Ruth Kelso' s Doctrine of the English Gentleman in the 16th Century
Source: Ruth Kelso. The Doctrine of the English Gentleman in
the 16th Century with a Bibliographical List of Treatises on the Gentleman and
Related Subjects Published in Europe to 1625. Gloucester, Mass: Peter Smith,
1964. Copyright, 1929 by University of Illinois Press. Reprinted, 1964 by
Permission of University of Illinois Press.
Transcription conventions: to the edition cited as the source. Words or
phrases singled out for indexing are marked by plus signs. In the index,
numbers in parentheses indicate how many times the item appears. A slash
followed by a number indicates a note at the end of the page.
CONTENTS:
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER II WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN
CHAPTER III THE THEORY OF THE FAVORED CLASS
CHAPTER IV OCCUPATIONS FOR THE GENTLEMAN
CHAPTER V THE MORAL CODE OF THE GENTLEMAN
CHAPTER VI THE EDUCATION OF THE GENTLEMAN
CHAPTER VII STUDIES
CHAPTER VIII EXCERCISE AND RECREATION CONCLUSION
FORWARD TO BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOURCES
Index:
| Acteon+(1)| action+(7)| active_life+(1)| adaptibility+(1)| Aesop+(1)| affability+(1)| affaires+(1)| affectation+(1)| Affectation+(1)| affected+(1)| Agricola+(1)| Agrippa+(2)| Alexander+(1)| Allen+(1)| ancients+(4)| ancient_learning+|angels+(1)| anger+(1)| appetite+(1)| apprenticeshi+(1)| Aquinas+(3)| aristocracy+(2)| Aristophanes+(1)| Aristotelian+(5)| Aristotle+(15)|Aristotle's Ethics(1)| Aristotles_Morall_vertues+(1)| arquebus+(1)| art+(1)| art_of_loving+(1)|| Art+(1)| arts_liberal+(1)| Ascham+(13)| Astronomie+(1)| astronomy+(1)| Astronomy+(1)| Augustine+(2)| avarice+(2)| Bacon+(9)| Baldwin+(1)| Ball+(2)| Bellay+(1)| Bembo+(3)| beneficence+(1)| benevolence+(1)| bestow+(1)| bestowing+(1)| Bible+(2)| binding+(1)| Blundeville+(1)| boasted+(1)| Boccaccio+(1)| Bodin+(1)| bondes+(1)| Bossewell+(1)| Botero+(1)| Brantome+(1)| Bryskett+(1)| Burckhardt+(1)| burden+(2)| Burghley+(4)| Burke+(1)| burthen+(1)| Caesar+(2)| Cain+(1)| Calthorpe+(1)| Camden+(1)| Card-playing+(1)| carelessness+(2)| Carlyle+(1)| Castiglione+(19)| Caxton+(1)| charity+(1)| Charles_VIII+(1)| Chastalio+(1)| Chaucer+(1)| Cheke+(2)| Cherbury+(3)| chess+(1)| Christ+(3)| Christian_ethics+(1)| Churchyard+(1)| Cicero+(14)| Ciceronian+(2)| citizens+(1)| Civil_law+(1)| civilians+(1)| classical+(2)| classical_tradition+(1)| Cleland+(10)| Cockaine+(1)| code_of_honor+(1)| Coke+(1)| Colet+(2)| College_of_Arms+(1)| Columbus+(2)| comelynesse+(1)| commerce+(1)| Commines+(1)| common_lawes+(1)| commonal_tie+(1)| comparing+(1)| condescension+(1)| conscience+(1)| Constable+(1)| contemplative+(1)| Copernicus+(1)| Corderius+(1)| cosmography+(1)| counsel+(1)| counsellor+(1)| courage+(3)| courtier+(3)| curiosity+(1)| Curtius+(1)| dancing+(1)| Daniel+(2)| Dante+(1)| Davidson+(1)| de+(1)| de_Officiis+(2)| dedes+(1)| Dee+(1)| deeds+(1)| Della_Casa+(2)| democratic+(1)| Demosthenes+(1)| dice+(1)| Digges+(1)| Divinitie+(1)| Donne+(1)| Drake+(2)| drawing+(1)| due+(2)| dueling+(1)| dueling_code+(1)| Duells+(1)| duetifull+(1)| duty+(3)| Dyer+(1)| education+(3)| Edward_IV+(1)| Edward_VI+(1)| Elizabeth+(4)| Elyot+(25)| endurance+(1)| Equity+(1)| Erasmus+(12)| Essex+(2)| Euphues+(2)| Euripides+(1)| Eutopians+(1)| examples+(1)| Faerie_Queene+(1)| favors+(1)| fence+(1)| Fern+(1)| Ferne+(1)| fidelit+(1)| figures+(2)| flatterer+(1)| Florio+(2)| Football+(1)| foreign_languages+(1)| foresight+(1)| fortitude+(4)| Fortitude+(1)| Fortune+(1)| Francis_I+(1)| French+(1)| friends+(1)| friendship+(1)| Frisius+(1)| Frobisher+(1)| Frobusher+(1)| Fyguratyve+(1)| Gascoigne+(2)| Gauricus+(1)| generosity+(2)| Genoese+(1)| Germane+(1)| Gibbon+(1)| Gilbert+(2)| giving+(1)| glories+(1)| glory+(2)| Glover+(1)| God's_viceroy+(1)| golden_rul+(1)| Goldin+(1)| Gosson+(1)| govern_himself+(1)| grac+(1)| grace+(1)| graciousness+(2)| grammar+(1)| grammar_schools+(2)| Grammer+(1)| gratitude+(3)| grave+(1)| Gravyty+(1)| Greece+(1)| Greek+(2)| Greville+(2)| Grocyn+(1)| Guazzo+(3)| Guevara+(1)| Guicciardini+(1)| Gulliver+(1)| Halicarnassus+(1)| Harvard+(1)| Harvey+(1)| Hatton+(1)| Hayward+(1)| hazardes+(1)| Hebrew+(2)| Henry_II+(1)| Henry_VII+(2)| Henry_VIII+(2)| heraldry+(1)| heralds+(1)| Hermogenes+(1)| Herodotus+(1)| Heroical_Poesie+(1)| Hesiod+(1)| Hippocrates+(1)| historian+(1)| histories+(1)| history+(2)| History+(1)| Hoby+(4)| Holland+(1)| Hollybande+(1)| Homer+(1)| Homere+(1)| honestie+(2)| Hooker+(1)| Horace+(2)| horsemanship+(1)| hospitality+(1)| humanis+(1)| humanistic+(1)| humanists+(1)| humanities+(1)| humanity+(1)| humility+(1)| Humphrey+(4)| hunting_and_hawking+(1)| imitation+(1)| individualism+(1)| individualistic+(1)| injury+(2)| inkhorn+(1)| Inns_of_Court+(3)| institution+(1)| Institutions+(1)| integrity+(1)| Integrity+(1)| Isocrates+(2)| Italian+(1)| James_I+(2)| Jerome+(1)| John_Silver+(1)| Jonson+(1)| Jovius+(1)| justice+(8)| Justice+(3)| Justice_of_Peace+(1)| justice_of_the_peace+(2)| Justinian+(2)|Juvenal(1)| Languet+(1)| Latimer+(2)| Latinity+(1)| Law+(1)| lawes+(1)| lawyer+(1)| learning+(1)|| Legh+(1)| Leicester+(2)| liberal_arts+(3)| Liberal_studie+(1)| liberal_studies+(1)| liberality+(1)| liberall_sciences+(1)| Licurgus+(1)| lie+(2)| Linacre+(2)| Lipsius+(3)| logic+(2)| Logic+(1)| Logicke+(1)| long_bow+(2)| Lord_Mayor+(1)| Lucian+(1)| luxuriously+(1)| luxury+(1)| Lycaon+(1)| Lyly+(6)| Machiavelli+(1)| Machiavellian+(1)| Magelanns+(1)| Magellan+(1)| magnanimity+(1)| Majestie+(1)| majesty+(1)| Markham+(1)| mastery_of_himself+(1)| mathematics+(2)| mechanicall+(1)| Mercator+(1)| merchant+(1)| merit+(2)| Milles+(1)| modesty+(2)| monarchy+(1)| moral_code+(1)| More+(4)| Morgan+(1)| Mulcaster+(9)| music+(1)| Music+(2)| Muzio+(2)| nature+(1)| neighbors+(1)| Newman+(1)| nil_admirari+(1)| Noah+(1)| noblesse_oblige+(1)| Noue+(1)| obligations+(1)| orator+(2)| orator_citizens+(1)| organic_theory+(1)| Ortelius+(2)| Osorius+(5)| Ovid+(1)| Papistry+(1)| papists+(1)| parents+(1)| Parsons+(1)| patience+(2)| Patrizi+(3)| Peacham+(9)| Peacham_the_elder+(1)| Penshurst+(1)| Persius+(1)| philosopher+(3)| philosopher-kings+(1)| philosophy+(3)| Philosophy+(3)| Phisicke+(1)| Piccolomini+(3)| piety+(2)| Pindar+(1)| Plato+(10)| Plautus+(1)| Plutarch+(3)| poetry+(1)| Poetry+(1)| Polonius+(1)| Pontano+(2)| Pope+(1)| Pope_Leo_X+(1)| Portia+(1)| preciosity+(1)| prentice+(1)| Primaudaye+(1)| primogeniture+(1)| Princess_Mary+(1)| printed_books+(1)| Protestant+(1)| Protestantism+(1)| prudence+(2)| Ptolomy+(1)| puritanic+(2)| puritans+(1)| purity+(1)| quality+(1)| Queen_Anne+(1)| Quintilian+(2)| Rabelais+(1)| Raleigh+(4)| Ralph_Broke+(1)| Ratcliff+(1)| reason+(8)| reciproke+(1)| Reformation+(1)| reputation+(5)| responsibilities+(1)| responsibility+(2)| self-restraint+(1)| retail+(1)| revengment+(1)| rhetoric+(5)| Rhetorick+(1)| Rhetoricke+(1)| Rich+(1)| rich_traders+(1)| righteousness+(1)| Rome+(1)| Romei+(1)| Rowbothum+(1)| Russian+(1)| Sackville+(1)| Sallust+(1)| sapience+(1)| Saviolo+(3)| scholarship+(1)|science(1)| Scipio+(1)| Seneca+(2)| sentences+(1)| Sertorius+(1)| seven_deadly_sins+(1)| Shakespeare+(4)| Sheffield+(1)| Shrewsbury+(1)| Sidney+(10)| Sidney's_Arcadia+(1)| Silius+(1)| Sleidanus+(1)| sloath+(1)| Smith+(2)| social+(1)| social_instinct+(1)| society+(1)| Socrates+(1)| sophistry+(1)| soul+(1)| Southwell+(1)| Spenser+(9)| sprezzatura+(1)| stoic+(1)| Stoics+(2)| Stoiks+(1)| strangers+(1)| Sturm+(3)| superstition+(1)| Surrey+(1)| Swimming+(1)| Tacitus+(2)| Tasso+(1)| temperance+(5)| Temperance+(2)| Tennis+(1)| Terence+(1)| Teutonic+(1)| Theology+(1)| theoretical+(1)| Thucydides+(1)| Tiraquellus+(1)| Touchstone+(1)| translators+(1)| treatmen+(1)| triumphant_force+(1)| Tullie+(1)| Tully+(1)| tutors+(1)| United_States+(1)| universal+(2)| usefulness+(1)| usurer+(1)| Valerius+(1)| valor+(1)| Venetians+(1)| Venice+(1)| Vesputius+(1)| Victoria+(1)| Virgil+(1)| triumphant-virtue+(1)| Virtues_List+(2)| Vives+(3)| walking+(1)| Walsingham+(1)| Walton+(1)| Walworth+(1)| Wars_of_the_Rose+(1)| wealth+(1)| wisdom+(1)| Wolsey+(1)| word+(1)| wordes+(1)| words+(1)| Wrestling+(1)| Wyat+(1)| Xenophon+(1)| yeoman+(1)| xzeal+(1)`
THE DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY3
[frontispiece elyot.tif] SIR THOMAS ELYOT From Bartolozzi's engaving of Holbein's drawing.
TO
H. S. V. J.
WHOM HIS STUDENTS
REVERE AND LOVE
AS A SCHOLAR AND A GENTLEMAN
PREFACE
A treatise upon treatises of the sixteenth century--that age of
letters dedicatory and prefaces explanatory--would surely go ill-furnished into
the world without some foreword, to disarm new critics, perhaps, and to thank
old.
This survey of renaissance ideals has taken into
account, as the title indicates, only the theoretical+ discussions. The mass of
material is so great, when continental as well as English output is considered,
that it seemed worth while to set these limits, and leave for other studies the
fields of history and fiction. Continental works were of course necessarily
taken into account if only because so many of them were known in England either
in the original, or in translation, and because on many aspects of the subject
the English wete willing to let Italians or Frenchmen speak for them.
Such explorations as this of the social+ background
of literature are of interest for the subject itself, but have also more value
than we have been wont to think for the light that they throw on literary
problems. It seems safe to assume for example that after a study of these
documents no one would consider it worth while to argue whether Shakespeare+
showed any democratic+ leanings in his treatment of his mobs. This treatise is
only a very modest excursion, but suggestive at least, I hope, of the further
richer results awaiting more judicious adventurers.
Like all students I bear the pleasant burden+ of
gratitude+ to others for their assistance: first and chiefly to Dr. H. S. V.
Jones, my colleague and friend, under whom the study was first undertaken in
course for the doctor's degree, for the suggestion of the subject and for his
unfailing encouragement and able criticism; to Dr. W. L. Bullock, who has given
most generously of his time and library to the making of the Italian section of
the bibliographical list; to Dr. Hardin Craig for helpful suggestions and
encouragement; and to others too numerous to mention. I want to take this
opportunity likewise to acknowledge my heavy debt to the Library of the Britsh
Museum and its officials, for the materials so generously made available to
wandering scholars, and for the uniform courtesy and patience shown in bringing
out the seemingly endless stream of books examined. My thanks are due also to
the University of Illinois for enabling me to publish my results. Urbana,
Illinois, March 30, 1929 RUTH KELSO
THE DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN IN THE SIXTEENTH
CENTURY
CHAPTER I+
INTRODUCTION
Of all the researches magnificent that have engaged the human spirit the most honorable and the most ancient has been the quest for the perfect man. Poets and philosophers have gone on pilgrimage; and Diogenes with his antern is not an eccentric, but a type and a symbol. Though the image has varied with time and place, like the ancestral portraits of an ancient house a family resemblance shows in Greek and Roman, medieval and renaissance ideals despite disguising robe, ruff, or coat of mail. The roots of every age lie buried deep in the past, and most of what seems new in one age is only the re-flowering of old things that have lain dormant or unnoticed. Yet any attempt to set forth the ideal of human, personal perfection which an age sought for itself presents peculiar difficulties because of the protean character of ideals-they will scarcely bear seizing; and in the English renaissance, with its sharp contrasts and contradictions-its intellectualism and its bestiality,its reverence for authority in the ancients and its originality-the/1 difficulties are multiplied. For us today such a study, however, is of particular interest because the perfect man of the renaissance bears a modern look and we have not yet found a better name express our ideal than that of gentleman, which the sixteenth century first made current. The adoption of the name is in itself significant of the setting-in of the new current which marks the modern period. It indicates the broadened base of the ideal and its greater attainableness. The perfect man of the Greeks was the philosopher+, admittedly realizable by only a few individuals in the state. The loftiest conception of the Romans was the orator+, obviously also of extremely limited distribution. The ideal of chivalry belonged only to the warrior class of the middle ages, and the courtier+ of the Italian renaissance could live only in the palaces of princes. But the gentleman of England was a pattern men might take to themselves not merely at the court and on the battlefield, but in the universities, in
12 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [12
the halls of justice, and even the countinghouse. It may be doing,
however, a sort of violence to the facts to talk of the English ideal, since
strictly speaking, in England there was not one but many,the courtier's, the
scholar's, the lawyer's, the soldier's, the statesman's, the merchant'sbut all
proudly claimed the name of gentleman, and today no origin is so mean, no
calling so mechanical as to shut out a man from striving to become a gentleman.
Thus have class prerogative and exterior marking fallen away from the ideal,
and inner qualities of mind and character received increasing emphasis. So far
has the process gone, indeed, that men wish to lay hold of the title through
sheer possession of a common humanity, as if to say, "I am a man and
therefore a gentleman," and thus are emptying the term of meaning; but in
its most indiscriminate use it still bears witness to the impulse of man to
walk erect, and even yet covers more amply than any other one word all that we
prize in man.
What was this ideal of Elizabethan England? Whence
came it, and how did it differ from its forerunners? In answering, one is
reminded of Portia+'s flippant words: "How oddly he is suited! I think he
bought his doublet in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany
and his behaviour everywhere." Whether the English gentleman was an
eclectic in his choice of fashions and manners, or merely indiscriminately
hospitable may be a fair question, but it is true that he fashioned himself as
well as his clothes on a pattern more noteworthy for its motley effect than for
its harmony. To speak broadly, his virtues, his statecraft and his pedagogy he
took from the Greeks and Romans, his manners in peace and his conduct in war
from chivalry, his fundamental notion of his favored position in the state from
medieval politicians, and on top of all he claimed to be a Christian. He was
therefore both the latest fashion in perfection of a long series, and also a
composite of all the ideals which the history of western Europe has recorded.
Could the philosopher, the orator, the knight, the courtier, and the gentleman
have met together, they would have found that beneath the surface they had much
in common. Aristotle+, they would have agreed, had set forth adequately the
private virtues, without which no man may lift his head above his fellows. The
ostentatious rich man, the arrogant fool, the profligate, and the corrupt in
high places, they would all have condemned with equal scorn, and praised with
equal zeal+ modesty+ and graciousness+, self-restraint+ and generosity+,
13] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN * 13
courage+ and justice+. The public duty of unselfish devotion to the best
interests of the state would have had as eager support from the knight as from
the philosopher. The differences which appear lie in the type of public service
demanded, and consequently in the equipment required for the performance of
duties, in the social qualities desired, and in the countless details of
manners, dress, forms of recreation, besides the subtle shadings that morals
themselves take on with the change of times.
The difficulty of arriving at a fair representation
of the Elizabethan ideal of the gentleman is indicated by this variety of its
sources, which often present incompatible if not warring elements. The
renaissance claimed that it drew its morality from Christianity, that is from the
church fathers, and made use of pagan philosophers only in so far as they were
compatible with Christianity and reinforced it. The two systems of morality,
however, are fundamentally irreconcilable, one a system of renunciation, of
abasement of the individual; the other a system of expansion, of perfection of
the individual. It is easy to guess which formed the real basis of renaissance
ethics. And yet Christian_ethics+cannot be left out of the account. Likewise
what may be called national and foreign elements entered into conflict. So
potent was the influence of contemporary Italian and French thought that
through translations and adaptations the expression of the English ideal took
on a character opposed in many respects to actual English conditions and ideas,
and it is hard to say how much of the borrowed matter is to be considered a
corporate part of the English ideal. Thus Castiglione+'s Courtier presented in
Hoby+'s English dress becomes to all appearance and intention an English book,
and the recommended bible of the gentleman; and yet in many respects the ideal
of the Italian courtier seems never to have become the ideal of the English
gentleman. The ingredients, as may be seen, are greatly mixed.
The scope of the subject, moreover, is not apparent
at first glance, for its ramifications are many and often unexpected. Every
office and aspect of life was ordered for the gentleman by the fundamental
assumption that he was the example, the leader, the governor of the common
people, and must therefore be distinguished from them. To fill his place in the
hierarchy of this world, he must be better born and better educated, have
better manners, wear better clothes, and wear them more gracefully, live in a
larger and more beautiful house, find recreation in more refined and more
taxing
14 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [14
amusements, look to his morals more closely, cherishing above all things
a fine sense of honor,in short, never forget his essential superiority to the
rabble. Consequently those concerned to foster and improve the qualities needed
for a governing class, according to their own interest and their degree, poured
forth "Institutions+," "Moral_Methods+,"
"Courtiers," "Governors," "Complete Gentlemen,"
"Schoolmasters," "Quintessences of Wit," "Blazons of
Gentry," "Books of Honor and Arms," of "Horsemanship,"
of "Hunting and Hawking." If England lacked any store of perfect
gentlemen in Elizabeth's days, it was not for lack of good advice and rules,
administered in straight, unsugared style, or sweetly coated in a Euphues+ or
Faerie_Queene+, in case, as Spenser+ said, men preferred to read for amusement
rather than profit. Academic as much of this discussion seems today, outgrown
and discarded, in the sixteenth century it still had vital import. For though
the century saw the ending of the nobility as a real class through the loss of
a business peculiar to it, military service, and through the shift of emphasis
to civil service, the form still remained and with it the power. In affairs of
state the gentleman still bore the responsibility for all the good and all the
evil of the day. So Lawrence Humphrey wrote of his book, "I attempted to
describe the ryghte pathe to Nobilitye, Syth of it, whatsoever eyther felicitye
or calamitye, is in our present state, seemeth to issue."./1 The
conditions which brought about the change from the knight to the gentleman are
complex, and cannot be analyzed here in detail, but the main facts are
generally known, and a brief outline will be sufficient to suggest the source
of the ideal and the background against which it is to be projected.
Tudor policy resulted in concentrating political
power in the sovereign and making the court the real center of the country. The
Wars_of_the_Rose+ had destroyed the last of the great self-sustaining
establishments of the nobles, and the Tudors took care to reduce the power of
the old nobility still further, partly by repressive laws regarding the size of
their households, keeping of retainers, and so forth, and even by execution
when desirable; and partly by encouraging the rise of a new nobility, often
from the plebeian class, through judiciously distributed offices and the
confiscated lands and titles of the old nobility. By Elizabeth's time the court
was looked upon as the chief means of rising, and the crown as the chief
dispenser of ------
1 The Nobles, aVIb.
15] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 15
rewards. Moreover peace abroad and a greater degree of security at home
contributed toward the identification of English interests with the sovereign,
and a growing enthusiasm for him as English prestige increased abroad. "It
is no small comforte unto an English Gentleman," writes an apologist for
monarchy+, "finding himselfe in a farre countrey, when he may boldly shew
his face and his forehead unto any forren Nation; sit side by side with the
proudest Spaniard; cheek by cheeke with the stoutest German; set foote to foote
with the forewardest Frenchman, knowing that his most Royal Prince (her
Majesties highness) is no whitte subjecte, nor inferiour unto any of
theirs."/2 The increasing intricacy of foreign affairs furnished more
opportunities for distinguished careers abroad, the door to which could be
opened only by the sovereign's hand.
Thus political conditions conspired with the
unwarlike character of all the Tudors to shift the emphasis from military to
civil service, and the knight became the gentleman, a man dedicated essentially
to the pursuits of peace.
