Gentry

Gentry is a largely historical term for the European social class of people who were "well-born, genteel and well-bred"... In its widest sense, it refers to people of good social position, from families of long descent, and connected to landed estates or the upper levels of the clergy (especially an established church). The gentry largely consisted of landowners who could live entirely from rental income, or at least had a country estate; some were gentleman farmers.
The British social class of landed gentry was distinct from, and socially below, the country's peerage, although in fact some of them were wealthier than some peers, and many were close relatives. The gentry were typically armigerous (having a coat of arms), but, owing to the primogeniture rules of the peerage of England (and elsewhere in the United Kingdom), most gentry did not have titles of nobility. In contrast, in Continental Europe where nobility and titles were inherited by more than one member of a family, a greater proportion of the population held titles. This was the case with the French and Polish landed gentry.
There were analogous traditional social elite strata based in cities. The adjective "patrician" ("of or like a person of high social rank") describes the governing elites in a medieval metropolis, such as those of the free cities of Italy (Venice and Genoa), and the free imperial cities of Germany, Switzerland, and the Hanseatic League.
The term "gentry" by itself, so Peter Coss argues, is a construct that historians have applied loosely to rather different societies. Any particular model may not fit a specific society, yet a single definition nevertheless remains desirable.Cambridge University Press 0521021006 - The Origins of the English Gentry Peter Coss The word derives from the Old French genterie, from gentil, 'high-born, noble'.
==Notes==
==References==
==External links==
 
Category:Nobility