and shows the primitive manners and customs of those times: “My father was a yeoman and had no lands of his own, only he had a farm of £3 or £4 by year at the uttermost, and hereupon he tilled so much as kept lialf—a dezen men; —He had walk for 100 sheep, and my mother milked thirty kine. He was able and did find the king a harness, with himself and bis horse, while he came to the place that he should receive the king’s wages. I can remember that I buckled his harness when we went unto Blackheath field. He kept me to school or else I had not been able to have preached before the king’s majesty now. He married my sisters with £5, or 20 nobles apiece, so that he brought them up in godliness and fear of God. He kept hospitality for his poor neighbors, and some alms be gave to the poor. And all this he did of the said farm, where he that now bath it payeth £lO by year or more and is not able to do anything for bls prince, for himself nor for his children, or give a cup of drink to the poor.”—Notes and Queries.