A still more fundamental element in the change was
the spread of education+ among both the lower classes and the upper. Here the
revival of ancient_learning+ under Italian influence did some of its most
far-reaching work in setting new ideals of education, giving it a new spirit
and a new content, and in secularizing it. Education in England had been under
the domination of the churchno one else had been interested in dominating itand
was therefore primarily directed to the training of churchmen, who then, after
becoming churchmen, might devote their talents to serving political as well as
ecclesiastical lords. As long as opportunities for education were furnished
largely by church schools preferment to office lay also through the church, and
the result was to limit the number of educated men, and particularly of men
trained in law, oratory, history, languages,the equipment of the statesman and
the politician. Secularization of education, therefore, was necessary to the
building up of a new group of men, laymen who, under old titles, became more and
more identified with the permanent business of government. The closing of the
monastery schools in 1535 gave added impetus to the development of secular
schools, turning men as a result away from the church as a vocation. When
education, the key to office, could be had beyond the shadow of church doors,
especially when the head of the church was no longer a pope but a
------
2 Merbury, A Briefe Discourse of Royall Monarchie, p. 4.
16 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [16
prince of the royal house, men no longer troubled to take spiritual
orders for secular affairs. But the work of Colet+, Linacre+, Grocyn+, More+,
Elyot+ had already before the destruction of the monasteries set English
education into new channels, and grammar_schools+ for poor boys were springing
up everywhere at the same time that at court and in the houses of the great
nobles the new learning was being taught by tutors+ like Sir John Cheke+ and
Roger Ascham+ to the sons of gentlemen.
The contribution of the printer to the spread of
education must also be taken into account. It is significant that the same
century that witnessed the increase in schools and the inauguration of a new
movement in education witnessed also the beginning of the age of
printed_books+, and therefore of cheap and accessible books. No small credit
should also go to the tribe of translators+ who arose for their zeal in opening
up the treasures of the ancients+ and the stimulating thought of renaissance
Italy and France to the plain man whose Latinity+ was far to seek.
Another powerful factor in the enlargement of the
gentle class, was the increase in wealth+. The steady Tudor policy of
encouraging commerce resulted in the rise of a large, wealthy merchant class,
which not only held considerable power in its own hands through possessing the
purse-strings, but furnished recruits for the ranks of nobles and, what was
more important economically, opened up new occupations for the younger sons of
nobles. Not only the merchant+ but all classes, artisan and yeoman+ as well,
prospered, and evidence is abundant that the lines which separated gentleman
from plebeian were scarcely discernible so far as habits of living were
concerned. Such blurring of class lines exerted a definite influence on the
conception of what the character and office of a gentleman should be by
increasing the pressure from below and consequently by enlarging the class
itself.
No better summing up of the period can be found
perhaps than that of Samuel Daniel+ in his history of England: "A time not
of that viriliti as the former, but more subtile, and let out into wider
notions, and bolder discoveries of what lay hidden before. A time wherein began
a greater improvement of the Soveraigntie, and more came to be effected by wit
then the sword: Equal and just incounters, of State and State in forces, and of
Prince, and Prince in sufficiencie. The opening of a new world, which strangely
altered the manner of this, inhancing both the rate of all things, by the
induction of infinite Treasure, & opened
17] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 17
a wider way to corruption, whereby Princes got much without their
swords: Protections, & Confederations to counterpoyse, & prevent over,
growing powers, came to bee maintained with larger pensions. Leidger
Ambassadors first imployed abroad for intelligences. Common Banks erected, to
returne and furnish moneys for these businesses. Besides strange alterations in
the State Ecclesiasticall: religion brought forth to bee an Actor in the
greatest Designs of Ambition and Faction."/3 Out of all these things and
by them is produced the gentleman of the last quarter of the sixteenth century.
Three significant developments are to be noted: the shifting of emphasis to
civil employments; the addition of learning as necessary equipment; and the
beginning of the democratization of the gentleman.
The purpose of this study, therefore, is to set forth
what the sixteenth century called the institution+ of the gentleman, meaning
thereby, as Mulcaster explains, the entering of "the young and untravelled
student into that profession whereunto thei belong."/4 More than that, it
is for us today the entering into the ideal which men still aim at in their
search for personal perfection, and in their acknowledgment of a new
noblesse_oblige+, public service whether in a public or private capacity. Such
a survey will include consideration of the place the gentleman was accorded in
the general scheme of things, the particular offices he might most fittingly
perform, his special moral_code+ which involved the so-called code of honor and
its accompaniment of dueling, the education necessary to fit him for those
offices both in mind and body, his manners, his dress and equipage, his
pastimeseverything which may become a man. This study of the personal ideals of
the age will, it is hoped, contribute something to the history of social
ideals, and illuminate if only by a flash here and there certain aspects of the
great literature of the Elizabethan period. For the image which arises Out of
the confusion of ideas, elusive yet alluring, graces in corporeal form the
court of Elizabeth, and lives for us no less actually in the pages of
Shakespeare+.
------
3Daniel, The Collection of the History of England, "Epistle Dedicatory," London, 1626,
Grosart ed., vol. IV, p. 77.
4 Elementarie, cap. XXVII, p.
227.
CHAPTER II+
WHAT IS A GENTLEMAN?
Before proceeding to the business in hand it would be well
doubtless to begin in the time-honored way with a definition, supposing, as the
sixteenth century firmly believed, "that from good definition the solution
of all doubts which occur in science springeth,"/4 although the results in
this case, it must be admitted, tend rather to confuse than to clear the mind.
Like every other term which covers an accumulated array of abstractions,
gentleman has teased men to attempt definition and at the same time has eluded
them; far easier is it to recognize a gentleman than to say what makes one.
Sixteenth century England was particularly interested in the problem, since
those who lacked the title were busy trying to acquire it, and those who had it
were anxious to resist encroachment, but the sixteenth century was no more
successful than its predecessors in arriving at a complete, unambiguous, and
generally acceptable definition. The methods of the renaissance scholars, to
begin with, doomed their efforts to failure, for they made little attempt to
approach the subject from a fresh point of view, but accepted the accumulations
of the past, drawing indiscriminately from the laws, the ancients, the church
fathers, and the poets, and likewise from the prolific treatises of
contemporary Italy and France. If what Plato+, Cicero+, Justinian+, Thomas Aquinas+,
Dante+, and every commentator and interpreter of renaissance Italy and France
have to say on nobility must be worked somehow into the definition of the true
gentleman, no reasonable, consistent, clear result is possible. The vocabulary
which they had to employ was time-worn also and contributed to the confusion.
Nobility, gentility, and generosity were used in two senses, in the general
sense common today to mean excellence of kind, and applicable to inanimate as
well as to animate objects, to animals as well as to men; and in a special
sense, almost if not quite lost today, to indicate position in society./2 The
arguments over the proper signification of these words arose
------
1 Romei, The Courtiers Academie,
p. 191.
2 Tiraquellus, De Nobilitate, cap. 2, pp. 1-24. 18
19] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 19
largely through the inevitable attempt of moralists to include the first
meaning in the second. In this special sense of social prominence the three terms,
which passed currently for synonyms, were felt to mean different things, but
there was no agreement upon the differences./3 Up to the middle of the century
nobility was the general word employed to signify the status of a man who stood
above the common crowd through the possession of special rights, privileges,
and powers, conferred either by the king or by noble descent. All who ranked
above plebeians therefore were called noble. By the end of the century however,
common usage restricted noble to the upper ranks, that is, of baron and above,
and thus associated it with titles rather than with qualities either of birth
or person./4 Gentility, or gentry, by this time had taken the place of nobility
as the general term to mark the distinction between high and low, as this
passage from Segar illustrates: "We in England doe divide our men into
five sorts: Gentlemen, Citizens, Yeomen, Artificers, and Labourers. Of
Gentlemen, the first and principal is the King, Prince, Dukes, Marquesses,
Earls, Vicounts, and Barons. These are the Nobilitie, and be called Lords, or
Noblemen. Next to these be Knights, Esquiers, and simple Gentlemen, which last
number may be called Nobilitas minor."/5 But gentility was also used for
the lowest order above the plebeian, the foundation upon which all the other
orders should be built, and was therefore differentiated from nobility as an
inner and inherited quality which distinguished all who had it from plebeians,
and of which nobility with its titles was the outward sign./6 The simple
gentleman, the lord, and the prince all prided themselves first of all on being
gentlemen; as Mulcaster+ put it, "Truth being the private protest of a
gentleman, honour of a noble man, fayth of a Prince, yet generally they do all
joine in this. As they be true, gentlemen."/7 Glover+, indeed, expressly
said that nobility and gentility were not one and the same thing, because
gentility was natural, belonging to a certain good family or stock. Nobility
was
------
3 Glover, Catalogue of Honour,
trans. Mines, p. 9.
4 Op. cit., "Parergon,"
Milles' comment on Glover, p. 24.
5 Segar, Honor Military, and Civill,
London, 1602, lib. 2, cap. 1, p. 51. See also Selden, Titles of Honor, London, 1631, pt. II, chap. VIII, p. 866 where
Selden translates nobilitas gentry,
and nobilis gentleman, and Ferne,
The Blazon of Gentrie, P. 85.
6 See Romei, op. cit., p. 225.
7 Positions, rep. London, 1888,
p. 198.
20 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [20
civil or political, involving particular privileges, and it might belong
to the son and not to the father, and might be lost either voluntarily or
through crime. A bill of attainder, for example, could deprive a nobleman of an
ancient house and his heirs of titles and lands, and another bill restore them
again; but no bill could change the blood that flowed in their veins into
something low and plebeian. The privileges of rank, indeed, could not be
dependent on birth, because otherwise a new prince would be lower than a mere
gentleman of ancient family./8 Nobility and gentility in reality often did not
mean the same thing, since kings in their wisdom sometimes saw fit to confer
high rank not only on the base-born but on wicked and worthless men, and hence
arose the often repeated boast, "The king cannot make a gentleman."
Blurred as class lines became during the sixteenth century, and new as many of
England's prominent families were, the idea that gentility meant fundamentally
gentle birth was never lost. Sir Thomas Smith might admit gentlemen made
"good cheape" to the name, but he defined gentlemen as those whom
their blood and race "cloth make noble and known."/9 The other term
generosity, when differentiated from nobility, had reference like gentility to
personal qualities rather than dignities and honors, and when differentiated
from gentility, to merit rather than birth./10 But even in the midst of
definitions writers "wittingly confound" the three terms, and leave
them with little more value than synonyms,/11 and it is as synonyms that they
will be employed in the following pages.
Such were the difficulties imposed on sixteenth
century definers of nobility by the dead weight of authority and the confusion
of terms, and out of them arise the difficulties of the student of today who
would learn what the much bandied word gentleman meant to the educated
Englishman of the renaissance. So much that was quoted was quoted
perfunctorily, so much that was said was said ambiguously, that what follows
must be taken purely tentatively. On no other subject is it less safe to be dogmatic.
Out of the double meanings that nobility with its
synonyms -----
8 Op. cit., pp. 12, 13.
9 De Republica Anglorum, lib. I,
ch. 20, rep. 1906, p. 38.
10 Selden, op. cit., p. 857;
Tiraquellus, op. cit., cap. 2, p.
19, 147. "Nobile enim id esse, quod ex bono produit genere, generosum quod
non a sua natura degenerat."
11 For example, Ferne, op. cit.,
p. 5; Mulcaster, op. cit., p.
198; Humphrey, who urges the new nobles to study their book in order "to
join and purchase ancient noblesse to this their new gentry," The
Nobles, fo. A6b; Selden, op. cit., p. 858.
21] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 21 was made to bear arose its
classification by the medievalists into three kinds: Christian or theological,
natural or philosophical, and scivil or political. The first, Christian
nobility, is founded on religion; given by God to the elect, it is the highest
kind and most to be desired; but since it falls inscrutably upon some whom the
world dishonors, slaves for instance, and not upon all whom it honors, it must
be left to God and the theologians. Thus a ready answer was found for those who
tried to use this kind of nobility as an argument against the recognition of
ranks in Society. The second, natural nobility, comes through perfection of nature,
and belongs to all things animate and inanimate, according as they perform
their functions properly. The peculiar function of man is to live according to
reason+, that is to be virtuous; but so difficult is this of achievement that
this kind of nobility belongs only to philosophers to understand. Thus were
answered those who would deny nobility and therefore obedience to wicked men,
tyrants. The third, civil nobility, is founded on custom, and comes from honors
bestowed by princes; it can therefore be discussed by everybody, learned and
unlearned./12 Renaissance writers often began with this classification and
sometimes attempted to use it as the basis of their discussion, but usually
they abandoned it without ceremony, after paying their respects to it, or like
Muzio+ finally gave up in despair and left the task to their readers. "Fit
what I say in my confused discourse," said Muzio, "to whichever sort
it belongs."/13 For practical purposes, however, these three kinds of
nobility, as Milles+ said; are not "so at odds within themselves that
their natures and their essences admit no reconciliation or may not be united
in one person all together."/14 The third, as a matter of fact, is all
that we need to concern ourselves with here, since by the generally accepted
definition it included all the variants of human nobility, whether it arose
from birth, virtue, learning, office, or honors bestowed by the king. So
Milles, aiming to "redeeme so faire a Subject . . . . from the wandering
Ideas of discoursing Phylosophers, and contemplative Divines," defined
civil nobility as "a dignity bestowed by Sovereigne Grace upon Persons of
Vertue or hability, for life, or forever, wherby a Man exempted and raised
-----
12 Upton, De Studio Militari,
lib. I, cap. XIX, pp. 64-67; Selden, op. cit., Preface,
13 Gentilhuomo, 1571, lib. II, p.
I14.
14 Op. cit.,
"Peroration," fo. K4b. 22 DOCTRINE OF
THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [22 by Degrees,
becomes lawfully preferred above the vulgar People, the better to do service,
to the King and Common-wealth./15 This civil nobility was usually considered to
be of two sorts, derived either by direct acquisition from the prince, and then
called nobility dative, or by descent from noble ancestors and then called
nobility native./16 It will help to keep the distinction.
Nobility native was the most obvious and most
desirable kind of nobility. Among the common people the name of an old house
coupled with a lordly air and a velvet cloak constituted the chief claim to the
title of gentleman; and though, as Bodin+ remarked, "It is one thing to
reason of degrees in the assembly of wise men and another thing to do it in the
presence of the vulgar sort and scum of people,"/17 even in the assembly
of wise men of the sixteenth century descent from an ancient and noble house
was to be accounted "a blessing to thank God for."/18 The presumption
at least was always in favor of the gentleman-born; he achieved in a moment
what the base-born must labor years to attain, for he had opportunity, expectation
of success, and all the assistance that his position, connections with the
powerful, and reverence from his inferiors could give." The truly noble of
course followed in the footsteps of their illustrious ancestors, but as Sir
Thomas Smith said, "If they doe not, yet the fame and wealth of their
auncestors serve to cover them so long as it can, as a thing once gifted though
it be copper within, till the gilt be worne away."/19 Other reasons for
valuing gentle birth, however, bore great weight with the true gentleman.
Aristotle+ taught that those sprung of better stock are likely to be better
men, inheriting an inclination to do well and to shun evi1./20 Experience shows
that men, like animals, birds, and trees, produce their kind; from one house
proceed virtuous, brave, wise men, from another the opposite. Bad education, it
was admitted, and free will to choose between virtue and vice may give a
worthless son to an excellent father, but to begin -----
15 Op. cit., Peroration, fo. K6a.
See also Meriton, A Sermon of Nobility, fo. C4a.
16 Glover, op. cit., pp. 9-18.
17 The Six Bookes of a Commonweale,
trans. Rich. Knolles, London, 1606, bk. III, cap. 8, p. 396.
18 Castiglione, The Courtier,
Tudor trans., p. 47; Romei, op. cit.,
p. 224.
19 Op. cit., p. 38.
20 Politics, Jowett's trans.,
1920, III, 13,3, p. 127.
23] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 23
with, such a son inherits an inclination to virtue, the manners and high
spirit of his ancestors, and their ability for the tasks that fall to gentlemen,
government and ladership in war. The son of the 1ignoble man, on the other
hand, inherits a disposition to vice, skill in low and mechanic arts; and a
servile and mercenary spirit, and ris even if he turns to virtuous ways and
performs worthy deeds, he is not actuated by the disinterested love of virtue
which inspires the gentleman, but by desire for gain, perhaps even by fear./21
The more ancient nobility was therefore, the purer it was, as having bred into
a man all the accumulated impulse toward virtue of a long line of illustrious
ancestors, and bred out of him every lingering inclination toward the baseness
of obscure progenitors. But it was only inclination to virtue, not virtue itself, that was inherited.
Therefore if a man had only the good name of his ancestors to boast of, he had
nothing that was really his. Besides the advantage of inheritance, the
nobly-born had a better education, from his cradle up surrounded by gentle
influences and honorable men, so that there was produced a harmony between
birth and virtue. Greater than either of these advantages was the spur to
noble actions which came from a long line of ancestors whose valorous deeds and
wisdom in high counsels had filled the pages of history. Example was more
powerful than blood, than education, and desire to prove worthy of the past
pricked the noble spirit on to emulation. Such a spur the base-born lacked, nor
could their virtuous deeds shine so graciously against their dark and obscure
background. A diamond in a splendid setting shines so much the more fair.
For certes, the landes, renowme and worthy fame, And noble enterprises of your olde progenitours, Are left as bright sparkles yong mindes to inflame, And as sede provoking their minds to honours, Not by ambition nor by heaping of treasures, Nor rentes augmented without lawe or measure, But by godly vertue and maners cleare and pure.
Such nobility was to be valued by men, because they thus showed
------
21 Mulcaster, op. cit., p. 200; Paris de Puteo, Duello, 1558, bk. VII,
cap. I; De Origine Nobilitatis, 5475 (?), "De nobilitate fidelium
honoranda"; Bonus de Curtili, Tractatus Nobilitatis, pt. 2, sec. 12, p. 3;
Romei, op. cit., pp. I8g-7.
22 Alexander Barclay, The Mirrour of Good Manners, rep. Spenser Society,
vol. 38, p. 5; Romei, op. cit., p. 235 (Gg4a).
24 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [24
gratitude for the noble deeds of the past and gave a spur to their
continuance, and because such nobility was the main pillar of every well
established community./28 This was the generally accepted view in the sixteenth
century, based on the assumption that nobility in the first place had been
conferred on remote ancestors for their good qualities, and that the
descendants of such illustrious men continued to exhibit the qualities which
had made their ancestors famous. The greatness of the past was the spur applied
by those who saw in the aristocracy the only hope for a well governed country,
and who feared its destruction through what they called its degeneration.
Philosophers, historians, and reformers all joined in creating a splendid dream
of a time in the past when all gentlemen devoted themselves to service of
country, eager for high deeds, choosing by instinct and habit to follow the
worthy, and shun the unworthy. Whatever basis of truth underlay this fiction of
ancient honor and glory and inherited qualities, there were not wanting those
whose study of less biased historians, or whose clearer-eyed observation of
existing conditions led them to find no essential difference in the substance
of the body of the noble from that of the ignoble but rather in the bringing
up. The seeds of virtue, they said, are sown in all by the goodness of God, and
prove fruitful according to their cultivation. A man well brought up though of
humble origin may more easily attain to the nobility of personal excellence
than can a man merely well-born, as experience amply proved. As one writer put
it, "The stocke and linage maketh not a man noble or ignoble, but use,
education, instruction, and bringing up maketh him so: for when a man from
infancy is instructed in good manners, all the rest of his life he shall be
inclined into acts of nobility and vertue. And on the contrary, if he be evilly
instructed in his young years, he will have as long as he liveth such manners
as are barbarous, strange, and full of all villeiny."/23 There was an
obvious difficulty, however, in insisting upon ancient lineage as a
prerequisite for nobility. Ancient lineage would make every one noble, if
pushed back to Adam, an absurdity, orelse it must ignore a beginning./25
Nobility therefore could not rest
------
23 Ascham, The Scholemaster, ed. by Mayor, p. 40.
24 La Perriere, The Mirrour of Policie, trans. London, 1598, fo. HhIIIa;
see also Glover, op. cit., p. 12. For a statement of theopposite side see
Osorius, Discourse of Civill and Christian Nobilitie, trans. London, 1576, bk.
I, fo. 3a-5a.
25 upton, op. cit., lib. I, cap. XIX, p. 63
25] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 25
on noble birth for its beginning. Granted that perfect nobility rested
on the good deeds of ancestors joined to the good deeds of descendants, there
must be some efficient cause, as the philosophers say, for the beginning and
the renewing of nobility, since time changes all things and old families die
out or are lost from the rolls of honor./26 We are brought thus to the other
sort of nobility, nobility dative.
Whatever a common man's claim to reward for
excellence in himself and for service to the state, it was presumption and
disobedience to the law, subversive of the established order of things, for him
to assume nobility on his own authority. The king must judge of his worthiness
and by the conferring of dignity raise him above the state of the multitude.
Nobility dative, therefore, involved ideally two prerequisites, the existence
of some merit+ which deserved reward, and the conferring of reward by royal
action. The absence of one or the other derogated from the individual's claims
to gentility.
Royal action was at least theoretically involved even
in the assuming of the gentleman's status, for though the College_of_Arms+
issued the coats of arms which established the unquestioned right of a man to
the description gentleman, the heralds bore their license by grant of the king and
acted in his name; such at least was the theory. The higher ranks, which were
conferred directly by the king, presented an increase only in honor and
dignity, not in quality. The coat of arms indeed became so closely associated
with the idea of gentility that a current definition of gentleman was one who
bears arms./27 But it must be said that the heralds themselves were chiefly
responsible for both the definition and the currency. Once important as a
distinguishing mark in military operations, and assumed voluntarily by those
who needed it, the heraldic device had first become hereditary (in the reign of
Henry III) and then been reduced to system and emptied of meaning by the
formation of the College of Arms (under Richard III), which assumed that no one
was a gentleman unless he were registered there./28 As a matter of fact
heraldry was a part of the feudal system and passed with it so far as any vital
meaning was concerned./29
------
26 Sir Thomas Smith, op. cit., lib. i, ch. 20, p. 39-
27 Ferne, op. cit., p. 91.
28 James Dallaway, Inquiries into the Origin and Progress of the Science
of Heraldry, 1793, sec. II, pp. 46-7, III, pp. 733-5.
29 Shakespeare's England, Oxford, 1916, vol. II, pp. 74-84.
26 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [26
By the end of the sixteenth century the College of Heralds had fallen
into evil repute, for the sale of coats of arms was notorious, and the devices
were stolen from old families without shame or designed to suit the whims of
their buyers to the utter confusion and degradation of the honorable sign
language of chivalric days./30 The devices, however, were accepted as a
convention, and the heralds exercised a certain dominion sanctioned by royal
grants and popular acceptance, though not acknowledged by lawyers./31 New
gentlemen, at any rate, hastened to seek the herald's offices in establishing a
visible claim to a new status. Old families whose gentility had been assumed
and acknowledged for generations might and sometimes did defy the herald's
visitations and edicts, for in England, as elsewhere, gentility also grew up
from the soil with generations of thrift well applied and good living, without
asking by-your-leave of the king, or seeking from heralds the outward badge of
gentleness./32 In practice the line separating plebeian and gentleman was a
very thin and movable line. Sir Thomas Smith's often quoted passage on the
point will bear quoting again: "Ordinarily the king doth only make knights
and create barons or higher degrees: for as for gentlemen, they be made good
cheape in England. For whosoever studieth the lawes of the realme, who studieth
in the universities, who professeth liberall sciences, and to be shorte, who
can live idly and without manuall labour, and will beare the port, charge and
countenaunce of a gentleman, he shall be called master, for that is the title
which men give to esquires and other gentlemen, and shall be taken for a
gentleman."/33 He raised directly the question which was perhaps most
vehemently discussed of all the points bearing on nobility, whether the manner
of England in making gentlemen so easily was to be allowed. Most writers
inveighed against it, lamenting the growing difficulty of distinguishing
between high and low-born, the confusion of callings, the encouragement to idleness
and consequent dearth of laborers and increase in crime./34 Sir Thomas,
however, found nothing ob- ------
30 Smith, op. cit., p. 40.
31 F. warre Cornish, Chivalry, London, 1901, p. 174.
32 Guillim, Display of Heraldry, 1610, sec. 6, chap. 7, p. 274; Urrea,
Dialogo del Vero Honore Militare, Venice, 1569, pt. II, fo. 9513.
33 Op. cit., pp. 39-40.
34 A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, London, 1598,
rep. Roxburghe Lib., pp. 137fE
27] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 27
jectionable in the system, for the king and state profited; there was no
loss of revenues as in France, since the gentleman was more heavily charged
than others in payments to the king; moreover the gentleman himself to make and
preserve his reputation must live more magnificently than others, dress to suit
his station, arm himself if he went to the wars, show higher courage, better
education, more liberality, and keep about him idle servants to wait on him. No
one was hurt but himself, who might be carrying a bigger sail than he could
maintain. "For as touching the policie and government of the common
wealth, it is not those that have to do with it, which will magnifie them
selves, and goe in higher buskins than their estate will beare; but they which
are to be appointed, are persons tryed and well knowen."/35 The assumption
throughout, however, whether the status of gentleman was acquired by royal or
private action, was that some distinction existed in the individual which
raised him above his fellows. As legitimate ground for royal action in
conferring nobility dative three qualifications were commonly discussed,
virtue, learning, and riches. The chief claim to distinction was admitted to be
virtue, that is, conspicuous personal merit+ and ability shown in actions
beneficial to the state. A man might practice the private virtues all his life
and still not be worthy of nobility,/36 for virtue that was private was
restricted in its influence, while virtue that was suitable for ennobling was
public, conferring benefits on the whole state and reaching to posterity as it
raised a family to distinction and honor. Virtue then which was profitable to
one's country was sufficient cause for ennoblement, in fact the only true cause
and test, as "not only philosophers and divines, but poets,
historiographers, and almost all lawyers agree."/37 Next to virtue
learning held a favored place. Mulcaster set wisdom and valor as the chief
means to advancement, and gave the honors in the order of their importance to
the counsellor, the divine, the lawyer, and the physician./38 A student in the
Universities or the Inns_of_Court+) by that fact assumed the standing of
gentleman, and the lawyer in particular rose in esteem with his reputation for
learning, the Tudors delighting to honor him with place and title.
------
35 Op. cit., bk. I. chap. 21.
36 Cleland, The Institution of a Young Noble Man, bk. I, Preface, pp.
5-6.
37 Bodin, op. cit., bk. III, ch. VIII, p. 394.
38 Op. cit., pp. 202-205.
28 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
[28
Riches were undeniably regarded by the crowd as a main reason for
reverencing their possessor, because certainly ancient descent in tatters
dropped into the gulf of nonentity, whereas vulgarity richly clad imposed its
pretensions on the undiscriminating/39 Scholars, too, recognized wealth as an
essential concomitant if not foundation for nobility, for two reasons.
Liberality, one of the chief distinguishing virtues of the gentleman and
Christian, was not possible without wealth, and the practice of the
liberal_arts+, the arts of the gentleman, must fail lacking the wherewithal for
their support. Theoretically wealth should have been honestly come by, or old
enough for the memory of its dishonest origin to have been lost. The Stoics+
and others who repudiated riches utterly in relation to nobility did so partly
because of the evils that luxury+, introduced and partly because of the assumed
wicked origin for all riches in dishonesty, robbery, murder, and all other
crimes./40 English theory admitted their desirability and almost their
necessity. Burghley+ in his precepts to his son says, "That gentleman that
selles an Acre of Land, looseth an ounce of credite, for Gentilitie is nothing
but ancient Riches: So that if the Foundation doe sinke, the Building must
needes consequently fall."/41 The rapid decay and disappearance of old
families because of poverty furnished adequate object lessons, no less
impressive because of the correspondingly rapid rise of thrifty yeomen and
merchants by the purchase of the forfeited estates. The strongest argument for
the English practice of primogeniture+ was that if the family possessions were
divided among all the children, none could support the chatges of maintaining
high estate and the whole house must sink./42 The result of such distribution
on the continent, which filled France and Spain with ragged nobles, who abated
no whit of their pride but lowered the dignity of nobility, was often called in
point. "Absolutegentlemen," therefore, wrote Guazzo+, are those
"who to their gentrie by birth and vertue have great riches joined, which
serve greatly to the maintenance of gentrie."/43
------
39 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life, London, 1579, rep. Roxburghe Lib., p. 44.
40 Bodin holds riches no source of true nobility and laments
Aristotle+'s evil influence in having put them first. Op. cit., bk. III, chap.
VIII, pp. 395-6; Tiraquellus, op. cit., cap. III.
41 Certaine Precepts, London, 1617, p. 8.
42 Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, pp. 208-9.
43 Civile Conversation, trans. London, 1580, bk. II, fo. 419-416.
29] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 29
One other cause of nobility dative should not be omitted. The old saying
had it, "Arms bred nobility," and still enumerated among the causes
that ennobled was service in the wars, but not without specification. Ten years
of active service was usually set as necessary to assumption of gentility, and
not merely as a rough soldier in the lower ranks but in some position of
command. Nor might any common hireling be honored but such a man as "is
given by his owne disposition to delight and folowe the Cannon wheele, whose
countenaunce and chearfull face, beginnes to smile and rejoyce when the dromme
soundeth, and whose harte is so high, it will not stoupe to no servile
slaverie. But hath a bodie and mynde able to aunswere that is looked for, and
hath often been tried and experimented in Marshall affaires; through hauntyng
whereof he is become ignoraunt of drudgyng at home, and made a skilful scholler
in the discipline of warre: which is not learned without some losse of blood,
charges of purse and consumyng of tyme."./44 The question was often raised
as to which should be preferred, the new or the old gentleman,those who through
their own merit won great renown without the example of their fathers, or those
who followed in the footsteps of famous ancestors./45 The balance usually
weighed in favor of the old, true gentility even being denied to the founder of
a house, and granted only to his grandson, whose blood might be supposed to be
purged of all inclination to mechanical things. But some, admiring the
successful struggle against odds held the new noble more praiseworthy than the
ancient, or at least equally so./46 There seems as a matter of fact to be a tendency
in the renaissance to lay more emphasis than had been laid before upon the part
that personal worth plays in acquiring and maintaining nobility and less upon
birth, which becomes desirable for its initial advantage rather than for its
assured heritage of personal superiority. But though emphasis may have changed
it would be a mistake to suppose that either in theory or practice gentle birth
played a negligible part in determining a man's status. True nobility is almost
always defined as that of race and virtue, and much of the insistence on virtue
is intended not to comfort the lowly-born but to admonish the well-born who
seem generally to have prided themselves on
------
44 Churchyard, A General Rehearsal of Warres, fo. mIIb-mIIIa.
45 Osorius, op. cit., 33b-35a
46 Humphrey, op. cit., bk. I, fo. e5a. The whole ground is debated in
the three books of G. B. Nenna's Nennio, trans. London, 1595, a dialogue after
Castiglione+.
30 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [30
birth to the neglect of virtue. The presumption of superiority in
character and ability still lay with the man well-born, who, as Mulcaster said,
when he adds desert in his own person "cloth well deserve double honour
among men, as bearing the true cote of right and best nobilitie, where desert
for vertue is quartered with descent in blood, seeing aunciencie of linage and
derivation of nobilitie is in such credit among us and alwaye hath
bene."/47
------
47 Op. cit., p. 199.
CHAPTER III+
THE THEORY OF THE FAVORED CLASS
Man is ever a theorizing creature restlessly spinning cobweb
reasons to support the facts of his existence; nor did he fail in the sixteenth
century to buttress the position of the ruling class with theories long current
and much worn as to the origin and necessity of such a class in the state. The
fundamental assumption of the whole of gentility was the aristocratic theory
that some are born to rule and some to be ruled; that inequalities must be
maintained between men, sharply cleaving them apart by differences in
occupation, education, dress, manners, and even morals.
Such an assumption, to be sure, has never been
without its challengers, and certainly was not without them in the sixteenth
century. The familiar bit of d doggerel
When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?
had been for centuries and was still the taunt and challenge of the
common people to a system which bade them labor contentedly for their betters.
John Ball+ in 1381 had voiced this protest against the injustice of inequality:
"Good people, things will never go well in England, so long as goods be
not kept in common, and so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what
right are they whom men call lords greater folk than we? If all come from the
same father and mother, Adam and Eve, how can they say or prove that they are
better than we, if it be not that they make us gain for them by our toil what
they spend in their pride. They are clothed in velvet, and are warm in their
furs and ermines, while we are covered in rags. They have wine and spices and
fair bread, and we oatcake and straw, and water to drink. They have leisure and
fine houses; we have pain and labour, the wind and rain in the fields. And yet
it is of us and of our toil that these men hold their state."/1 And
sixteenth century England was rife with the same discontent, as indicated not
only by uprisings similar to John Ball's, but by the innumerable complaints
about the striving of
------
1 Joseph Clayton, The Rise of the Democracy, 1911, p. 67. 31
32 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [32
everyone to climb higher than he found himself, as well as by the
innumerable counter-arguments to prove inequality necessary and right. No fault
of the century was more often attacked than this discontent with things as they
were, and the word ambition had the connotation of a vice. Ratcliffe, the
translator of a French work on vocations, itself an argument against a
presumptuous seeking to change one's vocation, in his dedication to Sir Francis
Walsingham+ thus inveighs against the times. "For who ever saw so many
discontented persons: so many yrked with their owne degrees: so fewe contented
with their owne calling: and such number desirous, & greedie of change,
& novelties? Who ever heard tel of so many reformers, or rather deformers
of estates and Common weales; so many controllers of Princes, and their
proceedinges: and so fewe imbracing obedience? whiche beginneth nowe (the more
pitie) to be lagged at the carte's taile. And to be short: such straunge and
souden alteration in all estates? Doth not the unlearned Layman, undertake the
office of a Minister? Doth not the Minister disallowe of inferiour orders, and
levell (as a man would say) with both eyes at once, (for sayling) at the
Bishops myter? Is the Bishoppe, trowe ye, so exempt of self love, and desire of
honour, as that he could not be contented to leave his former vocation to
imbrace the supreme dignitie of Priesthood? Likewise, the Plough man, doth he
not thinke the Merchant happier then himselfe? The Merchant, doth he not tickle
at the title of a Gentleman? The Gentleman, doth he not shoot at the marke of
Nobility? And the Noble man, hath he not his eye fixed uppon the glorie and
greatnesse of a Prince? What Prince could not be contented to be Monarche of
the whole world? What should I say? would not the Lawyer (think ye) agreeably
accept the title of a Lord?"/2 Apologists indeed were busy answering the
"English Switzers" of their own time "who were so
super-paradoxical as to deny the fundamental assumption that differences must
exist."/3 All the writers from Sir Thomas Elyot+ on, however assured they
might be of the necessity and divine right of nobility, were making an apologia
for it, conscious that power and place were slipping away from the bearing of
proud old names. The nobles, stripped of military power, were threatened with
loss of all distinction. The ground on which their clairrl to reverence rested
needed defining, and many
------
2 Politique Discourses, fo. A3b. See also William Spelman, Dialogue
between Two Travellers, printed Roxburghe Club, London, 1896, p. 96; A Health
to Me Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, p. 103.
3 Meriton, 4 Sermon of Nobility, fo. 132a.
33] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 33
set themselves to prove the necessity of noblesthat is a favored classin
a "wel orderd and Christanlike governed state."/4 Two institutions
were interested in justifying the existing order, the church and the state; the
church in order to justify the ways of God to men, and the state, the ways of
men to men. The current theories as to the origin of a favored class and its
position in the state worked equally well on both counts and furnished a more
or less logical foundation for all the gentleman's pretensions to superiori ty.
The origin of nobility was explained in various ways
that suggested, if they did not prove, its inevitability. The most generally
held belief was based on "Genesis." Adam, according to this
explanation, must be the source of all nobility, though perhaps not noble
himself, since he had no father or mother from whom to draw his nobility. Cain+
then for his ungentle behavior to his brother was the father of all ignobility.
Through Seth nobility was passed on to the generations of men until the flood
and then continued through Noah+, the descendant of Seth. The flood of course
wiped out all distinctions, but the world was saved from noble but dull
uniformity by the unfilial conduct of Ham. Noah's curse renewed the race of churls./6
The chief objection made to this theory was(, the difficulty of tracing descent
back so far. The College of Heralds could perform wonders but not so great a
miracle. And if the misconduct of sons be ignored and the common paternity of
Adam be claimed, then all men must be noble, as John Ball+ urged, and the
explanation of evident differences in men not only in possessions but in
ability was still to seek.
Other explanations for the rise of nobility were
drawn from two theories of the origin of kingdoms. Both theories assumed in the
beginning a community of goods and equality among people until an increase in
numbers brought about a change. Then, according to one, the contract theory,
the necessity for order and for someone to administer order caused people to
seek out the most virtuous among them and offer him kingship over them, an idea
borrowed from the ancients and the Old Testament. Then for assistance in
governing, the king or the people chose other virtuous men and gave them office
and power. The sons of these, being well brought up and encouraged by their
fathers' advancement, walked in their
------
4 Humphrey, The Nobles, fo. 6 For the fullest setting forth of this
belief see 5 5 5 Juliana Berners, The Book of St. Albans, "The Book of
Arms," fo. aI.
34
OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [34
footsteps and held the favor of the people; thus nobility began and
became hereditary./6 This is the theory of triumphant-virtue+. Inequality
begins with the consent of the people. The objection to this theory was that if
nobility began as a reward of virtue voluntarily given, there was no accounting
for the endless, recorded succession of rulers and powerful ones who gained
their place by breaking all the laws of the decalogue. Some nobility would seem
to have been the reward of vice.
The other theory, which was more commonly held,
obviated this difficulty by postulating that all nobility was founded upon
violence and oppression. The increase in population that resulted after the
fall (if not because of it) occasioned misunderstandings, feuds, wafts, which
brought about inequalities between victors and vanquished. Men at first had no
more knowledge of virtue then to rob, kill, and enslave other men, and the
bolder the killer, the more worthy of honor was he thought to be. Later when
men had become instructed, virtue might have been the cause of ennobling, but
most houses had taken heir rise in crime, robbery, spoils, treason, flattery,
adultery, lies, murder, poison./7 Therefore nobility must be a forgetting of
origin. This is the theory of triumphant_force+; inequality arises from
injustice. But to admit crime as the origin of nobility was scarcely to justify
the demand for reverence and submission to the noble as the preserver of order,
protector of the people, and representative of God upon earth.
It is plain to be seen that speculation as to whether
nobility and unequal division of the goods of life originated in Adam and his
sons, or in a contract between the people and certain individuals whom they
chose to honor, or in the tyranny of superior force would not go far to
convince the restless, discontented, halfliberated, seditious world of the
sixteenth century that the existing system was right or necessary. More
substantial ground than that was needed, and it was found in the theory that
order is heaven's first law. By this it was easily shown that the very
existence of society with all its blessings of peace, opportunity for
cultivation
------
6 Legh, The Accedens of Armory, 1562, fo. 22a; Sir Walter Raleigh, The
History of the World, coll. ed. Oxford Press, 1829, pp. 341-2; Richard Hooker,
Of the Lams of Ecclesiastical Politie, Everyman Lib., bk. I, sec. X, pp. 1901;
Foxius Morzillus, De Regni Regisque Institutione, 1566, lib. I, fo. B8bC2a.
7 Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, London, 1606, bk. I, ch. 6, p.
47, bk. III, ch. VIII, p. 389; Osorius, Civill and Christian Institutione,
London, 1576, bk. II, fo. 24a and 24b.
35] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 35
of the virtues and the arts, necessitates such an organization, which
provides for the division of labor and a supply of laborers fitted for their
work.
Drawing on a medieval conception,/8 the renaissance
apologists for nobility represented the state as a hierarchy. At the top was
the ruler, deriving his power directly from God, acting as God's_viceroy+ upon
earth. Under him, since it was impossible, as Elyot+ said, for one mortal man
to know everything that went on in his realm and settle all controversies, must
be a body of lesser authorities to assist him in the administration of justice.
This body included dependent princes, magistrates, officials of all sorts, and
the,whole body of the nobility, in whom was vested something of the divine
authority of the king. At the bottom, furnishing support for the pyramid and
the admitted reason for its existence, were the common people. The hierarchies
of heaven where the angels+ differ in degree and all make obeisance to God; and
of the sky where the stars vary in magnitude and the sun is overlord of all;
and of nature where beasts, birds, and plants acknowledge degrees and one more
excellent than all the rest; and even of the body of man where each member has
its appointed task and the head rules allall these were proof that God intended
man to exhibit like order as well as to seek peace and unity in a single head.
A ruling class was thus established upon as firm a basis as the king, even, one
may add, as God himself, for in this organic_theory+ of the state the lower
part was no less important than the higher for the proper functioning of the
state./9 Refusal to recognize the necessity of this ruling class, or attempts
to push one's way up from the bottom into it, was obviously subversive of the
state, and more than that, a flying in the face of God's decree. For it was
evident that God intended such a division of men since he had created men
unequal at birth in character and abilities. Men are equal in Christ, it was
admitted, and in the facts of birth and death, but by nature they differ in all
other ways. Some are strong and beautiful, some weak and ugly; some incline to
------
8 Thomas Aquinas, De Regimine Principum, Paris, 1509, lib. I, cap. 2.
9 Elyot, The Governour, 1531, bk. I, ch. I; Gosson, The Schoole of
Abuse, Arber Rep., 1869, p. 51; La Primaudaye, The French Academie, 1586, bk.
I, ch. 56, pp. 609-10; Ratcliffe, op. cit., bk. II, ch. VI, fo. 48"-49b;
Otto Gierke, Political Theories of the Middle Age, trans. Maitland, ch. V; W.
A. Dunning, A History of Political Theories, from Luther to Montesquieu, p. 3
36 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [36
virtue, some to vice; some are apt for one thing, some for another. Such
differences could have been ordained by God to no other purpose than that order
might be preserved."/10 To maintain life food, clothing, and shelter must
be had, and men must produce them. Inferior talents of hand and brain are
sufficient to provide all these fundamental needs, and these inferior talents
the mass of the people possess, these and no more. They are therefore incapable
of ruling themselves, having neither the inherited qualities necessary, nor the
training, nor the leisure. "The popular sort," said one writer, the
echo of many such detractors, "are commonly evil conditioned, variable,
inconstant, suspicious, hard to be ruled, and as Virgil saith, always divided
into factions, and to conclude, their imperfections, excluded from all good
discretion and ners."/l1 The nobles, on the other hand are commonly
"of greater abilitie, of better behaviour and more civill than the common
people, than artificers, and men of base estate, bicause they have beene
brought up from their infancie in all civilitie and amongst men of honor.
Moreover to have a noble hart and invincible to resist the enimie, great to
exercise liberalitie, curteous and honest in talke, bold to execute, gentle to
forgive, are graces and virtues proceeding from honestie+, which are not so
commonly found among men of base condition, as among those that come of good
and ancient stocks?"/12 To sum up, "As there must be some men of
polycie and prudence, to discerne what is metest to be done in the government
of states, even so there must be other of strength and redines to do that the
wyser shall thinke expedient, bothe for the mayntenence of them that governe,
and for theschyng of the infinite jeoperdies, that a multitude not governid
fallith into: These must not go, arme in arme, but the one before, the other
behynde, wyt and prudence muste be as maysters of a worke, and appoynte strength
and redynesse their taske."/13 The laws of inheritance thus fastened upon
men this division into classes, and the stability of society depended upon
maintaining such a division. to
------
10 Osorius, op. cit., bk. I, fo. 8a-9a.
11 La Perriare, The Mirrour of Policie, fo. F41'.
12 La Primaudaye, ; op. cit., bk. I, ch. 65, p. 740.,
13 Remedy for Sedition, fo. A2b. See also Rich, Faultes Faults, and
Nothing Else but Faultes, fo. 43a; Patrizi, t4 Moral Methode of Civile Policie,
1576, bk. I, fo. 5a; Mulcaster, Positions, ch. 39; Fitzherbert, The Boke of
Husbandy, "The Author's Prologue"; Spenser, Fairie Queene, V, II,
XXXLIV.
37] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 37
The gentlemanto use the term applied to all above the common people
irrespective of rankthus held a fixed and essential place in this earthly
hierarchy, as the intermediary between the king and the mass of his people.
From his position as supporter of the arms of the king, protector of the people
in war, and administrator of justice+ in peace was argued his title to all the
privileges and exemptions that were his. All the splendid trappings of dress,
furniture, and retinue that his wealth could support, his offices, and his
titles of honor were justified from the necessity to command the reverence and
obedience of the ignorant masses, who bowed only to obvious superiority, and
also from a regard for justice, which gives to superior excellence its due
reward, the visible tokens of that excellence. Such rewards are necessary to
spur the individual on to achievement for his own sake and for the sake of his
posterity. Few men would make an effort to gain a great name if they thought
that it died with them.
Such in brief was the unmodified theory of the reason
for the existence and for the character of the gentleman with all it implies of
actual superiority to his fellows inphysical and mental qualities, partly
inherited, partly developed by contact from birth with the best and by wise
education. Such by implication was the justice of shutting off the great
majority of men from access to similar advantages of training and opportunities
for self-development. Unfortunately for the effectiveness of this extreme
theory there was a great discrepancy between its fundamental assumption and the
facts. Each century out of its confusion and dissatisfaction pictured the
preceding age as happy in well defined classes that performed their allotted
tasks, never seeking to climb above themselves, or to shirk their duty to rule
or be ruled. But search backward reveals no such happy period. The churl was
aways to be found pushing his way among his betters, and the gentleman
degenerating and sinking into the state of the churl. The impression that one
gets of an acceleration in the renaissance of this rising and falling may be
due rather to the greater articulateness of the period through its printed
record, but the notorious discontent of all classes in the renaissance
represents at most an acceleration and not a new condition. Classes were not
sharply distinguished; that is, the line between the gentle and the ungentle
was vague. There was a group certainly that bore the name of gentlemen by
unmistakable right; there was another group that just as unmistakably
38 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [38
had no right to the title and never claimed it; but there was a large
intermediate group that deservedly or undeservedly appropriated the title and
few were bold enough to deny all the members of this group the right to wear
it. Sir Thomas Smith, as we have seen, even found the English facility for
making gentlemen an advantage since it put men on their mettle to emulate the
virtues and manners of the real gentleman./14 The fact, however, that new men
were constantly rising from the lower classes, often through particular merits
of their own, had an effect on the theory of gentility, helping to throw the
emphasis from birth as an essential to quality+, and thereby making provision
in theory for strengthening the governing class with new blood. For the troublesome
fact was patent to all, that individuals born into the upper class were
continually falling away from it through poverty, or disaster, or physical and
moral degeneracy.
The theory of the favored class, therefore, has only
been half stated in the claim to its necessity in an ordered scheme of things,
for if it gave a high place to the gentleman it also laid upon him heavy
obligations+ both in his private and public character. And even stronger than
the desire to justify nobility, the desire to make nobility worthy of its high
place actuated the apologists for the gentleman, who bent their main efforts
toward defining the obligation and preparing and persuading the gentleman to
meet it. "Nobilitye is farre greater than manye conceyve of it," said
Lawrence Humphrey+, "And the callyng heavenly but hard. The honour
lightsome, but the burthen+ heavye. And to vaunt and professe him self others
superiour and better; of all others the moste massye charge."/14 The
gentleman was likely in practice to regard superiority as resting in externals,
brave dress, arrogant manners, even in conspicuous indulgence in fashionable
follies and vices. Many are the biting descriptions of these "carpet
knights." "But touching the true difference, and as they oughte to differ:"
said one writer most tender of the good name of the gentleman, "lyke as
the rose in beauty passeth al other flowers and is an ornament and settyng
forth of the place wher it groweth and so by the excellencye that nature hath
geven, it leadeth a mans eye soner to the aspecte and beholdyng of it then of
other flowers, so ought a gentleman by hys conditions, qualities, and good
behaviour to excell all other sortes of men, and by that his book e of Hunan,
------
14 Op. cit., "Dedication," fo. aIVb.
39] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 39
excellencye to set forth and adorne the whole company emong whom he
shall happen for to be; and therby to leade the eye of mans affecion to love
him before others for hys vertues sake."/15 But the heaviest
responsibility+ of the English gentleman lay not in the attainment of personal
perfection (and therein he differed from the Italian courtier), but in the
performance of public service. The Englishman of the sixteenth century was not
much interested in political theory, speculation as to the nature of the state;
he took his theory chiefly from continental writers; but in practical politics
he was deeply interested, and set duty+ to the state as the prime consideration
of the gentleman. It was not a new idea. The medieval theory of monarchy
stressed the obligation that rested on the king to govern well, because the
office existed not for its own sake but for the people's; and to the nobility
also was applied the admonition, "Whoever has the dignity has the burden+
attached."/16 Caxton+'s Book of Chivalry, assigned to the fourteenth
century, admonished knights that they should be lovers of the common good
because the welfare of all is more important than the welfare of the
individual. Their office was to maintain justice+ by protecting the people and
the judges from violence, and if they might become learned none should be so
fitted to be the judges as they themselves./17 The education of the knight,
which fitted him only to fight and serve in his lord's hall, alone prevented
him from administering the laws. The sixteenth century saw this disability
removed with the spread of learning among all classes. Service of country
became, then, not only leadership in war, but more important than that counsel
in peace and dispensing of justice=. "A right gentleman oughte to be a man
fyt for the warres, and fytte for the peace, mete for the courte and meete for
the countrey."/18 The gentleman then should live not for himself, but for
others; to the neglect even of his own interest and of his own inclinations,
mindful that from him must come all the felicity or the calamity that befalls
his country.
The growth of this broad and stern idea of public
duty+ must be traced not only to the assertion of medieval doctrines regarding
------
15 The Institution of a Gentleman, London, 1555, fo. 8b
16 Thomas Aquinas, op. cit., lib. I, caps. XXV. Egidio Colonna, De
Regimine Pineipum, Augsberg, 1473, bk. III, pt. II, ch. VIII, IX.
17 Fo. b5bb6b, f6a. 18Institucion of a Gentleman, fo. c5a; Humphrey, op.
cit., bk. II, fo. nIIb ff.
40 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [40
the divine sanction of rulers and magistrates and people in authority,
but also to the classical ideal of citizenship which the revival of learning
had again made familiar, and perhaps in some measure to the outburst of
patriotism which, centered about royalty. Plato+ and Aristotle+ and the glamor
of Elizabeth and her court help to buttress this corollary to the doctrine of
the political necessity of inequalitythat with power and privilege went heavy
responsibility.
This then at the end of the sixteenth century is
where the nobility of England placed themselves in the general scheme of
things. The theory of their group-importance and function in the state to all
appearances had been maintained intact. In practice also Elizabeth+, though she
took care to clip the wings of her most powerful nobles, took care likewise to
foster the whole group "as brave half paces between a throne and a
people."/19 Such matters as descent and origin of title aside, the
assumption that the nobility were the natural governors of the state was sound
for the sixteenth century. Devotion to public affairs demanded the conditions
of life which gentility, long held or newly had, presupposed,to use Mulcaster's
summing up"great abilitie to go thorough withall, where the poorer must
give over, eare he come to the ende: great Leasure to use libertie, where the
meaner must labor: all opportunities at will: where the common is restrained."/20
These conditions were as true for Sir Thomas Gresham-, born to a trade, as for
Sir Philip Sidney born to a courtier's life. That both should be called
gentlemen and knighted is typical of the times and significant of the passing
of the old order.
For the justification and therefore the existence of
any privileged class rests ultimately upon its serviceableness to the
community. When the core is gone, though the shell may for long exist intact,
the whole body is doomed sooner or later to decay. The core of European
nobility as a classthat is as a group possessing from generation to generation
certain definite privilegeswent with the passing of the feudal system and the
development of strong, central authorities, and national as distinguished from
baronial warfare.
------
19 Fulke-Greville, Lord Brooke, Life of Sir Philip Sidney, Tudor and
Stuart Library, p. 189. For advice on the subject see his A Treatise on
Monarchy, VIII, "Of Nobility," Grosart ed., 1870, vol. I, pp. 127-30;
Raleigh, Maxims of State, 1829, vol. VIII, p. 8; Bacon, Essays, XIX, "Of
Empire," XIV, "Of Nobility."
20 Op. cit., p. 193.
41] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 41
The shell, however, was preserved, and the lack of the core concealed
through the sixteenth century partly by an adaptation of the old system to new
conditions, and partly by the application of old names to new things. The old
monopoly of the gentleman, war, was gone; he found new occupations for himself
and coveered them with the old cloak. Only in our own day have we seen that
cloak worn so thin and full of rents that it can no longer conceal the
transformation that beneath the surface has been going on since the sixteenth
century.
CHAPTER IV+
OCCUPATIONS FOR THE GENTLEMAN
The suitability of any occupation for a gentleman rested first of
all, as the preceding chapter shows, upon its serviceableness to the state;
next upon its disinterestedness, lack of material gain to the gentleman; and
last upon its liberal, not servile, character, that is, upon its demand for
mental rather than manual ability and dexterity. Obviously the pursuits above
reproach would be few, and quite as obviously some latitude in choice would be
necessarily conceded. Such pursuits fell into two divisions that were not
mutually exclusive, or equally important, military and civil. Arms and learning
were the gentleman's business, arms in time of war, learning in time of peace.
Among civil pursuits service at court and the law were commendable, medicine
and divinity were allowed, and agriculture and trade with certain restrictions
were winked at.
The renaissance was still interested in the old
question whether arms or letters were to be preferred, but with a difference.
Medieval poets had debated whether the knight or the scholar made the better
lover;/1 and medieval lawyers whether precedence in rank should be given to one
or the other./2 The renaissance asked which was more useful to the state, the
soldier or the scholarthat is, the lawyer. The answer depended upon the
profession of the disputant,/3 and obviously wielders of the pen possessed an
advantage over wielders of the sword. The decision was usually made in favor of
the lawyer as the administrator of justice and maintainer of social unity. As
peace is preferable to war and necessaryas war is notto the improvement of
men's conditions, so the pursuits of peace are preferable to the pursuits of
war./4 The soldier, on the other
------
1 Poems of Walter Mapes, "De Phillide et Flora," ed. Thomas
Wright, Camden Society, London, 1841, pp. 258,363-4.
2 Signorelus de Homodeis, De Precedentia Doctoris vel Militis, 1489;
Christophorus Lanfranchinus, Tractatulus seu Quesstio utrum Preferendus sit
Doctor an Miles, 1549; Bonus de Curtili, Tractatus Nobilitatis, 1549, pt. III,
sec. 29, 30, 55, 76, 148.
3 For good examples see Muzio, Il Gentilhuomo 1571, pp. 199 ff., and
Mora, II Cavaliere, 1589, a defence of the soldier against Muzio's charges.
4 The Institution of a Gentleman, 1555, fo. e7a; Blandy, The Castle, fo.
16a; Gascoigne, The Fruites of Warre, Works, 1904, stanzas 55-58. 42
43] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 43
hand, argued that the sense of security given to the Englishman by his
island position had led him to undervalue the soldier as the real maintainer of
justice, for without the strong arm of force the decrees of the lawyers would
be only so many pieces of paper. War is God's minister of justice; law is a
human expedient arising out of the wickedness and transgressions of men. The
glory and the very existence of states rests upon their military protectors.
The soldier is more necessary than the lawyer and his profession therefore more
honorable./5 Arms and the gentleman during the middle ages are indeed
inseparable. The ideal of chivalry was a military ideal, the word itself until
long after the sixteenth century meaning only military discipline and
practice./6 Those who still urged it in the renaissance as the most fitting
occupation for the gentleman found in it the widest field for the exercise of
every sort of excellence that man may lay claim to; all the moral virtues,
particularly courage and liberality; prudence, that is, wisdom proceeding from
a study of the liberal scienceshistory, geography,mathematics, astronomy;
physical strength and agility. No other than a gentleman so fit for such a high
calling; no other calling so fit for a gentleman. Dudley Digges+, after fifteen
years' meditation on the question how shall the gentleman be "fitliest
busied," surveyed all professions and came to this conclusion: "To
play the Merchants was only for Gentlemen of Florence, Venice, or the like that
are indeede but the better sort of citizens+; ploughing and grazing I esteemed
worse than mechanicall+ occupations: the Court was but for fewe, and most of
them lived too luxuriously+; to study or travel was good, but directed to this
ende, that they might be fit for some profession the
------
5 Gates, The Defence of Military Profession, London, 1579, pp. 10-12;
Rich, Roome for a Gentleman, fo. 164-264; Ferne, Blazon of Gentrie, pp. 34-8.
6 Richard Robinson, The ancient order . . . . of Prince Arthure, 1583,
"The Epistle Dedicatories," fo. A4bin praise of Henry VIII's care for
archery, "So much in his noble mind prevailed all provident care of
princely prowess, valiancy, chivalry, and activity." The Mirror of
Princely Deeds and Knighthood, London, 1599, vol. 2, "To the Reader,"
"Our author shadoweth the form that should be in all nobility, to wit,
chivalry and courtesy." John Bullokar, An English Expositor, London, 1616
(compiled in his youth), "Chivalryknighthood: the knowledge of a knight or
nobleman in feats of arms." William Gouge, The Dignity of Chivalry,
London, 1626, a sermon preached before the Artillery Company of London in
praise of the military profession. The earliest use given by The New English
DIctsonary to mean "the brave, honourable, and courteous character
attributed to e ideal knight; disinterested bravery, honour, and
courtesy," is from Burke, 1790.
44 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
[44
thing in question; for Divinity they many times thought themselves too
good, and I was sure they were most times unfit; Lawe was but a money getting
trade, and Physicke a dangerous tickle Art, at last I thought on the warres,
where the learned might perfect their contemplation by practise and the
unlearned helpe that defect by well gotten experience."/7 But such an
exaltation of the soldier's calling, as the sole and fit business of the
gentleman, is to be found during this century chiefly in the mouths of soldiers
themselves and of heralds, the first because their profession was declining in
repute and needed bolstering by argument, the second because the use and
meaning of heraldic arms rested on military practice. For the profession of the
soldier can be exercised only in time of war. As an ideal it belongs to a
turbulent period of foreign wars or of warring factions and weak central power.
Such a period England had not seen since the Tudors ascended the throne, and
the long peace of Elizabeth's reign particularly turned men's minds away from
military to civil matters.
There is abundant evidence of a declining interest in
the military art among the English in general and among the upper classes in
particular. The decline had its beginning before the sixteenth century. In The
Boke of Noblesse, published in 1475, an appeal addressed to Edward IV to regain
with arms his lost French territory, complaint was made that though in old
times the sons of princes, lords, knights, and other ancient gentlemen were
trained to war, now many of them set themselves to learn law and delighted to
waste their time holding court and ruling "among youre poore and simple
comyns of bestialle contenaunce that lust to lyve in rest," and worst of
all, were held by all classes in higher honor than the soldier who had spent
thirty or forty years of his life in great jeopardy./8 In the last quarter of
the sixteenth century the neglect of arms for law is frequently bewailed by the
"martialists," who saw the country in danger of falling before
unresisted invasions of the Spaniards. The most vigorous and insistent protest
came from Barnaby Rich+, who from 1574 to 1609 busied himself in intervals
between service in the foreign wars with setting forth the faults of gentlemen
that preferred to be courtiers, lawyers, and lovers rather than soldiers.
Thomas Churchyard+ after a long life of mil-
------
7 Foure Paradoxes, "The Third Paradox," p. 77. See also
Churchyard, A General Rehearsall of Warres, fo. mx ff.; Rich, A Pathway to
Military Practise.
8 Printed for Roxburghe Club, p. 77.
45] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 45
tary service laid down his sword and turned to the pen for defence of
his beloved profession, denying that there was any real enmity between soldier
and civilian, though some charged the disrepute of arms to deadly dissension
between them, the pen "ever givyng a dashe out of order, against the
commendation of the sword, and the Sworde disgraced, by a balde blotte of a
scurvie Goose quill, lyes in a broken rustie scabberd, and so takes a Canker
whiche eates awaie the edge."/9 As a matter of fact few found a good word
to say for soldiers except these apologists, and they, having to admit the
vices that in general characterized the armies of that timeif not of every
timefrom the general to the lowest soldier, could only argue that such vices
were not inherent in the profession, but that more than in any other profession
the cardinal virtues and piety were essential.
The Spanish peril also brought out other witnesses to
the indifference to military affairs in the numerous books that came from the
printers dedicated to the removal of the woeful ignorance in such matters:
translations of Greek, Latin, French, and Italian treatises on the benefits of
war and its justification, the ordering of armies in camp, strategy in the
field; and English revampings of them, with the English bent showing in moral
and religious handbooks for the soldier. A by no means exhaustive search
reveals twenty-nine such books published between 1570 and 1601. The reasons
assigned by these would-be reformers for the neglect of these matters were the
long peace which had bred a false sense of security, and the disorders
introduced into military discipline by the civil wars in France, in which all
order and right use of armshad, been lost by the passions and shifts of
irregular warfare, tothe total discrediting of the whole profession.
Deeper causes, however, were at work than the
accident of peace, and the supposed demoralization of armies. The industrial
changes which had poured wealth into the pockets of merchants, artisans, and
yeomen1/10 had given them the means to assume the state of gentlemen without,
of course, binding upon them the old feudal ideal of military service as the
obligation of gentle conditions since the old nobility themselves for lack of
opportunity to display military prowess no longer fostered the art. Besides, as
------
9 Op_ cit., fo. mIIIb.
10 William Harrison, Description of England, London, 1577, rep. New
Shakespeare Society, Ser. VI, no. i, bk. II, ch. V, pp. 131-3, 148.
46 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [46
has been pointed out, the spread of education, the secularization of the
government, the increasing complexity of foreign relations and domestic
conditions opened up so many new opportunities for men of brains and energy
that affairs of peace rather than of war engaged men's attention. A less
obvious but perhaps quite as fundamental cause for the change may be seen in
the changing methods of fighting. In the fourteenth century the yeoman with his
long_bow+ had superseded the knight as the main strength of armies, but the
knight on horseback still played a part, though not so important a part in
England as in France./11 The introduction of firearms, the arquebus, caliver,
and musket, rapidly put the long bow out of business as an effective weapon and
reduced the effectiveness of cavalry, thus leaving gentlemen as a class still
less important in warfare except as officers./12 Curiously, enough the long bow
which had risen to fame in the hands of yeomen during the thirteenth century
would have become preeminently the gentleman's weapon in the sixteenth century,
if such men as Elyot+, Ascham+, Lyl, Mulcaster+, Cleland+, Peacham+, and Lord
Herbert of Cherbury+ had had their way. Stern facts made all their efforts
fruitless, and at the same time the unwieldiness and ungracefulness of the new
weapons, which moreover belonged to footmen and not to horsemen, made them
admittedly unfit for gentlemen./13 Even the applause which had of old attended
the knight who to prove his valor sought the wars of foreign princes, if his
own prince was at peace, now stood upon the occasion. Hubert Languet+ wrote
reprovingly to the eighteen-year-old Sidney for having attempted to join the
Belgians in their struggle against Spain. "Now although the Belgians have
just cause to defend their liberty by arms against the tyranny of the
Spaniards, this is nothing to you. If indeed your Queen had been bound by her
treaty to send them troops and had commanded you to go with these troops, then
the obligation to obey her who is your ruler would have made those your enemies
who are attacking the Belgian states. But you, out of mere love of fame and
honour and to have an opportunity of displaying your courage, determined to
regard as your enemies
------
11 Sir Thomas Smith noted that English kings fought with their infantry,
and French kings with their cavalry, De Republica Anglorum, rep. Cambridge,
1906, ch. 23, pp. 44-5.
12 F. Warren Cornish, Chivalry, pp. 79-80.
13 Humfrey Barwick, A Briefe Discourse, fo. 2b.
47] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 47
those who appeared to be doing the wrong in this war. It is not your
business, nor any private person's, to pass a judgement on a question of this
kind; it belongs to the magistrate. I mean by magistrate the prince, who,
whenever a question of the sort is to be determined, calls to his council those
whom he believes to be just men and wise. You and your fellows, I mean men of
noble birth, consider that nothing brings you more honour than wholesale
slaughter; and you are generally guilty of the greatest injustice, for if you
kill a man against whom you have no lawful cause of war, you are killing an
innocent person."/14 And when this same Sir Philip Sidney fourteen years
later took his last journey through the streets of London to St. Paul's, of all
the rich and powerful civil companies, only the Grocers' followed in his
funeral train to do honor to the soldier killed in his prince's war./15 Now
Hubert Languet was only a scholar, and the members of the London Companies only
merchants, tradesmen, and apprentices; but the voices of both were having a
weight in the affairs and ideas of England that they had never had before. The
voice of the scholar (hear the great Erasmus+ himself) was lifted in behalf of
a peace in which the liberal_arts+ might flourish, and the voice of the
merchant in behalf of a peace in which the coffers of trade might be filled.
And even Sir Philip Sidney himself, England's mirror of perfection, perhaps the
nearest approach to Castiglione+'s ideal that the English renaissance produced,
was more of a statesman than a soldier. His chief interest, as Fulke
Greville+'s life of him shows, was the policy of governments, and his fame in
Europe was made when, as a mere youth, he traveled to see the courts of
princes, or was sent on relatively unimportant embassies, and astonished all
with his wisdom. Ludovic Bryskett+, Sidney's companion in Germany and Italy,
bears this witness to his friend, "who being but seventeene yeeres of age
when he began to travell, and coming to Paris, where he was ere long sworne
Gentleman of the chamber to the French King, was so admired among the graver
sort of Courtiers, that when they could at any time have him in their companie
and coversation, they would be very joyfull, and no lesse delighted with his
ready and witty answers, then astonished to hear him speake the French language
so wel and aptly, having bin so short a while in the country. So was he
likewise esteemed in all places else where he came in his travell as well in
------
14 The Correspondence of Philip Sidney and Hubert Languet, ed. W. A.
Bradley, Boston, 1912, Letter LXI, Oct. 22, 1578, p. 172.
15 Hubert Hall, Society in the Elizabethan Age, London, 1886, pp. 45-6.
48 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [48
Germanic as in Italie. And the judgement of her Majestie employing him,
when he was not yet full 22 years old, in embassage to congratulate with the
Emperor that now is his comming to the Empire, may serve for a sufficient
proofe, what excellencie of understanding, and what stayednesse was in him at
those yeeres.'/16 An able commander when fighting was made his business, he yet
had his mind in his maturer years set on vaster schemes of statesmanship to
secure the peace of Europe and defend the Protestant faith. Now all of these
considerations do not prove that young blades did not go jauntily off to war in
search of honor, and did not find plenty of it when they returned flushed with
pride, or, like Sidney, deaf to all plaudits. Languet's letter would prove that
they did, and valued themselves highly for doing so; and Elizabeth had great
ado to keep her favorites safe at home, resorting even to severe measures of punishment
when they eluded her vigilance and joined the armies abroad without her
permission, since she had no mind unnecessarily to lose their pleasant company
to a small scrap of iron./17 But conditions and current complaints point to at
least a diminution of emphasis on arms as the fittest profession for the
gentleman so far as practice was concerned./18 Certain things make it seem
clear that theory followed practice. Outside of the soldiers who are writing
for a practical purpose with a definite fear, little is said about arms even in
the books which set forth the complete ideal of the gentleman. The difference
in this respect between the English "complete gentleman" and the
Italian "courtier" is striking. From Elyot+ to Peacham+ one may look
in vain for such a sketch of military pride and prowess as Castiglione
presents. And in the more intimate guides to perfection left by sundry fathers
to their sons there is the same neglect of arms, or even warning against too
much reliance on them. Lord Burghley+ in his precepts to his son advises him
not to bring up his children
------
16 A Discourse of Civill Life, London, 1606, pp. 160-1.
17 Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, London, 1641, Arber Rep. 1870,
PP. 32.-3.
18 The process thus begun Egerton Castle notes as complete after the
Restoration. By that time the sword had become chiefly an article of dress for
the gentleman only, and swordsmanship an accomplishment like dancing. A
gentleman was then no longer of necessity a soldier, and from this period dates
the absolute distinction between the court and military sword. Schools and
Masters of Fence, 1891, Introduction, pp. 26-7.
49] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 49
to the wars as a profession, because a soldier can hardly be an honest
man or a good Christian, every war in itself being unjust though the good cause
may make it lawful, and because he is in request only so long as needed. As a
person of quality once noted, concludes Burghley,
Friends, Souldiers, Women in theyr prime, Are like to Dogges in Hunting time: Occasion, Warres, and Beautie gone, Friends, Souldyers, Women heere are none./19
But if arms were not the profession of the gentleman as they had
been of the knight, they were still considered a necessary part of his
accomplishments. In time of need he must be ready to defend his country against
foreign invasion or internal uprising. Shooting with the long bow, hunting,
fencing, swimming, and riding the great horse, though urged primarily as
becoming and healthful exercises for gentlemen, were urged also as necessary or
helpful training for war. No gentleman could serve his country fully who was
not ready, when called upon, to take up arms in her defence.
Neither could a gentleman serve his country fully who
was merely a soldier. He must be fit for both war and peace, and particularly
for peace, and to make him fit for the offices of peace special training was as
clearly necessary as for the offices of war. The addition of learning,
education in the liberal_arts+, to the requirements of a gentleman was the most
conspicuous contribution of the renaissance to the development of the modern
ideal. So complete was the acceptance, by the end of the century, of learning
as one of the marks of gentility that soldiers to prove the fitness of military
practice for the gentleman were at great pains to show not only that military
science itself was learning but that the liberal sciences were necessary and
appropriate to him as the preserver of all learning and the foundation of all
nobility. This combination of warrior and scholar was first presented in the
ideal of the courtier+ which arose in the Italian city-states during the
renaissance. It was a fusion of the Christian knight and the pagan orator+ in a
time when Italian nobles alternated periods of devotion to the clash and
science of arms with periods of devotion to the study and imitation of
Ciceronian+ dialogues. Castiglione+, who gave the most perfect expression to
the ideal for Italy, where his book was in the hands
------
19 Precept 2, p. 10.
50 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [50
even of the common people,/20 was little known in England until Hoby+'s
translation appeared in 156i; but the combination of orator and knight had been
set forth thirty years before by Sir Thomas Elyot+ in The Governour (itself of
course a product of both Italian and classical+ influence), with the bent it
was to continue to have in England throughout the century.
The title is significant: the governor, by which
Elyot meant particularly the lawyer+ in office, and not the courtier. Such a
lawyer he had in mind, he said, as should compare with Cicero+'s orator,
"in whome shulde than be founden the sharpe wittes of logitians, the grave
sentences of philosophers, the elegancie of poetes, the memorie of civilians,
the voice and gesture of them that can pronounce commedies."/21 He would
therefore have the young gentleman put to the study of the laws after he has
gone through the course of liberal_studies+ outlined. So the orator reappeared
among the ideals of men in the English governor, as well as in the Italian
courtier, but with a difference. Whereas in Castiglione+ the graces were
emphasized to the neglect of the virtues, in The Governour the emphasis on
moral qualities to the exclusion of the graces and the moral earnestness with
which Elyot set about his self-appointed task of spreading the light of
learning among the gentlemen of England are marks of the English temper which
gave English representations of the ideal their practical character, in notable
contrast to the philosophical bent of continental treatsies.
How practical was the purpose Elyot had in mind, and
how consciously he was attempting to graft learning upon the old warrior ideal
is clearly shown in the following passage. "A knyght hath received that
honour not onely to defende with the swerde Christis faithe and his propre
countrey, agaynst them which impugneth the one or invadeth the other, but also,
and that most chiefly by the meane of his dignitie (if that be imploied where it
shuld be, and estemed as it ought to be), be shuld more effectually with his
learnyng and witte assayle vice and errour, most pernicious ennemies to
christen men, having therunto for his sworde and speare his tunge and his
penne./22 It is evident how much of military significance the term knight had
lost since Elyot has in mind himself, knighted not for service in the field but
in the courts. Thus was achieved that union of knightly ------
20 Nifo, II Cortegiano, 1560, the dedication, fo. 400 Iiib.
21 Everyman's Library, bk. I, ch. XIV, p. 66.
22 A Preservative agaynste Deth, preface, fo. AIIbAIIIb.
51] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 51
strength and virtue and of clerklike knowledge which the upholder of
chivalry had somewhat wistfully ventured to suggest would be a more perfect
arrangement than to give over the office of judging to lawyers, and to knights
the office of restraining the judges from doing violence in their office,
"yf it myght be that Chyvalry and Clergy assembled them togyder in such
maner that Knyghtes shold be lerned so that by scyence they were suffysaunt to
be juges."/23 Of all professions, then, the fittest for gentlemen and
those aspiring to become gentlemen was the law./24 Even those who urged the
military profession upon the gentleman acknowledged however reluctantly that
law also was especially suitable for him, "for as the lawe it selfe is
most honourable amongst men: so those that should bee practisers, professours,
and ministers of the lawes ought likewise to be of credite and estimation./25
Moreover it was felt that lawyers of gentle birth were better lawyers than the
sons of shoemakers, tailors, innkeepers, and farmers that crowded the Inns of
Courtmore careful in their clients' cause, more desirous of being peacemakers
than of stirring up litigation to their own profit, more reasonable in fees,
more courageous in the exercise of their office, more ashamed to engage in a
bad cause, in general more liberal and more honorable./26 The gentleman,
indeed, was something of a lawyer even when he stayed at home in the country,
as the manager of large estates, and as unofficial keeper of the peace among
his people and neighbors, or often as justice_of_the_peace+, an office
devolving upon the nobility and gentry./27 And at court it was as a lawyer that
he found readiest access to the high offices of state./28 The court as an
occupation is thus differently conceived in the English ideal and in the
Italian. The Italian courtier at his best, as Castiglione+ conceived him, was a
man fitted to conquer in war, to adorn a court, and to give wise counsel+ to
his prince, but he was chiefly interested in the court as a place where he might
achieve personal perfection and make his perfection known. At the hands
------
23 Caxton, The Book of Chivalry, chap. II, fo. b5b-b6a.
24 Sir John Fortescue, De Laudibus Legum Angliae, London, 1616, fo.
1244-5a.
25 Rich, Allarme to England, pt. 3, fo. GIIb.
26 Fern; op. cit., pp. 38-43, 93.
27 Institution of a Gentleman, fo. d7b, f3b; Sir Thomas Smith, op. cit.,
lib. 2, ch. 19.
28 Cleland, The Institution of a Young Noble Man, bk. II, ch. 12, p. 96.
52 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [52 of other writers, however, he
did not escape the character of a flatterer+, a trifler, whose only business
was to entertain the prince during his hours of ease in order to relieve the
strain of serious business. Most Italian writers, indeed, are careful to distinguish
between the courtier, whose business whether serious or frivolous is personal
attendance on the prince, and the other men at court who serve the prince in
his official, political capacity, as counsellors, secretaries, ambassadors,
magistrates, etc./29 In England, on the other hand, these very offices were
considered the happiest business of the courtier. Even those who allowed the
young man to play at court, with weapons on horseback and afoot, in games, in
honest service on the ladies, with an hour a day given to the reading of
history or serious discourse, would employ the courtier after thirty-five only
at serious affairs.") No one in enumerating the suitable occupations for a
gentleman included mere attendance at court. The author of Cyvile and Uncyvile
Life, a lively dialogue between a courtier and a country gentleman, came the
nearest to sending the gentleman to court, but was interested chiefly in
proving that a city house, city food, city amusements were the true civility,
and only sketched briefly the life at court, recommending Hoby's Courtier, for
details. Barnaby Rich, though arguing with another axe to grind, pretty well
summed up what seemed to be the prevailing attitude toward the court as a
suitable occupation for the gentleman : "The Court, I confesse, is a place
requisite for Gentlemen to know, so their myndes might not bee seduced with the
vanities thereof, whereby they should be enticed, not to followe other
exercises, tending more to their honour and estimation: and forsake those places,
where greater glorie is to bee gained then any doth ordinarily atteine unto,
that consumes their dayes wholy in the Court; for he that fully frames him
selfe to become a courtier, must likewyse fraught his head so full of courting
toyes, that there will be no room left, to consider of matters apperteining
more to his credit./3i There was none to speak for a perfect courtier except
Castiglione in his English dress, and even a Sidney with Castiglione in his
pocket fretted for activity elsewhere to the point of running away./32
------
29 Nifo, op. cit., lib. I, caps. V, XII; Giraldi, Giovane Nobile, 1569,
fo. 28"; Ducci, Ars Aulica, 1607, ch. II, pp. 10I4.
30 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life, rep. Roxburghe Lib., pp. 74-5.
31 Op. cit., fo. GIIa
53] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN 53 The ambassador, the
counsellor, the secretary, the provincial governor, the magistrate were the
courtiers of England.
There was not, however, the theoretical interest even
in these offices that there was in France, Spain, and particularly Italy, where
almost every scholar of note seems to have tried his hand at composing a guide
for the ambassador, counsellor, or secretary, as well as for the courtier.
Elyot's Governour is the only native English treatise on any of these offices, and
there is not much difference between his book and the later treatises like The
Institution of a Gentleman and Humphrey's The Nobles; the aim in all is to fit
the gentleman for the responsibility+ that was his without much reference to
the particular form that that responsibility might take. Works in foreign
tongues and a few translations seemed to supply all the demand for special
information. Outside of Hoby+'s Courtier the translations were conspicuously
concerned with the office of the counsellor+. Certain stock questions were
considered: what qualities should the counsellor possessage, physique,
experience, learning, moral virtues; what matters should concern the
counsellorrevenues, peace, war, etc.; what means can be taken to persuade the
prince to accept wise counsel; how far may the counsellor wisely go in opposing
a prince's unwise or evil designs, and how far may he yield to such designs
without reproach to his own integrity+./33 Similar treatises on the ambassador
contained much the same substance with the additional consideration of how
closely is an ambassador bound by his instructions in the face of unforeseen
circumstances, and how may he be faithful both to his own prince, and to the
prince in whose court he serves./34 An air of impracticality marks even these
treatises, the translated and the untranslated, because they rarely even
suggest the particular circumstances to which they must be appliedform of
government, character of nation and prince, and political situation. Frenchman,
Italian, Spaniard, all write alike, handing down a well worn, traditional
method of treatment and substance in these treatises. And when the Englishmen
translated, he as rarely selected or adapted to fit English conditions,
although he usually offered his work as a
------
32 Fulke Greville, Life of Sir Philip Sidney, ch. VII.
33 Blundeville, A Very Briefe and Profitable Treatise; Thorius, The
Counsellor; The Counsellor, translated from the Latin of Goslicius, a Pole.
34 For a summary of these treatises and extended bibliography see J. J.
Jusserand, The Ambassador, London, 1924.
54 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [54
practical guide to Englishmen./35 The practical purpose disappeared from
sight with the protest in the preface that unlike Tully+'s orator, or Plato+'s
philosopher, or Castiglione+'s courtier, this portrait of an ambassador, or
counsellor, was taken from the life and might therefore hope to be copied.
Thus law was a profession of particular value to the
gentleman, since it might serve him either directly in the offices of law, or
indirectly in the offices of state. But it is to be noted that, when law was
recommended to the gentleman as a proper pursuit, law only in its more
dignified and important aspects was intended. In its lower reaches it was still
too dishonest and mechanical a trade for the gentleman to practice without
derogation./36 The other learned professions, of the physician, divine, and
scholar were recognized as fit employments for gentlemen, but without
enthusiasm. Medicine was frankly considered not so honorable as law since it
took its sanction from men concerned only with the bodies of men and was often
loathesome in practice. The surgeon's skill was held chiefly of the manual
order; the physician was freer from that taint but smelled too much of the
apothecary shop, a low business, and of the jordan./37 Yet medicine was
climbing slowly after law in repute; as evidence, Tiraquellus+ spent one
hundred and eighty-six folio pages proving that medicine is a noble art, a subject
which he said had not been handled before, and did a thorough job in his way,
enlisting in behalf of medicine a long line of illustrious practitionerssaints,
angels, kings, emperors, popes, philosophers, the Christ himself./38 Divinity,
though sometimes piously mentioned as a calling for gentlemen,/39 drew forth
even less enthusiasm than medicine. The medievalists had discussed whether the
nobleman lost his nobility by taking orders, some believing that he did, since
in the spiritual office worldly distinctions can, or ought, to play no part./40
Humphrey flatly said that a man might not enter the church and retain
nobility./41 The inconveniences are well illustrated in a story repeated
------
35 The only translator that seems to have done so was George North in
The Philosopher of the Court, London, 1575, from Philibert de Vienne.
36 Tiraquellus, De Nobilitate, caps. XXVIIIXXX.
37 Ferne, op. cit., pp. 44-5; Tiraquellus, op. cit., cap. XXXI, p.
309,411
38 Op. cit., cap. XXXI, pp. 168-354.
39 Mulcaster,Positions, rep. x888, ch. 39, pp. 202-3; Meriton, Sermon of
Nobility, fo. E2a.
40 Tiraquellus, op. cit., cap. XXVI.
41 The Nobles, bk. I, fo. fllafVb.
55] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 55
by Rich. A country fellow meeting the Bishop of Cologne sumptuously
furnished and attended remarked that God, or his own wit, had furnished him
better than Peter and Paul. The Bishop replied that he was not only a Bishop
but a Prince Elector, and his state might be too much for a Bishop but was too
little for a Prince. "You have answered well (said the other) but my good
Lord, but one question more, if this Prince Elector you speak of do happen to
go to the devil for his pride, what will become of my Lord Bishop of Cologne
?"/42 That such a consideration acted on the gentleman as a deterrent from
entering the church is indicated by Lyly+'s rebuke to gentlemen, "which
thinke it a blemmish to their auncestours, and blot to their owne gentrie, to
read or practize Divinitie."/43 The chief reason however for this neglect
of the church, was probably economic; Harrison said that the best wits of the
period took up law or medicine, fearing that they could not make a living at
divinity."/44 Political power certainly lay outside the church, and
political nobility. Even the divine contented himself with humble comparisons.
"I wot well [said Meriton] that this sort of people [priests] for the
space of many years have had little honour by Parliament given unto them:
except standing by a rogue whilst he is whipt, and keeping a beggar's register
may be called honour. Yet to be a Mayor of a Towne or Citty, or a
Justice_of_Peace+ in the Countrey (I might goe higher) cannot sort so well with
noble estate, as Priesthood may. Herein may nobles live and devote themselves
unto Gods service without disparagement."/45 Pursuit of scholarship+, like
divinity, was admitted among liberal professions, though perfunctorily.
Liberal_studie+, such as rhetoric+|, mathematics+, astronomy+, music+, poetry+,
history+, grammar+, were eminently fitting for gentlemen, a university degree
as well as attendance at the Inns_of_Court+ even carrying with it the status of
gentleman; and the younger sons of impoverished gentility might well find
honorable support in the pursuit and spread of learning./46 But in general it
was felt that studies should be in esteem rather for use and ornament in other
professions than for themselves, since learning as it led to action+ in the
state was commendable, but pursued closetwise became a blemish to a gentleman.
Stephen
------
42 Roome for a Gentleman, fo. I5aI5b.
43 Euphues, Arber Rep., 1868, p. 155.
44 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. I, pp. 22, 37.
45 Op. cit., fo. E2a.
46 Ferri; op. cit., pp. 45-58.
56 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [56
Gosson+ roundly rated those who shut themselves up in the universities,
deaf to public demands, benefiting only themselves./47 The active_life+,
"which is about civil function and administration of the commonweal,"
and not the contemplative+, "which is continual meditation and
study," was held the only truly honorable life for gentlemen, upon whom
the welfare of the state depended. The man of the renaissance sometimes felt a
difficulty, to be sure, in repudiating the life of contemplation, bound up as
it was with medieval religious sanction. Ratcliff+'s unknown author did some
rare straddling to recommend the active life and at the same time admit the
superiority of the contemplative as it deals with divine matters.{Aquinas+} "And
because that sapience, [he said,] is, of all other, the chiefe vertue, as that
which resteth in the knowledge of divine thinges, so much also is this
contemplative vocation, (which consisteth in this vertue,) more excellent than
the active, which resteth onely in prudence, and other inferiour and baser
vertues. . . . . Whereof insueth that the active vocation, is as much different
from the vocation contemplative, as there is difference betweene the
understanding, and the bodie, between heaven and earth, betweene the superiour
who commaundeth, and the inferiour who serveth & obeyeth, and betweene
that, whiche is immortall, and that whiche is mortall, and perishable. And
there is nothing so seemely and worthie of man, as the contemplation and trying
out of the trueth, guide & light of mans life, which otherwise should be
but a confusion, and darknesse, yea, an eternal death. Howbeit, comming now to
the active vocation, if we doe well, diligently and throughly consider that
whiche is to be considered of, that is: what is moste decent, naturall, and
meete for the weale, profite, and continuance of humane societie, we shall not
finde anything so convenient as the active life: all actions being reported to
the benefite of the commonal_tie+ of men, neither more or lesse than the
actions of every member of mans body be referred to the conservation and
entertainment of the same. And as it is said that the principal praise and
excellencie of all vertue lieth in the action+, so the principal bliss,
profite, and commoditie of this human life lieth in this vocation. Certainly,
even as there is nothing so great to nature (as we have said) as this common,
and reciproke+ exteriour action of everie one, redounding to the maintenance of
a bonde+, and universall conjunction of all men: so is there nothing so
monstruous, and against nature, as the abandoning of this commonaltie by
neglecting the action: I meane the apparant action (as I have said) knowing
right well, that in the contemplative vocation, there is also an action but interiour
(whereof I have
------
47 The Schoole of Abuse , Arber Reprint, 1869, pp. 51-53.
57] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 57 spoken) which is not
communicated to another bodie and there is nothing more lame, nor imperfect,
then contemplation above and sequestred from the same."/48 {de_Officiis+}
he sixteenth century in general decided in favor of the active as against the
contemplative life, on the ground that the common good, not private good, was
man's chief consideration. Bacon, interestingly enough when we consider the
ascetic ideal of the medieval church, found in Christianity the main support
for this belief. "Never in any age has there been any philosophy, sect,
religion, law, or other discipline, which did so highly exalt the good which is
communicative, and depress the good which is private and particular, as the
Holy Christian Faith." So, he continued, the case is decided against
Aristotle, "for all the reasons which he brings for the contemplative
respect private good, and the pleasure or dignity of a man's self."49
Contemplation, study, however, was felt to have a place, and Lyly may be taken
as well summing up the conclusion of the whole matter for renaissance England:
"If this active life be without philosophie, it is an idle life, or at the
least a life evill employed which is worse: if the contemplative lyfe be
seperated from the Active, it is most unprofitable. I woulde therefore have my
youth, so to bestowe his studie, as he may be both exercised in the common
weale to common profite, and well employed privately for his owne perfection,
so as by his studie the rule he shal beare may be directed, and by his
government his studie may be increased."/50 Hence may be seen the reason
why the life of the scholar, whether as teacher or student merely, did not
appeal to the Elizabethan as a life eminently suitable for the gentleman,
neither teaching nor research having yet met its apotheosis as one of the
pillars of the state. But as a liberal life, free from taint of manual toil, it
was allowable to the gentleman in lieu of something better.
So much for the military and the learned professions
which in theory were accepted as the most honorable callings for the gentleman,
conferring, though in varying degrees, the most signal benefits upon the state,
and the highest honors upon individuals. But the tale is not complete, though
we must desert theory for the moment, and consider practice.
------
48 Politique Discourses, bk. I, ch. XVII, fo. 31b, Bk. II, ch. IX, fo.
52a-52b.
49 De Augmentis, trans. Spedding, London, 1858, vol. 5, bk. VII, ch. I,
pp. 7-8.
50 Op. cit., p. 142.
58 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [58
It is strange enough that, in general, English theory should have
rejected agriculture, when in practice the cultivation of his estates was
indeed one of the most common occupations of the gentleman./51 The great
classical_tradition+ was here ignored, for Cicero+ had put agriculture among
the most delightful and becoming professions for a well-bred man./52 One Englishman
alone echoed him, allowing husbandry to be honorable according to ancient
tradition, but rather perhaps because he hated idleness in gentlemen than
because he respected agriculture./53 English theory was here representing
Italian ideas and customs rather than English. For the Italian, the gentleman
was essentially a product of the court or the city, but the foundation of
English gentry was, as in France, landed estates, and the one sure claim to
recognition among the gentry was ownership and long continued cultivation of an
estate, with of course accompanying refinement of manners and living
conditions./54 The Italians themselves bear witness to this difference. Poggio
Bracciolini, a Florentine, utterly rejected from true nobility the French and English
nobility of the fields and woods and the German nobility of the mountains, for
wisdom, he said, comes not from dwelling among wild beasts and from intercourse
with rustics, but in the cities and haunts of men. He explained his rejection
further by the fact that among the English the sons of merchants and artisans
who had acquired wealth left the city and their seminoble status there, and by
buying estates in the country were able to leave nobility to their children./55
If this was true in 1489, it was even more true in 1589. Nor was there
difficulty in finding estates to purchase, for the ignorance of the ordinary
country gentleman concerning his affairs, and the fashion of going up to town
with all his revenues on his back was bearing fruit in impoverishment and
forced selling of ancestral acres. On the other evils of going to court
Gascoigne+ has much to say.
The stately lord, which woonted was to kepe A court at home is now come up to courte,
------
51 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life, p. 10.
52 de_Officiis+, lib. I, cap. XLII, Loeb Classics, p. 155.
53 Humphrey, op. cit., fo. iVVIIIa.
54 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life raises the question "whether it were
better for the gentlemen of England to make most abode in their country houses
(as our English custom is) or else ordinarily to inhabit the cities and chief
towns, as in some foreign nations is the custom." "Argument and
Occasion of this Dialogue," fo. B4b.
55 De Nobilitate, 1489, fo. aaIIIIb.
59] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN 59
And leaves the country for a common prey To pilling, polling, bribing, and deceit; (Al which his presence might have pacified, Or else have made offenders smel the smoke.) And now the youth which might have served him In comely wise with countrey clothes yclad, And yet therby bin able to preferre Unto the prince and there to seke advance: Is fain to sell, his lands for courtly cloutes, Or else sits still, and liveth like a loute, (Yet of these two the last fault is the lesse:) And so those imps which might in time have sprong Aloft (good Lord) and servde to shielde the state Are either nipt with such untimely frosts, Or else growe crookt bycause they are not proynd./56
Two counter currents had set in, therefore: one that took the old
gentry away from the country to the city as a center of civility and fashion, a
trend partially to be accounted for perhaps by the vogue of all things Italian;
another that took the new gentry out from the city to the country to set the
seal of old English custom upon their gentility. For though a man might
consider himself more of a gentleman in his town house, his roots were in his
country estate, and cut off from estate and revenues he was the less a
gentleman, or more likely none at all.
Necessarily in practice the cultivation of an estate
remained a gentleman's occupation, and as the books on husbandry/57 as well as
the complaints indicate, he could be as good a farmer as any yeoman, too good
indeed to suit with his dignity and duty to the state. Harrison, for instance,
complains that the lords have taken all the gain from their farmers by
themselves becoming grasiers, butchers, tanners, and what not, to bring all the
wealth into their own hands, thereby "leaving the commonaltie weake, or as
an idoll with broken or feeble armes, which may in a time of peace have a
plausible shew, but when necessitie shall inforce, have an heavie and bitter
sequele."/58 That is, such usurping of the offices of others and neglect
of their own could only result in upsetting the
------
56 The Steele Glas, Cambridge, 1910, p. 154-5.
57 Fitzherbert, Booke of Husbandrie, London, 1523, frequently reprinted
until 1598; Tusser, Hundreth good Pointes of Husbandrie, London, 1557, trans.
by Googe, and often reprinted with additions.
58 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. XII, p. 243.
60 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [60 existing order. The master of
an estate should know enough about the running of it so as not to be at the
mercy of his servants {Oswald+}but not so much as to turn himself into a
practicer of base callings./59 Agriculture as an occupation for the gentleman,
then, was allowed by English theory if it was carried on on a large scale, in a
liberal fashion, that is under the general direction of the gentleman but
without his meddling in the execution of the work. The gentleman at home after
all was important not so much as a model farmer, but as a preserver of the
peace, civilizer of manners, and patron of young men. Thus could he find a
place in the general scheme of things, and in the name of God and the king help
maintain peace and the established order.
If agriculture may with difficulty lay claim to a
place among gentlemanly professions where will commerce+ find itself? Like
agriculture commerce was a point of dispute with the ancients. To go no farther
back than Cicero+he said that all who retail merchants' goods for prompt sale
are to be despised because they must lie abominably, but if the merchandizing
is on a large scale, bringing commodities from all parts of the world, and
giving bread to large numbers without fraud, it is not so despicable; and if
such a merchant, having piled up wealth, becomes satisfied with his profits and
leaves the open sea to settle on an estate, he justly deserves praise./60
Through the middle ages a similar distinction was drawn in Italy between the
retail+ merchant, who over his own counter doled out mean measures to mean
people, often soiling his hands, and the great merchant who owned his fleets
and brought from far off lands strange and beautiful things, or who, if dealing
in the necessities of life, dealt largely and supplied whole peoples./61
Tiraquellus, however, in his compendium of nobility set merchandize down as a
derogation to nobility even when carried on through an agent, because it was
incompatible with Christian principles, though even he felt constrained to
except Genoa and Venice+, where custom sanctioned the practice./62 Bodin said
that trade was not a derogation to nobility in Italy, England, and Portugal,
the great sea-going races, but was in France and Germany.??/63
------
59 The Institution of a Gentleman, fo. f5bf6a.
60 ibid.
61 Cepolla, De Imperatore Militum Deligendo, 1549, pt. 4, sect. 13-14;
Tiraquellus,op. cit., cap. XXXIII, p. 10.
62 Op. cit., cap. XXXIII, sec. 20-21.
63 The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, bk. III, chap. VIII, p. 400.
61] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 61
In English practice certainly trade was often the cause of ennobling,
and younger sons of gentlemen were commonly bound prentice+ to the great
merchants of London./64 Not only that but the nobles themselves, like the Earls
of Leicester+ and Shrewsbury+, were traders on a grand scale./65 Theory had as
little to say about trade as about agriculture. Sir Thomas Smith+ and Sir John
Ferne+ struck at the roots by dubbing apprenticeshi+ servitude, but neither
discussed the subject nor named trade as unfit for gentlemen. Sir Thomas placed
merchants, that is retailers that have no free land, in the fourth class of
men, those that do not rule except in towns and cities in default of yeomen. He
had nothing to say about the other kind of merchants, but one may justifiably
conclude that he had them in mind when he allowed the practice of calling all
those gentlemen "who can live idly and without manual labor, and will bear
the port, charge, and countenance of a gentleman."/66 Ferne lists trade
among the seven mechanical arts, noting that the Venetians+ and Genoese+
esteemed it fitting for gentlemen. But he had no prejudice against a merchant
as the founder of a noble line. In his classification of gentlemen according to
the source of their arms he called "gentlemen of purchase" the
merchants, artificers, etc. who bought from the king lands which for want of
heirs had fallen into his hands. To the question how it came "that so many
craftes men, so many Mercers, and shopkeepers, retaylors, Cooks, victaylours,
and Taverne-holders, Millioners, and sucheTyke, shoulde bee suffered to cloath
them selves, with the coates of Gentleness which I see often done in this Citye
of midle Saxons, and other places," he answered that not by their arts but
by some special merit or aid to the country these men obtained arms./67 Thomas
Churchyard frankly put the merchant fourth among his four sorts of true
nobility, that is the merchant "that sailes forrain countreys, and brynges
home commodities; and after greate hazardes+ abroad, doe utter their ware with
regard of conscience and profite to the publike estate."/68 And that one
may decide was at least a tacit agreement among the English in the sixteenth
century.
------
64 Foster Watson, The Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects in
England, London, 1909, pp. XXXVIXXXVII.
65 J. W. Burgon, Life and Times of Sir Thomas Gresham, London, 1839,
vol. I,P. 47.
66 Op. cit., lib. I, ch. 24; ch. 20, p. 40.
67 Op. cit., pp. 68-70.
68 Op. cit., fo. MIVb.
62 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [62
So little, indeed, was this question discussed by the earlier theorists
that a book published anonymously in 1629, but written ten or twelve years
earlier, furnishes more evidence on this point than any other source. The
merchant seems by this time to have been put more on the defensive, probably by
the sharper drawing of class lines as society settled into something like order
after the revolutionary changes of the sixteenth century, and to have become
therefore more articulate. The author of this book, Edmund Bolton,/69 states
the case in the title, "The Cities Advocate in this case or question of Honor
and Armes: whether Apprenticeship extinguisheth Gentry? Containing a cleare
Refutation of the pernicious common errour affirming it, swallowed by Erasmus+
of Rotterdam, Sir Thomas Smith+ in his Common-weale, Sir John Fern+ in his
Blazon, Ralph_Broke+ Yorke Herald, and others. With the Copies or Transcripts
of three Letters which gave occasion of this worke." The point of attack
was the preparatory training,which every wouldbe merchant and artisan had to
submit to, which necessarily involved many actions of a menial character, and
complete submission to the will of another. It was an important question,
Bolton said "being now not so much a paradox, as growne in secret to be of
late a common opinion," involving not only the lesser nobility but royalty
itself, since Queen Elizabeth acknowledged Sir Martin Calthorpe+, the Lord
Mayor of London, as her kinsman, and Sir Godfrey Bullen, also once Lord_Mayor+
in Henry_VII+'s time, was a lineal ancestor of Queen_Anne+. Both of these
gentlemen had risen to this "greatest annual honor of this kingdom"
from apprenticeship. Such a charge was serious also because it darkened honor,
bred bad feeling, and cast disdain upon being city born or bred./70 One of the
letters mentioned shows so clearly the feeling of this later time and the
conditions of the sixteenth century that it is worth quoting at length.
The first letter from the Citizen in the behalfe and cause of his eldest sonne to a speciall friend, of whose love, and learning he rested confident.
------
69 See Bolton's letter, March 26, 1631, Ashmolean MS. 837, fo. 228-9,
printed Gentleman's Magazine, Jan.June, 1832, pp. 499-501.
63] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN 63
Right worthy Sir, If having beene at no small charge, and some care, to breed my sonne up in Gentleman like qualities, with purpose the rather to enable him for the service of God, his Prince, and Countrey, I am very curious to remove from him as a Father, all occasions, which might either make him lesse esteemed of others, or abate the least part of his edge: I say, not towards the honesty of life onely, but towards the splendor thereof, and worship also, my hope is that, I shall not in your worthy judgement seem either insolent, or vaine glorious. "Truth and Justice are the onely motives of my stirring at this present. For, as I mortally hate that my Son should beare himselfe, above himself so should I disclaime my part in him, if being unjustly sought to be embased he sillily lost any inch of his due. He hath been disgraced as no Gentleman borne, when yet not hee but I his Father was the Apprentise, thankes be to God for it. They cannot object to him want of fashion, they cannot object to him the common vices, badges rather of reprobates then of Gentlemen: they cannot object to him cowardise, for it is well knowne that he dares defend himselfe: nor any thing else unworthy of his name, which is neither new, nor ignoble: But mee his poor father they object unto him, because I was once an Apprentise. "Wise Sir_Thomas_Moore+ teacheth us, under the names, and persons of his Eutopians+, that victories, and atchievements of wit are applauded, farre above those of forces: and seeing reverence to God, & to our Prince, commandeth us, (as his Majesties booke of Duells+ doth affirme) not to take the office of justice from Magistrates by private rash revenges, I have compelled my sonne, upon Gods blessing, and mine, to forbeare the sword till by my care he may be found not to be in the wrong. For if it be true, that by Apprentiship we forfeit our titles to native Gentrie; God forbid that my sonne should usurpe it. And, if it be not true, then shall he have a just ground to defend himselfe, and his adversaries shall stand convicted of ignorance, if not of envy also. "These are therefore very earnestly to pray you, to cleare this question. For, in the City of London there are at this present many hundreds of Gentlemens children Apprentises, infinite others have beene, and infinite will be; and all the parts of England are full of families, either originally raised to the dignity of Gentlemen out of this one most famous place: or so restored, and enriched as may well seeme to amount to an original raising. And albeit I am very confident, that by having once beene an Apprentise in London, I have not lost to be a Gentleman of birth, nor my sonne, yet shall I ever wish, and pray rather to resemble an heroicke Walworth+, a noble Philpot an happie Capel, that learned Sheriffe of London Mr. Fabian, or any other famous Worthies of this royall City, out of any
64 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [64
whatsoever obscurest parentage, then that being descended of great nobles, to fall by vice farre beneath the rancke of poorest Prentises. "In requitall of your care in this point, you shall shortly receive (if I can obtain my desire) out of the records & monuments of London, a Roll of the names, and Arms of such principall friends as have been advanced to Honor, and Worship, throughout the Realme of England, from the degree of Citizens. A warrantable designe, by the example of the Lord Chiefe Justice Cooke, who hath bestowed upon the world (in some one or other of his bookes of reports) a short Catalogue of such as have beene eminently beholding to the Common Lawes. And if I should faile in that, yet doe I promise you a list or Alphabet of Apprentises names, who by their enrollments will appeare upon good Record, to have been sonnes of Gentlemen from all the parts of England "If this my sute and request, cary the lesse regard, because it comes but from a private Citizen, be pleased I pray to understand, that in me, though being but one man, multitudes speake, and that out of a private pen, a publike cause propounds it selfe.
The Stoics+ of course had said that nobility rested not in the
world's opinion but in personal qualities which opinion could not touch. Why
make such a fuss about such a taunt? Bolton answered for himself and for most
gentlemen: "Sound opinion (meaning doctrine) is the anchor of the world,
and opinion (meaning a worthy conceit of this or that person) is the principall
ingredient which makes words, or actions relish well, and all the Graces are,
without it, little worth. To take fame from any man that he is a Gentleman
borne is a kind of disenablement and prejudice, at leastwise among the weake
(who consider no further than seemings) that is to say amongst almost
all."/71 Bolton's defence of apprenticeship lay in distinguishing it from
true servitude in the lawyer's sense, which involved ownership of the body of
the slave and no reciprocal responsibilities on the part of the owner.
Apprenticeship on the other hand was a contract freely entered into, which
bound the apprentice to do his master's bidding for a certain length of time,
and the master to furnish certain instruction and support in return, the sort of
civil contract no bondman was capable of making. Nor was apprenticeship true
bondage while it lasted, for the London apprentice was no worse off than the
young soldier, or scholar, or novice, all of whom must do mean things,
considered in themselves, without regard to the -----
71 P. 8.
65] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 65
end in view./72 Nothing in the derivation of the word itself justified a
servile interpretation; Erasmus+'s derivation from pares emptities, because
apprentices could be bought for money, was as sensible in Bolton's estimation
as saying that Erasmus is errans mus in Obscurorum Virorum Epistolis; the word
comes from the French apprenti, meaning a raw soldier or young learner; or from
the French verb apprendre, which is the derivation Sir Thomas Smith
accepted./73 Such a derogation of apprenticeship, Bolton pointed out, was
clearly not justified either by the policy of the country, which had instituted
the system of chartering corporations and adorning companies with banners of
arms and particular men with nobility; or by the actions of their sovereigns,
who had not disdained incorporating themselves, Henry_VII+ into the Merchant
Tailors, Elizabeth+ into the Mercers, and James_I+ into the Cloth-workers; or
by any opinion expressed by wise men such as Sir Thomas Elyot+ in his
Governour, or Sir Thomas Chaloner in his De Republica tinglorum Instauranda./74
Apprenticeship was a degree on the way to citizenship, leading to membership
and governorship in companies, offices in the city including the mayorship, and
finally counsellor- ship in the state. Bolton was careful to disclaim any
intention to confound degrees in the commonwealth; citizens as citizens were
not gentlemen, but some might be citizens and yet true gentlemen./75 To the
soundness of his position William Segar, Garter King of Arms, bore witness:
"I have viewed this booke, and perused the same, and finde nothing therein
dissonant to reason, or contrary to the Law of Heaven or Armes./76 At the end
of the next century the historian Gibbon+ testified that he did not blush to
descend from the younger branch of a Kentish family which went up to the city.
He added, "Our most respectable families have not disdained the
counting-house, or even the shop; their names are enrolled in the Livery and
Companies of London; and in England, as well in the Italian commonwealths,
heralds have been compelled to declare that gentility is not degraded by the
exercise of trade."/77
------
73 See J. S. Ballin, on "Apprenticeship," Ency. Brit.; in the
middle ages. Apprentice was applied indifferently to such as were being taught
a trade or a learned profession, and even to undergraduates or scholars who
were qualifying themselves for the degree of doctor or master in the liberal
arts."
74 Pp. 8-15.
75 Pp. 18, 53.
76 pp. 45-6.
77 p. 6i.
66 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [66
Practice evidently had forced recognition of the pretensions to
gentility of large numbers engaged in gainful occupations not far if at all
removed from illiberal manual labor. Theory, however, insisted on covering even
trade with the tattered insignia of a liberal profession by postulating that
the merchant was a gentleman only when he conferred benefits upon the state in
a large way, conducted his business with more reference to honesty than to
personal gain, and did not himself stand behind the counter.
This whole matter of gentility and trade raised a
point that had to be given consideration in the theory of the ideal even though
it bent aside to take account of facts. It was all very well to urge the
gentleman's duty of disinterested and therefore unpaid service to the state, so
long as he possessed the estates that could support the charges of office. The
oldest son, who by English law fell heir to the family possessions, might thus
maintain himself, but the younger sons could seldom be sufficiently provided
for and had to find other means of support. The evils that arose because of
their failure to do so were vividly described by more than one writer who
lamented the overcrowding of the Inns_of_Court+ with the sons of shoemakers
tailors, and innkeepers to the exclusion of these poor younger sons who had no
other way to make a living. Ferne remarked, "Of old times, colleges were
built and livinges given, for the maintenance of poore mens children (and that
also was a worke charitable & prayse worthy). But now, I would wish some to
build colleges, for the maintenance of poore younger brethren gentlemen,
destitute of succour and support."/78 How may a man without land gain his
living in a gentlemanlike fashion was not an easy question to answer in face of
the still existing prejudice against a gentleman's receiving pay for his
services. Gifts were accepted freely both by lawyers and doctors, in place of
set fees, a custom more or less responsible for the plight in which Bacon+
eventually found himself; but a gift rested in the power and good will of the
person benefited, whereas a stipulated fee betokened mercenary motives on the
benefactor's part and destroyed his reputation for disinterestedness and
generosity. No one, however, still urged as in medieval times/79 that the
lawyer and doctor lost
------
77 Autobiography, World's Classics, Oxford University Press, p. 6. See
also Thomas Fuller, The Holy State, Cambridge, 1642, bk. I, ch. 15, pp. 48-9.
78 Op. cit., PP. 93-5.
79 Tiraquellus, op. cit., cap. XXIX, pp. 160-6.
67] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 67
gentility by charging for their services; for honest work pay might be
taken by needy gentlemen./80 But the learned arts could not furnish employment
for all the sons of gentlemen, even though they were fitted by nature to pursue
them, and could obtain the requisite education. Part of Bolton's anxiety to
establish the credit of commerce arose out of the obvious need of other
recognized occupations. "I am the more fervent in this case, [he said,]
because this one false conceit (at all times hurtful, but chiefly in these
latter times, in which the meanes of easy maintenance are infinitely straitned)
that for a Gentleman borne, or one that would aspire to be a Gentleman, for him
to be an Apprentise to a Citizen or Burgensis, is a thing unbeseeming him, hath
fill'd our England with more vices, and sacrificed more serviceable bodies to
odious ends, and more soules to sinfull life, then perhaps any one other
uncivill opinion whatsoever. For they who hold it better to rob by land, or
sea, then to beg, or labour doe daily see, and feele, that out of Apprentises
rise such, as sit upon them, standing out for their lives as malefactors, when
they (a shame, and sorrow to their kinred) undergoe a fortune too unworthy,
even of the basest, of honest bondmen."/81 Trade, or industry, to use a
broader modern term, was only at the beginning of the struggle to remove
prejudice against it as incompatible with the higher virtues of man, a struggle
which is not yet ended even in the United_States+, for though Colleges of
Commerce and Business Administration have raised their heads, capped by the
graduate school of Harvard+ University, to indicate how far progress has been
made, the liberal character of the education offered in these colleges is still
suspect, and the mere business man does not by that fact assume even in the
most democratic of communities the assured position of the doctor or lawyer. In
England the business man who has achieved his mark is conspicuously fond of
disguising his identity under a new name attached to a title.
We have come to the end of the occupations, that is,
recognized professions open to gentlemen. There were, however, two additional,
honorable ways of support open to the gentleman who lacked independent means:
service in a nobleman's family, and what was called industry. By industry was
meant personal initiative and achievement in some original way, and
particularly adventure on the high seas, such achievements as those of Columbus+,
Magellan+,
------
80 The Institution of a Gentleman, fo. d7ad7b.
81 p. 15.
68 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [68
and Frobisher+. "I will resite the names of some few, whose
industry hath not only gained themselves glory, but also their Countrey
infinite good," said the author of Cyvile and Uncyvile Life. "How say
you to Columbus+ and Vesputius+, whose industry discovered the west part of the
world: from whence the King of Spaine fetcheth yearely great Treasure? Also
what do you thinke of Magelanns+, that sayled about the world, yea to come
nearer to your own knowledge, do you not thinke that Maister Frobusher+, by his
industry, and late travaile, shall profit his Country, and honour him self? Yes
surely, and a number of others, who though they have not performed so notable
matters, yet have they wonne them selves reputation, and meane to live, some
more, and some lesse, according to their vertue and fortune."/82 Sir
Walter Raleigh+, Sir Francis Drake+, Sir Humfrey Gilbert+, gentlemen explorers
and freebooters, had captured public imagination and were the heroes of the
hour. This was a way for the able and ambitious man, but a limited way, for
either royal or noble patronage was necessary to foot the bills. Service in a
nobleman's house was a more hopeful avenue, though circumstances were
conspiring to lessen the chances there. As Gascoigne complained, the fashion of
going up to the city deprived country-bred youth of support and training in the
country, and the curtailment of trains which the expense of city life
necessitated lessened the number on whom the doubtful benefit of accompanying a
lord to court might be conferred. There were also other causes working to shut
this door to preferment for gentlemen's sons if the evidence of a quaint tract,
A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, may be believed. The
writer complained that the sons of yeomen were turning out the sons of
gentlemen, partly because the yeoman was overcareful of his son and, wishing to
save him from the wars, bought him service with a gentleman by offering to
clothe him, or was overambitious for his son and pushed him in where he had no
talent to act; or partly because the gentleman's son, unwilling to work with
such fellows, had grown disdainful of service. He was willing, however, to
grant that a yeoman's son may make himself fit to be a gentlemanly servingman
through training from childhood, and thereby become the founder of a gentle
house./83 There were, therefore, certain occupations, such as agriculture, trade,
and even medicine, which, calling forth no enthusiasm on the
82 P. 24.
83 Rep. Rosburghe Lib., p. 136.
69] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 69
part of idealists, but rather apology and restriction, were accepted as
honorable for the gentleman to pursue. They were admitted into the theory of
the ideal under the stern pressure of facts, the facts that men must find a
means of sustenance, that there are not enough soft-handed jobs to go round,
that a gentleman is not always gifted with the ability needed for a learned
pursuit, that improvement in the technique and moral code of a profession, or
art, or industry necessarily raises its status, perhaps its importance, and as
a result admits it into the jealous circle of honorable employmentswitness the
rise in our day of engineering into the learned professions, and the progress
that way of commerce and journalism. But after all was said that could be said
for such occupations, the fact remains that for the sixteenth century the ideal
service for the gentleman was public office, through which without wages he
might directly work for the preservation of the state, and the welfare of the
people. Governing was the passion of the Englishman, as shown in the works of
English idealists from Sir Thomas Elyot+, who called his perfect Englishman a
governor, to James Cleland+, who said that a young nobleman, even though his
natural bent was for some mechanic art, must be brought up to rule./84
------
84 Op. cit., bk. II, chap. 1, p. 51.
CHAPTER V+
THE MORAL CODE OF THE GENTLEMAN
"Only good men by their government and example make happy
times in every degree and state." Thus Ascham summed up the driving force
behind the whole effort of sixteenth century Englishmen to frame a gentleman.
The essence of the gentleman was goodness; without goodness he could not
perform his office in the state, which was first of all to govern well, and
secondly by his example of personal perfection to make all men good. "By
example of governours," said Elyot+, "men do rise or falle in virtue
or vice;" and he devoted two-thirds of his Governour to the virtues that
became a gentleman who had authority in the commonwealth. Spenser+ planned an
epic to portray a gentleman only by his moral qualities. Few Indeed touched the
subject of the gentleman that did not show him the way to virtue, until James_I
found it "so troden a path" that he refrained from traversing the
same ground./1 The absorbing passion of the English was then, and is now, a
passion for goodness, and of their rulers the first and almost the last demand
that is made is that they shall exhibit the homely virtues. "I will be
good," said the little Victoria+ when she learned that she might one day
be ruler of the British Empire, and thereby enlisted under the great tradition.
The question was not raised in England, as in Italy, whether to be a good ruler
was the same thing as to be a good man, and whatever ground the reformers may
have had for their wail that Machiavellian+ beliefs had corrupted the court and
nation, theory had no room for morals that were morals in private and not in
public. There is difficulty, however, as has been said, in arriving at a clear,
consistent conception of the moral code of the sixteenth century. The elements
are too various, and too mixed to be completely reconciled, and attempts to
present a coherent account leave one with a feeling of unrest and distrust of
the results. But we can attempt at least a description of these elements.
The pattern for the code of conduct of the
renaissance gentleman was the knightly ideal of the middle ages; but since the
knightly
------
1 Basilikon Doron, reprint The Political Works of James I, Cambridge, U.
S. A., 1918, p. 37. 70
71] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 71
ideal was essentially religious and military, and the renaissance ideal
philosophical and civil, they differ in certain fundamental respects. Elaborate
and confused lists of the virtues of the knight are to be found in Juliana
Berners' Book of St. Albans./2 These cover the knight's duty to Godreverence,
faithfulness and gratitude+; his duty to his sovereignobedience and dread to
offend; his duty as a warriorreadiness to fight but only in a just quarrel,
wisdom+ in battle, courage+ not to flee, courteous_ treatmen+ of his prisoner;
his duty in a civil capacitypity to the poor, protection of the rights of
maidens and widows, justice+ in his commands, hospitality+; personal
qualitiescleanliness, temperance+ in living, modesty+ with regard to his
prowess, courtesy, gentleness and purity in his speech, fidelit+ in promise to
both friend and foe. These lists were being copied with a few minor
modifications a century later by those curious antiquarians the heralds+, who
least of all men that wrote for the reform of nobility recognized the
mutability of fashion in manners both moral and social, and that the morality
of renaissance gentility was couched in another language with another intent./3
Knighthood meant essentially devotion, courage, charity, and courtesy. The
spring of action was religious, desire to defend the faith against all enemies,
both heretics and infidels, and to carry out God's justice on earth. But the
spring of action was no longer religious but political, and the devotion of the
gentleman had become attached to an idea rather than to a deity, and to a class
rather than to a person. Hence, though the elements in the gentleman's code
will be found to have been the same as in the knight's, the emphasis will have
changed and the medieval knight would have appeared very old-fashioned indeed
among Elizabethan courtiers, or even country gentlemen.
The virtues urged upon the gentleman were chiefly
Aristotelian+. How much these were a legacy from the middle ages, descending
through Augustine+ and Thomas Aquinas+ to Melancthon+ and Spenser+, and how
much they were the result of the renewal of direct contact with the ancients,
it would be difficult to say, and is a task that cannot be attempted here.
Certainly the line from Aquinas to Spenser was unbroken, and among the virtues
demanded of the knight may be found at least the equivalents of the
Aristotelian
2 "Book of Arms."
3 Bossewell, Workes of Armorie, 1572, fo. 8b-9b; Ferne, Blazon of
Gentrie, London, 1586, pp. 96-7.
72 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
[72 virtues, however differently named and associated, and even the inevitable
four, justice+, prudence+, fortitude+, and temperance+ in familiar array./4 But
just as certainly Plato+, Aristotle+, and Cicero+ were known directly to the
renaissance, and except for poetic survivals the medieval interpretation was
gone: fortitude+ was not arrayed against the seven_deadly_sins+, or temperance
primarily against unchastity, and the end of it all was more often good than
God./5 The Christian virtues of faith, hope, charity, and humility were more or
less perfunctorily added to the pagan virtues, but with small effort to
reconcile inconsistencies, and indeed often with no apparent consciousness that
such inconsistencies existed. Protest was not wanting, to be sure, against the
lack of discrimination and the over-emphasis on pagan virtues to the neglect of
Christian. Erasmus+ set down as the necessary virtues of the Christian,
innocence,that is, to keep pure from vice, charityto do good as near as we can
to all men, and patienceto endure evil done to us and overcome evil with good;
and held that Aristotle+ and Christ+ could not be reconciled./6 Cornelius
Agrippa+, the iconoclast, specifically pointed out the incompatibilities:
"Ye have harde how some Philosophers have placed felicitie or blessednesse
in pleasure, but Christe in hunger and thirste, some in honour, fame, and
greatnesse of name, but Christe in sclaunder, and hatred of men, some in the
Primigenii, in health, in joye, in lacke of paine: but Christ in weepinge, and
wailing, some in wisdome, in knowledge, and morall vertues, but Christe in
innocencie, simplicitie, and cleannesse of hart, some in fortune, but Christ in
mercie, some in glorie of warre and subduinge of countries, but Christe in peace:
some in honour and pompe, but Christe in humilitie, calling the meke blessed,
some in power and victorie, but Christe in persecution: some in ritches, but
Christe in povertie. Christe teacheth that perfect vertue is not gotten but by
grace geven from above, the Philosophers saie, that it is goten by our owne
strength and exercise: Christ teacheth that concupiscence is sinne, the
Philosophers contrarywise recken it emonge the common thinges which be thought
neither vertues, nor vices, and that he doth goo forewarde in vertues whiche
hath them reasonably well. Christe teacheth that wee should doo well to all
men, and also to love our enemies
------
4 See Caxton's Book of Chivalry, ch. VII, and The Royal Book, ch. 90.
5 For a typical medieval handling see Caxton's The Royal Book, and for
renaissance handling Jacques Hurault, Politicke, Moral, and Martial Discourses,
London, 1595, trans. by Arthur Goldin+, bk. II.
6 Bellum, London, 1533, trans. into English, fo. 24a[26]a; CVIIaDIIa;
38a-EVIID.
73] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 73
to lende freely, and without rewarde, not to take revengment+ of any,
that we ought to geve to every one that asketh: contrarywise the Philosophers
saie, that we should geve to none but them onely, which doo requite benefite
for benefite, moreover it is lawfull to be angrie, to hate, to fighte, to make
warre, and to practice usurie." "Then sithe the vertues bee emonge
themselves unlike, and after a sorte contrarye, liberalitie, and sparinge,
Magnanimitie, and humilitie, mercye and justice, contemplation, and carefull
laboure in continuall worke, and many other suche lyke, excepte they all agree
in one, they cannot be nomore called vertues but vices."/7 John Stockwood
in a sermon on The Duty of Fathers and Schoolmasters to Teach Religion,
challenged the efficacy of Cicero+'s, Aristotle+'s, or Plato+'s precepts to
make of one person "one godly and virtuous man" without the aid of
religion./8 Some attention was paid to these protests in the explanations,
apologies, and disclaimers that prefaced a few of the redactions of the
philosophers. Citing the practice of Augustine+ and Jerome+, some writers
defended philosophy as at least an aid to divinity in teaching how to lead an
upright life. "If it be objected," said Bacon+, "that the cure
of men's minds belongs to sacred divinity, it is most true; but yet moral
philosophy may be admitted into the train of theology, as a wise servant and
faithful handmaid to be ready at her beck to minister to her service and
requirements."/9 Baldwin arrayed the sayings of the philosophers
themselves to prove that in their beliefs about God, man's nature and destiny,
and the soul they came not far off from the true religion, and in the purity of
their lives put Christians to shame./10 Hurault tried to effect a
reconciliation by interpreting justice as righteousness+, and liberality as
charity+. It was freely admitted that anything incompatible with religion must
be rejected, but the reader was generally left to judge for himself what was
compatible, and at the best he was presented with a code of ethics that was
pagan in the ground and frame, and in large measure in the spirit also./11
------
7 Of the Vanitie and Uncertaintie of Artes and Sciences, Englished by
james Sandford, 1569, cap. 54, fo. 75a75b; 74a-75b. See also Coignet, Politique
Discourse upon Trueth and Lying, 1586, trans. by Sir Edward Hoby+, ch. XIX.
8 P. 91.
9 De Augmentis, Sped. trans., vol. 5, p. 20, bk. VII, chap. III.
10 A Treatise of Moral Phylosophye11, 1564, bk. III, "Of Theologie
Philosophicall."
11 Hurault, ibid.; Baldwin, op. cit. bk. I, "The Prologue to the
Reader," by Baldwin, bk. II, "Prologue by Paulfreyman; Piccolomini,
Della Institution i Morale, bk. V, ch. I; Cleland, Institution of a Young
Nobleman, bk. V, ch. 12-17, 26.
74 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [74
But in the main moral philosophy was accepted unquestioned by sixteenth
century writers of manuals for the gentleman, as furnishing reliable guidance
for conduct. The reason is not far to seek, probably felt by all though seldom
put into words: a belief in separate aims for moral philosophy and the gospel,
the one teaching the way to live in this world, the other the way to salvation
in the next. The old division of virtues into theological or spiritual, and
civil or moral was still occasionally repeatedfaith, hope, charity for the sake
of salvation; prudence+, justice+, fortitude+, temperance+ for the sake of
living well in this life./12 More explicitly writes Cornelius Valerius+ the
Spaniard, as translated by John Charlton, "There be some who deeme that
the best proportion of living ought rather to be gathered out of sacred
Scriptures, than out of prophane Philosophie; which wee like wise would suppose
to be more sure and certaine, if those things were comprehended in those
celestiall learninges uttered by the mouth of the Omnipotent, which are
descrived of Ethnical writers touching the Civill association of men among them
selves, & the maintening of the weal publike, without whiche, they who obey
the percepts of God, and the holy men are not of powere to lead a peasiable
life."/13 Religion was therefore then as now admittedly not a practical
guide to living in this world, with the difference that men then professed to
need it as a guide to the next. Nor could the Christian code be a practical
guide for an aristocratic ideal. The Christian ideal is built upon humility,
abasement before God and before men, denial of self for the sake of others; the
aristocratic ideal assumes inherent inequalities between men and works for the
perfection of a few at the expense of the many. For such an ideal the
Aristotelian+ code is an admirable guide, exalting as it does the individual,
expanding his powers, and developing a proud_consciousness_of_superiority. And
so long as religion and life are divorced, special precepts held suitable for
Sunday, and other precepts suitable for the other six days of the week, man
finds hospitality easy for contradictory beliefs. The practical result,
however, of such a divorce was only too evident in the scourge of dueling which
decimated the ranks of the French nobility, and though less of a menace in
England, engaged the best legal minds, Coke+ and Bacon+, in consideration of
repressive measures. For out of the keen sense of his own worth and
------
12 Jean Cartigny, The Voyage of the Wandering Knight, pt. 3, ch. 3-7.
13 The Casket of Jewels, ch. 1, fo. B2aB2b.
75] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 75
dignity which was the root of the gentlemanly ideal arose the code of honor,
which partly as supplementing and partly as interpreting the Aristotelian+ code
we shall have to take into account before we have done with the gentleman's
code of conduct. Moral philosophy, then, was the generally accepted guide of
the gentleman in the formation of those virtues that seemed most requisite and
most ornamental to his station. An attempt was sometimes made to divide these
virtues into two groups, private and public. Humphrey+ listed as public virtues
liberality, justice, and courtesy {Virtues_List+} which were necessary to
perform one's duty to others, and as private virtues temperance and prudence,
which were necessary for ruling oneself, and also necessary for the attaining
of public virtues./14 Spenser+ undertook to fashion his gentleman in the twelve
private moral virtues, and promised if he were encouraged to add later the
twelve politic virtues."/15 Such a classification, however, was of
practically no value in English theory because those who used it adopted no
clear, differentiating principle. Machiavelli+ had found one by making a
distinction between the good man and the good ruler. To the good man belonged
such private virtues as liberality, mercy, truthfulness, affability, purity,
guilelessness, good nature. {Virtues_List+} For the good ruler the only
consideration was how to preserve the state; nothing was a vice which brought
success, nothing a virtue which invited failure./16 English theorists never
made this obviously dangerous distinction; their public virtues upon inspection
prove to be not something different from their private virtues but rather an
intensification or enlargement of them, virtues applied to public rather than
private uses; so Mulcaster+, evidently having in mind the gentleman's function,
named as his peculiar virtues, "great wisedom in affaires, great valiancy
in great attemptes, great justice in great executions; for the common man he
reserved "the same virtues but in a meaner
degree."/17 Indeed Imdded, one of the chief
objections raised to accepting virtue as the distinguishing mark of nobility
was that it was as much the possession of ignobility, and therefore no
distinction. The common cardinal virtues, then, magnified
------
14 The Nobles, bk. II, fo. kIVb ff.; bk. III, fo. rIIb ff. See also
Foxius Morzillus, De Honore, Basle, 1560(?), lib. I, cap. 2.
15 The Fairie, cha tteene, Letter to Raleigh, Complete Poetical Works,
Cambridge Ed., p. 136.
16 The Prince, ch. 15-19; Villari, The Life and Times of Niccolo
Machiavelli, trans. L. Villari, London, 1892, vol. 2, 13. 106.
17 Positions, rep. 1888, ch. 391, p. 198.
76 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [76
by circumstance and worn with a better grace than those of the poor man
were the virtues of the gentleman. Whether viewed as necessary accompaniments
or as causes of nobility, they must assume something of heroic proportions and
reach out beyond the circle of a man's hearth to embrace public good and public
renown./18 Some even went so far as to say that hidden virtue was not true
virtue, because virtue must be turned to some external action+ and pertain to
many, or else it could have no honor, and herefore no end./19 By far the most
detailed and original discussion of the virtues of the gentleman was Sir Thomas
Elyot+'s, who gave two-thirds of his Governour to showing what virtues the
gentleman needed to govern perfectly. He accomplished order of a sort by
grouping: justice+, included fidelity and loyalty; fortitude+ takng pains,
patience, and magnanimity; temperance+ abstinence, continence, constancy,
moderation and sobriety in diet; sapience+ prudence. To the four he added two
others: majesty+, that is, the bearing and manners appropriate to a man having
high authority and calculated to inspire reverence; and what he called
humanity+, under. which he included benevolence+, beneficence+, liberality+,
and friendship+. He gathered them all up out of Aristotle+, Plato+"which
approached next unto the catholic writers," Cicero+, Erasmus+, and the
Italians, Patrizi+ and Pontano+, to name the chief sources./20 But he has
fitted them to his purpose, suffusing them with more religious spirit than
others did and illustrating them out of his own experience. The catalogues of
his successors are less elaborate, and vary in their grouping of points, but in
general they cover the same ground./21 The virtues that were by common consent
considered the most important for the gentleman were justice, prudence,
courtesy, liberality, temperance, and fortitude.{virtues_list} The rest may be
treated as branches of these, or ignored as merely variations.
Of these six virtues justice+ was held chief, so
excellent and necessary for the governor of a commonwealth, Elyot said,
"that without it none other vertue may be commendable, ne witte, or any
------
18 Osorius, Civill and Christian Nobilitie, "Civill
Nobilitie," bk. II, fo. 23b.
18 Foxius ilorzillus, op. cit., lib. I, cap. 2, p. 16.
20 On Elyot's sources see the footnotes to the reprint of The Governour,
by H. H. Croft, London, 1883.
21 In addition to those already cited, Justus Lipsius+, Sixe Bookes of
Politickes, bk. II, ch. XXVII, bk. III, bk. IV; Ludovic Bryskett, Discourse of
Civil Life, pp. 214-256.
77] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 77
maner of doctrine profitable."/22 Forty years later John Bossewell+
found his gentleman wanting by the same standard. "I heard of late,"
he said, "as I travelled by the waye, a gentleman pray[s]ed, for sundry
vertues which were in hym, as that he was gentle and meke, pleasaunt and faire
in wordes, wise, wel learned, modeste, and sobre; but I harde no remembrance
made of hys Justice+. For immediately one present in the company reported hym
to be an usurer+, a person deceiptfull, covetous, an oppressor of the poore,
and no keper of hospitalyte, yet having Power or five fermes in hys handes and
more, that he was a decayer of houses of husbanderie, a rerer of rentes, &
a cruel taker of fynes. These vices did deface all hys other vertues."/23
From this description it may be seen that justice was conceived to be primarily
the guide of men in their relations to each other, giving+ to each man his
right, and thus binding+ men together in society+. So the civilians defined it.
To the same purpose but more warmly the old poet said,
Justice is a certayne decree or ordinaunce, Righteous and holy, belonging to nature, Commaunding men to love, to profit, or advaunce, To helpe and eche humayne creature: This justice conjoineth bondes+ of love so sure Betwene all men mortall that it onely certayne Doth preserve in order or kepe linage humayne./24
Elyot, attempting to draw together philosophy and Christianity,
based justice upon Christ's two commandments, and the philosopher's "Know
thyself." In the knowing of himself, he explained, a gentleman knows all
other men, for "in semblable astate is his body, and of no better claye
(as I mought frankely saye) is a gentilman made than a carter, and of libertie
of will as muche is gyven of God to the poore herdeman as to the great and
mighty emperour."25 Justice was required of the gentleman particularly as
he was the upholder and administrator of the law, and in that capacity equity
was recommended to him also, the softer spirit of the law, which weighs the
circumstances and fits the judgment to the case with an eye rather to the end
of all law, that is the welfare of
------
22 Op. cit., Everyman's Library, bk. III, ch. I., p. 195.
23 Op. cit., bk. I, fo. 5b-6a.
24 Barclay, The Mirrour of Good Manners, rep. Spenser Society, vol. 38,
p. 27.
25 Op. cit., p. 202. 78 DOCTRINE OF THE
ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [78
society, than to the majesty of law, which may by unbending application
give support to wrong instead of right./26 A part of justice, according to
Elyot, was fidelity, which meant loyalty to the sovereign and trustworthiness
in dealings with all men, two of the prime virtues of the knight./27 Among the
old privileges of the man of gentle birth, as recorded by the civilians+, had
been his right to have his bare word accepted in court without bond and without
witnesses./28 The word+ of a gentleman was still said to be as good as his
bond, and "the faith of a gentleman" was still something to swear by;
evidence of the regard for truthfulness in the ideal, but still more of the
haughty temper of the noble who could bear no restraint, not even that of
corroboration, much less of guarantee. Out of this ideal grew the fiction that
a gentleman could not lie+, and the mortal offence of even insinuating that he
could, which were the basis of the dueling_code+. Elyot paused at this, as he
did so often, to lament the great gulf between the ideal and the real; fidelity
"is so neglected throughout christendome that neither regarde of religion,
or honour, solemne othes, or terrible cursis can cause hit to be
observed." "What mervayle is it," he exclaimed, "though
there be in all places contentions infinite, and that good lawes be tourned
into Sophemes and insolubles, sens every where fidelitie is constrayned to come
in triall, and credence (as I mought saye) is becomen a vagabunde."29 A
comparison of the professed ideals of a period with the actual conditions
tempts us to conclude that, given one, we may infer the other to be the
opposite. At any rate it is not safe to assume, as we usually do, that the
virtues an age admired were the virtues which that age possessed. Perhaps much
of our illusion as to the desirable character of past ages in comparison with
our own arises out of our natural tendency to transfer ideals to practice.
Prudence, the second virtue requisite for a
gentleman, was sometimes reckoned an intellectual virtue and therefore excluded
from a discussion of the moral virtues,/30 but it was usually considered among
the moral virtues because essential to all of them and par-
------
26 Samuel Daniel, Certain Epistles, "To Sir Thomas Egerton," Grosart
ed., vol. I, pp. 191-8, II. 125 ff.
27 Op. cit., bk. III, ch. VI, VII.
28 Bonus de Curtili, Tractatus Nobilitatis, 1549, Pt. 5.
29 Op. Cit., p. 212.
30 Piccolomini, op. cit., bk. V, ch. III, p. 187.
79] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 79
ticularly to justice. It was defined as knowledge applicable to affairs,
by which a man might know what to seek and what to avoid./31 A quality of the
mind and temper was also implied, a habit of control, a restraint from rashness
as well as application of wisdom, the habit of bringing the powers of the mind
to bear upon a problem before proceeding to action. Without knowledge and
without the habit of action in the light of that knowledge any virtue which men
strove for might well become a vice through excess or misdirection. Prudence
had many branches, according to Elyot+ acumen, foresight, resourcefulness,
circumspection, diligence in execution, discretion, all necessary to right
thinking and right acting./32 For prudence, the application of knowledge to
conduct, involved three steps deliberation, decision, and action. To
contemplate without arriving at a conclusion, and to arrive at a conclusion
without proceeding to action+ was not prudence. The proof of superior character
was held to be deeds+, and so jealous were some of the gentleman's repute for
being preeminently a man of deeds and not of words+ that they were almost
willing to deny him book learning lest he grow too fond of contemplation and
forget to bestir himself. But the renaissance believed in the schools of both
experience and books for the proper training of the gentleman in the virtue of
prudence, and we shall later have to consider at some length the liberal
sciences which were prescribed for him.
Two other virtues, courtesy and liberality, were
considered adjuncts to justice and prudence in the gentleman's business of
governing, as means to win the favor of men and the reverence needed to inspire
obendience. Courtesy, as usually conceived, consisted of two parts, knowledge
of what behavior was fitting to each man including oneself, and graciousness+
in bestowing+ upon each his due+. So Spenser wrote:
What vertue is so fitting for a knight, Or for a ladie whom a knight should love, As curtesie, to beare themselves aright To all of each degree as doth behove? For whether they be placed high above, Or low beneath, yet ought they well to know Their good, that none them rightly may reprove Of rudenesse, for not yeilding what they owe: Great skill it is such duties timely to bestow+.
------
31 La Perriere, The Mirrour of Policie, fo. HIIIa.
32 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. XXIIXXV.
80 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [80
Thereto great helpe Dame Nature selfe doth lend: For some so goodly gratious are by kind, That every action doth them much commend, And in the eyes of men great liking find; Which others, that have greater skill in mind, Though they enforce themselves, cannot attaine. For everie thing, to which one is inclin'd, Doth best become, and greatest grace doth gaine: Yet praise likewise deserve good thewes, enforst with paine./33
Gentle blood could be expected to tell here, as Spenser believed,
revealing itself in that nameless grace of the gentleman which was denied to
the man of low origin.
This courtesy which belonged especially to the
governor Elyot called majesty, and defined as follows: "In a governour or
man havinge in the publyke weale some greatte authoritie, the fountaine of all
excellent maners is Majestie+; which is the holle proporcion and figure of
noble astate, and is proprelie a beautie or comelynesse+ in his countenance,
langage and gesture apt to his dignitie, and accommodate to time, place, and
company; {de_Officiis+} whiche, like as the sunne doth his beames, so doth 'it
caste on the beholders and herers a pleasaunt and terrible reverence. In so
muche as the wordes or countenances of a noble man shulde be in the stede of a
firme and stable lawe to his inferiours. Yet is nat Majestie alwaye in haulte
or fierce countenaunce, nor in speche outragious or arrogant, but in honourable
and sobre demeanure, deliberate and grave+ pronunciation, wordes clene and
facile, voide of rudenesse and dishonestie, without vayne or inordinate
janglinge, with suche an excellent temperance+, that he, amonge an infinite
numbre of other persones, by his majestie may be espied for a governour."
This gentle side of majesty Elyot called elsewhere affability+, and most vividly
did he describe the contrary effects of arrogance and affability. "Howe
often have I herde people say, whan men in great autoritie have passed by
without makyng gentill countenance to those whiche have done to them reverence:
This man weneth with a looke to subdue all the worlde; nay, nay, mennes hartes
be free, and wyll love whom they lyste. And therto all the other do consente in
a murmure, as it were bees. [But] when a noble man passeth by, shewing to men a
gentil and familiare visage, it is a world to beholde howe people take the
comforte, how the blode in their visage quickeneth, howe their flesshe stireth,
and harts lepeth for gladnesse.
------
33 The Fairie Queene, VI. II, I and II
8i] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
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Than they all speke as it were in an harmonie, the one saithe, Who
beholding this mans moste gentill countenaunce wyll nat with his harte love
hym? Another saith, He is no man, but an aungell; se howe he rejoiseth all men
that beholde him. Finallye, all do graunt that he is worthye all honour that
may be given or wisshed him."/34 Curiously little, however, was said about
courtesy by English idealists, perhaps because the Italians had said so much
and said it so wellsome indeed touch the subject merely and refer the reader to
Castiglione+ for full treatment;/35 perhaps because after all the matter
carried little importance in the eyes of serious minded Englishmen; or perhaps
because it presumably could be left pretty much to take care of itself. Lyly+,
a right courtier, had simply this to say, "Ther belongeth more to a
courtier then bravery, which the wise laugh at, or personage, which the chast
mark not, or wit, which the most part see not. It is sober and discret
behaviour, civil and gentle demeanor, that in court winneth both credit and
commoditie."/36 Bacon+ said the subject, which he called wisdom of
behavior, had been "elegantly handled," referring doubtless to the
Italians. As a consequence probably, his own review was brief, pointing out its
commoditiesthe honor it brought in itself, and its influence in business and
government; and at greater length its incommodities if too much regarded, as
leading to affectation+, consumption of time to the neglect of more important
matters, such self-satisfaction that higher virtues are unsought, and even
hindrance of action through too much regard for time and season./36, Complaints
indeed of these bad effects are common, and read as if English courtiers tried
to act in reversion of all their Italian Bibles tried to teach. Barnabe Rich
waxes eloquent on the subject as on other English faults: "For the most in
number of our young courtly Gentlemen thinke that the greatest grace of
courting consisteth in proude and hautie countenances to suche as knowe them
not, to be verie faire spoken, bountifull, and liberall in wordes to all men,
to be curious in cavilling, propounding captious questions, thereby to shewe a
singularitie of' their wisedomes: for the helping whereof, they diligently
studie bookes for that purpose, as Cornelius Agrippa+, de vanitate scientiarum,
and other like; to seeme to talke of farre and straunge countries, of the
maners of the people, of the fertilitie
------
34 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. II, pp. 121-2; ch. V, pp. 130-2.
35 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life, rep. Roxburghe Lib., p. 68.
36 Euphues and his England, Arber Rep. 1868, p. 269.
37 Op. cit., bk. VIII, ch. I, pp. 32-4
82 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [82
of soyles, and by the way of communication, able to dispute of all
things, but in deede to know nothing, to apply their pleasant wittes to
scoffing, quipping, gybing, & taunting, whereby they may be accompted
merrie conceipted gentlemen, & withal, they must learne to play the
parasites, or els, I can tel them they wil never learne to thrive. And in their
apparell they must bee very nice & neat, with their ruffles finely set, a
great bundle of feathers thrust into a cappe, which must likewise be of such a
bignesse, that it shall be able to holde more witte then three of them have in
their heades."/38 To the same effect is the conclusion of a foreigner, a
Dutchman resident in England during the whole of Elizabeth's reign: "They
are full of courtly and affected+ manners and words, which they take for
gentility, civility, and wisdom."/39 Butto return to Bacon+and the
idealBacon's conclusion to his brief treatment is significant: "This
behavior is as the garment of the mind, and ought to have the conditions of a
garment. For first, it ought to be made in fashion; secondly, it should not be
too curious or costly; thirdly, it ought to be so framed as to best set forth
any virtue of the mind, and supply and hide any deformity; and lastly and above
all, it ought not to be too strait so as to confine the mind and interfere with
its freedom in business and action." This is significant because it shows
that something of the Italian philosophy of manners had crept into English
thought, the idea that manners are not something merely laid on, but proceed
from within outward and are an expression of the man himself. Guazzo+ had put
it in terms somewhat similar to Bacon's, "It is the part of a Gentleman to
behave hemselfe so gently and curteously in all his dooinges, that out of his
eyes, tongue, and maners, his gentlemanly minde may shew foorth."/40 For a
further analysis of courtesy we shall have to go to the Italians, and
particularly to Castiglione+. For like so many other beautiful things the ideal
of beauty in the outward man, not of person but of ways, grew first on Italian
soi1,/41 and it had found its most perfect expression for all Europe as for
Italy in Castiglione's Courtier. Other Italians, notably Della_Casa+ and Guazzo
were only
------
38 "Marine to England, pt. 3, fo.
39 Emanuel Van Meteren, History of the Netherlands, rep. by B. W. Rye,
England as Seen by Foreigners, London, 1865, p. 70.
40 The Civile Conversation, fo. 453.
41 Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, London, 1914, p. 376.
83] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 83
less popular in England as guides to behavior, and all of them helped to
furnish a philosophy of manners, a ground-plan for courtesy, which, as has been
indicated, had its influence on English thought and ideals, though no other
Englishman went even so far as Elyot+ in redefining and adapting it anew.
The distinguishing quality of gentlemanly behavior
was grac+; as Della_Casa+ put it, "It is not enough for a man, to doe
things that be good: but hee must also have a care, he doe them with a good
grace."/42 Castiglione+ attempted to define this grace. It arose, he
thought, out of the air of carelessness+ or nonchalance with which an
accomplished gentleman performs all his actions however difficult in reality.
This happy effect some achieve wholly by a gift of nature, which enables them
to do easily and well whatever they attempt, but most men, more niggardly
endowed, must spend infinite pains to perfect themselves in their exercises and
then as much pains again to seem to do easily what they do with difficulty.
Art+, to be real art, must appear effortless, the result of nature, not of
study, in order that wonder and praise may be aroused in the beholders. For
what is done with difficulty or obvious pains arouses disesteem of the result,
no matter how greatwe still have the contemptuous phrase "smells of the
midnight oil." The gentleman who strives for perfection ought therefore,
in Castiglione's words, "to eschew as much as a man may, and as a sharp
and daungerous rock, Affectation+ or curiosity+ and (to speak a new word) to
use in every thing a certain Reckelesness, to cover art withall, and seeme
whatsoever he doth and sayeth to do it wythout pain, and (as it were) not
myndyng it."/43 {sprezzatura+} It is affectation for instance to show off
newly acquired learning by dragging it in out of season, or to advertise one's
travels by dropping into foreign speech, now one, now another. On the other
hand, too great carelessness reveals the same vice of affectation, too great
care about the effect one is making. The golden mean between too much precision
on the one hand, and too much carelessness on the other, must be the aim of the
gentleman. A further advantage than grace arises out of this happy freedom, for
often by doing even a slight thing so well without apparent effort, the
gentleman creates the impression that he knows more than he really does, and
that with study he might do even much better. Galateo, rep. Humanists' Library,
p. 102.
43 Hoby's translation, The Tudor Translations, p. 59.
84 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [84
We are prone to judge by small things that greater lie behind./44 It
follows, then, that in action the gentleman must avoid the stigma that attaches
to the too perfect performance, else he turns himself into the fencing master.
For the rest, the gentleman should govern his saying
and doing by consideration of what his speech and action are, the persons
involved, the place, the occasion, the purpose, his own age and profession; in
other words he should fit both to the circumstances. In the main business of
life, in pastimes, in conversation, in gesture, walk, carriage, laugh even, he
will so behave as to win for himself the approbation due him for his excellent
qualities, and to give others pleasure. And he will not win the one unless he
perform in the company and presence of those able to estimate his worth justly,
or give the other unless to his good qualities he add "a gentle and loving
behavior." Grace has then two aspects: as it is manifested in the
perfection of form which marks every action of the courtier it is what we call,
somewhat inadequately, gracefulness; as it means the spirit governing behavior
to others, it is graciousness, or, to use a term somewhat overworked to-day,
tact, pleasantness in social converse. To use Castiglione's summing up
"Therefore it behoveth oure Courtyer in all his doinges to be charie and
heedfull, and what so he saith, or doeth to accompany it with wisedome, and not
onely to set his delite to have in himself partes and excellent qualities, but
also to order the tenour of his life after suche a trade, that the whole may be
answerable unto these partes, and see the selfe same to bee alwayes and in
every thing suche, that it disagree not from itselfe, but make one body of all
these good qualities, so that everye deede of his may be compact and framed of
al the vertues as the Stoiks+ say the dutye of a wiseman is."/45 Herein
lies the main difference between the English and the Italians. The ideal of
personal perfection far more than the idea of civil usefulness dominated the
Italians. The perfect courtier is at the best an adviser only to his prince,
not himself an administrator of affairs. Though Castiglione+ would have him
more than ordinarily acquainted with the humanities+, Latin+, Greek+, the
poets, orators, historians, he is to avoid in all things the appearance of
taking pains, of being expert. The Italian love of proportion, balance is shown
in this. The courtier is all of a piece, no part too
------
45 Op. cit., p. 62.
46 Op. cit., p. III.
85] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 85
small to be carefully polished and fitted into place, no part so
important as to be allowed to monopolize or distort the whole. The graces and
not the business of life are insisted upon. In England, on the other hand, it
is the business of life that absorbs attention, and moral rather than aesthetic
considerations set the standard. The most striking evidence that there is a
difference in point of view is found, perhaps, in the treatment of love. Love,
for the Italian, was an essential part of the courtier's life. It might serve
only as the way to marriage; it might, though honest, contemplate only the
pleasure of serving a mistress; or it might as with Castiglione+ furnish the
courtier with a religion, a worship of perfection outside of himself. As Sir
Walter Raleigh+ says, the courtier ran the risk of growing too preoccupied with
his own improvement ever to accomplish anything. He needed something to take
himself out of himself, and could find it in such a conception of love as
Bembo+ presented. But no one in Engand who sets forth the complete gentleman
includes the art_of_loving+among his accomplishments. There is plenty of
railing against the foibles of lovers, by those who make it their business to
search out the faults of gentleman. Barnaby Rich in his Allarme to England is
one of the most amusing of these; finding lovers ridiculous rather than sinful.
"He that should take the viewe of their countenances, gestes, maners,
furies, and all their frantike toyes, might confesse that he never sawe a more
strange Metamorphosis, or a spectacle more ridiculous to laugh at. If at any
time they have receyved a merie countenance of their beloved, good God, how gay
shall you see them in apparell, how cheerefull in their countenance, how
pleasant in their conceiptes, how merie in their moodes: then they bathe in
brookes of blisse, they swimme in seas of Joy, they flow in floudes of
felicitie, they hover all in happinesse, they flie in sweete delightes, they
banishe all anoye. "Contrarily, if they receive a lowring looke, then you
shall see them drowned in dumpes, they plead with piteous plaints, they crie
with continuall clamours, they forge, they fayne, they flatter, lie, they
forsweare, otherwhiles falling into desperate moodes, that they spare not to
blaspheme the gods, to curse the heavens, to blame the planetes, to raile on
the destinies, to crie out upon the furies, to forge hell, to counterfeite
Sisiphus, to playe Tantalus, to faine Titeus, to grone with Prometheus, to
burne the winter, to freeze the summer, to lothe the night, to hate the day,
with a thousand other such superstitious follies, to long for me to rehearse.
"Nowe, if he be learned, and that he be able to write a verse, then his
penne must plie to paint his mistresse prayse, she must then be a Pallas for
86 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [86
her witte, a Diana for her chastitie, a Venus for her face, then shee
shall be praysed by proportion: first her Haires are wires of golde, her
Cheekes are made of Lilies and red Roses, her Browes be arches, her eyes
Saphires, her lookes lightenings, her mouth Corall, her teeth Pearles, her
pappes alabaster balles, her bodye streight, her belly softe, from thence
downwarde to her knees, I thinke, is made of Sugar Candie, her armes her
handes, her fingers, her legges, her feete, and all the rest of her bodie shall
be so perfect, and so pure, that of my conscience, the worste parte they will
leave in her, shalbe her soule."/45 Others are more severe, including
Lyly+, who has nothing good to say of either love or lovers. The Italian seeks
in behalf of his ideal proportion and completeness. The Englishman frames his
to fill a certain purpose, careless of omissions that do not touch his aim. One
must go to the English poets to find such praise of love as Italian scholars, courtiers
and churchmen were delighted to give. Spenser+ doubtless had in mind these same
grave gentlemen whom we have been consulting when he wrote:
"The rugged forhead, that with grave foresight Welds kingdomes causes and affaires of state, My looser rimes (I wote) doth sharply wite For praising love as I have done of late, And magnifying lovers deare debate; By which fraile youth is oft to follie led, Through false allurement Of that pleasing baite. That better were in vertues discipled, Then with vaine poemes weeds to have their fancies fed.
Such ones ill judge of love that cannot love, Ne in their frosen hearts feele kindly flame: Forthy they ought not thing unknowne reprove, Ne naturall affection faultlesse blame For fault of few that have abusd the same; For it of honor and all vertue is The roote, and brings forth glorious flowres of fame, That crowne true lovers with immortall bfis, The meed of them that love, and do not live amisse."/45b
After thus setting forth the beautiful side of renaissance courtesy
it is ungracious perhaps to call attention to the other side, less
------
45a Allarme to England, pt. III, end. 45b Fairie Queene, IV, preface, I,
II.
87] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 87
beautiful, even ugly to modern minds. Courtesy, it was said in the
beginning of this discussion, consisted in part of knowing what is due+ each
man, and at bottom that is what it was for the sixteenth century, and for both
Elyot+ and Castiglione+, though both lead one to forget the stark fact by
emphasis upon the manner of meting out that due. It is only, however, in such a
discussion as Castiglione's, where questions of wide difference in class do not
enter in, that courtesy puts on the smiling face and easy, gracious bearing
that we customarily associate with renaissance manners. In Guazzo+ the baldness
shows through when he urges the gentleman to seek occasionally the company of
the yeoman and the artisanbut only the better sort of these classesfor
relaxation from the restraints which the society of his equals puts upon him,
for the gentleman, "conversing with other Gentlemen, is faine to frame
himselfe oftimes to their fancie; knowing that every one will looke for as much
prehemminence every way as himselfe, but in consorting with his inferiours he
shalbe the chief man amongst them & rule the companie as he liste, neither
shal be forced to favor or do anything contrary to his minde: which libertie is
seldome allowed him, being amongst his equals."/46 Another Italian book on
courtesy translated into English under the title The Court of Civill Courtesie,
even more franklyshould one say crudelyshows that courtesy is not the same
thing for all men, but one thing for superiors, another for equals, and yet
another for inferiors. The advice is specific: in the case of inferiors, for
instance, if they are to be esteemed for their wisdom, the young gentleman
shoud give place to them, courteously but obviously in honor of their virtue
and not of their person. In an inferior's house, if he is assigned a seat below
one superior only in wealth, he should show his displeasure by taking a seat
two or three places lower still, and refusing to move even if his host on
discovering the mistake begs him to do so. If his host is troubled about the
matter he will pass if off with a pleasant word, but if the host is oblivious,
then he should make it clear to those that sit by him that he has chosen the
place in scorn by some such girding speeches or pleasant scoffs as,
"Beware, friends; pride will have a fall," or "Speake not so
loud, your betters be in place." If the same slight happens in a
nobleman's or knight's house, he must put up with it for the time,
------
46 Op. cit., bk. II, fo. 44b.
88 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
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but on the next occasion may take as good a place as he can get
"with modesty," "for as no man is disgraced by giving (of his
courtesie) place to whom he list, so to have it taken from him by others, being
his right, is an abasement not to be suffered, if a man can take it either by
sleight or courage." In the case of equals the gentleman should use some
expressions of esteem in his speech, but with a certain familiarity to indicate
that he speaks out of courtesy rather than from any difference he thinks to be
between them, "specially if they be such, as he is not like any way,
either to be in daunger of their hurt or in need of their help." Before
superiors the case is very different; however familiar his superior is, he
should maintain a certain respect especially before others; if not called upon
to speak, he should listen attentively; and if admitted into conversation, he
must not weary his betters. The same distinctions are to be observed in all
circumstances./47 The guide assigned here for the gentleman's behavior is
expediency,getting all that is his due from equals and inferiors and giving no
more than is their due, unless by way of showing condescension+, and giving to
superiors what is their due with an eye on the main chance. Courtesy thus
becomes a purely external matter, of mercenary aspect, not the find outward
expression of a fine inward feeling.
To sum up, courtesy as a gentlemanly virtue was
fundamentally a preserver of society, helping to keep the lines between classes
that the aristocratic ideal created by prescribing the kind of treatment due to
each, and helping also to maintain obedience by gaining the good will of the
lower classes to the upper; it was also a beautifier of society adding grace to
the actions of men; and last of all even according to Elyot it adorned the
individual, allowing his real worth and accomplishments to shine forth and draw
the eyes of all men to him. Such courtesy, it is plain to be seen, was not the
courtesy of Newman+'s gentleman, who may be said to act rather with the aim of
effacing himself to the comfort of his companions, than with the aim of
enhancing himself even at the expense of his companions. The renaissance
gentleman had his eye chiefly upon himself.
Liberality like courtesy, was deemed a virtue
particularly becoming and necessary to the character and estate of a gentleman.
"Neyther truly is there any vertue," said Osorius+, "which doth
more become a noble minde, or setteth forthe more a worthy
------
47 S. Robson, translator, ch. T.
89] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
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wight, either that winneth more praise & commendation, and getteth
more goodwill, love, and reverence; without whiche no man may mayntayn his owne
estate, or attayne to live in any worshipful callinge."/48 Liberality was
the guiding principle for the gentleman's expenditure, both upon others and
upon himself, his mode of living. It meant primarily of course the first, and
took the form of bestowing favors+ and rewards in money or its equivalent upon
individuals, or the community, according to one's means. It was not, however,
almsgiving, indiscriminate doles to poor people as needy again tomorrow as
today, with only their poverty for recommendation. Almsgiving was the Christian
idea of charity as interpreted by the church, and was enjoined upon knight and
monk alike. Liberality was a pagan virtue, a mixture of the Teutonic+ ideal of
generosity on the part of a leader toward his companions in arms, which was a
part of the knightly ideal, and of the Aristotelian+ open-handedness which
dwelt halfway between avarice+ and extravagance. The gentleman, therefore, took
pains to dispense his rewards where they would do most good, that is, among
worthy and able persons whose serviceableness would thereby be increased; he
stood circumspectly upon the manner of his giving, considering not only to whom
he should give, but when, and how, and how much. Promiscuous giving was no part
of true liberality; for two reasons: such giving might do harm to the recipient
and no good to the giver; and it was incompatible with the virtue of prudence
which the gentleman was preeminently expected to show. Rewards judiciously
bestowed would act as spurs to further effort on the part of the recipient and
also others who would be led to hope for similar reward. The donor would thus
be forwarding not only the welfare of the individual but that of the whole
commonwealth, and at the same time would be creating in men's hearts love and
reverence for himself, the true foundation of obedience. In his capacity as
governor liberality was thus a virtue peculiarly fitting for the gentleman to
practice./49 But the gentleman should show his liberality not only in his
bounty towards others, but in his expenditure upon himself, for if he were
observed to keep himself meanly, how should others look to find him generous to
them, and how should they show him rever-
------
48 Civile Nobilitie, bk. II, fo. 27a.
49 Elyot, op. cit., bk. II, ch. X.
90 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [90
ence if he passed unknown through the crowd, unattended, undistinguished
by his dress? Moreover niggardliness toward himself must argue a small, low
spirit, and thus obscure the brightness of his example in other matters. He
should therefore be known by the estate he kept, dress, attendants, household
appointments, all so many witnesses of his station. Of dress Elyot+ said,
"So is there apparaile comely to every astate and degree, and that whiche
excedeth or lackethe procureth reproche, in a noble man specially. For
apparaile simple or scant; reprovethe hym of avarice+. If it be alway excelling
precious, and often tymes chaunged, as well in to charge as straunge and newe
facions, it causeth him to be noted dissolute of maners."/50 Likewise
ought he to adorn his house with tapestries, paintings and engraved plate. When
he walked out, he should go "worthely attended, garded gallantly with a
sort of seemely Servantes, alwayes well appoynted, as well to shew his power,
as to grace his person."51 Liberality, of course, did not presuppose
anyfixed expenditure, but was to be proportioned to income. Spending in excess,
like its opposite, was a vice, violating the law of the mean, and threatening
impoverishment and even ultimate loss of gentility. Between the danger of
spending too much and that of spending too little, however, the gentleman
should lean rather toward the first. So that he did not destroy himself, it was
more important, obviously, for him to spend than to save. The great lord
therefore must spend upon a grand scale and his liberality became the virtue of
magnificence, differing from liberality only in amount. Liberality concerned
the small affairs of life, the everyday dispensing of wealth. Magnificence
concerned only matters of great importance, particularly public affairs,
investitures into high office, gifts to great lords, embassies, building of
churches, theaters, public entertainments, but sometimes private affairs
alsoweddings, banquets, entertainment of important foreigners, dwellings in the
city and country, ornaments of the house. Even magnificence was of course a
relative matter; what would be magnificent for a private gentleman would not be
for a prince, and what would be magnificent on a private occasion, would not be
on a public. The manner of spending must be worthy of the spender, of those he
is honoring, and of the oc_
------
50 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. III, p. 125. See also The Institucion of a
Gentlemanfo.h1ah3a.
51 A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Servingmen, rep., pp. 123,
126.
91] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
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casion, and, it was added, difficult to imitate, if the glory was not to
be dimmed shortly by a competitor./52 Fundamentally, then, liberality was
another distinction of class but based upon wealthI , rather than character.
Presumably the gentleman possessed means, since lack of means necessitated a
way of living incompatible with the practice of liberal arts and virtues.
Avarice for example was almost a necessity for a poor man, liberality an
impossibility. Liberality distinguished the gentleman from the boor, as
evidence of his freedom from degrading concern over expenses. The moot question
of whether riches were to be considered a good or evil thing was thus answered.
Without riches the gentleman could not possess the virtue of liberality;
without liberality he was no true gentleman.
Temperance+ was the moderator among the virtues,
requiring, as Humphrey said, that "a Noble man thinke modestlye of him
selfe, live temperatlye, and continentlye, behave hym selfe moderately, and
soberly in all things."/53 The temperate man would not show excess of joy
at victory, or of sorrow at defeat, or of anger against enemies, or of desire
for vengeance, or of greed for wealth or power; nor would he spend extravagantly
upon his clothes and furniture, or overindulge any appetite+, even the appetite
for food and drink./54 Of all the virtues temperance was the least attractive
to the Elizabethan, as one might expect of a generation that set a premium upon
action+, dangerous exploit, imagination-feeding enterprise. Elyot prefaced his
chapter "Of Sobriety in Diet" with an admission of the unpopularity
he was incurring in advocating what was so entirely contrary to custom, and
long had been, that the very terms sobriety and frugality were unknown except
to those well instructed in Latin+. Humphrey himself called temperance the
least excellent of the virtues, as having negative rather than positive
character, though, he said, it was not on that account to be the less cultivated.
Too much of the medieval ideal of complete suppression and denial of the
passions clung around it, of the medieval tendency to identify it with chastity
merely, to make it entirely compatible with the new ideal of self-expansion.
Castiglione+, however, took some pains to make it clear that temperance was to
be used not to root out the passions but merely to bridle them, since
controlled
------
52 Piccolomini, op. cit., bk. VI, ch. VIII, pp. 262-4.
53 Op. cit., bk. III, fo. rIIIa
54 Elyot, op. cit., bk. III, ch. XX, XXI, XXII.
92 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [92 passions were an aid to virtue, and reason+ without them would be very weak./55 To the same effect wrote an Englishman: "For by nature we waxe hoate, angry, and cholericke, naturally we love, naturally we lothe, we pitty, we despise, we feare, we frown, we desire, we disdayne, we are marvailously by kinde stirred up with joy and pleasure. Which affections before they become actions, least they should exceede theyr just due and proportion, and turne thereby to our annoy, are to be tempered and moderated by reason+'s rule and discipline. This man therefore that can thus governe, and moderate the motions of the minde, hath wonne the love of Temperaunce, and shall be honored of all men as one indued with a rare, and singular vertue. The affections therefore of the minde, as ire, love, pleasure, and the solace itself of lyfe, with many other are not (as ignoraunt men suppose) to be raced out, but rather with the light and flame of reason+ in the best and highest mindes enkindled. Lyke as in the sea, such quiet & calme weather is not to be desired, wherewith the floud may not be with the least puffe of winde troubled, but rather such open aire wherby the shipp at the stearne may sulck the Seas with a merry gale and prosperous winde: even so there is to be desired in the minde a puffe, & as it were, a blowing billow to hoyse upp the sayles of the minde, whereby the course thereof may be made more swift & certayne. And even as a skilfull & couragious horseman doth not alway delight in a soft and gentle pace, but sometymes geveth his horse the spurre, to the end his stede should move more lively: So by reason, sometymes the affections of the minde are styrred, and prycked forward, that we might more cherefully dispatch our business."/56 {Pope+} Temperance thus interpreted became more than a negation, and was not incompatible with the robuster virtues more favored by the renaissance. Such a conception of temperance Spenser+ illustrated in the adventures of Sir Guyon, where the first lesson of chivalry was self-mastery. Sir Guyon thus comforts another knight whom he had defeated:
Losse is no shame, not to bee lesse then foe, But to bee lesser, then himselfe, doth marre Both loosers lott, and victours prayse alsoe: Vaine others overthrowes who selfe doth over throw./57
Temperance was essentially self-control, and looked within.
The other virtues looked without.
------
55 Op. cit., bk. IV, p. 309.
56 Blandy, The Castle, fo. 13.
57 The Fairie Queene, II, V, XV.
93] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 93
Courage, the last of the gentlemanly virtues we set out to examine, was
conspicuously an outward looking virtue, as the renaissance valued it. It
looked both ways, to be sure; on the one hand steeling a man to patient
endurance of misfortune, to equanimity before success, on the other spurring
him to great enterprises./58 But it was chiefly praised as a spur to action+;
not so often called fortitude, which smelled too much of Christian forbearance
and stoic+ passivity, but courage, or even preferably valor. This was the
virtue particularly needed by the gentleman in his capacity of defender of his
country and the right. Osorius thus defined it, connecting it immediately and
solely with military exploits: "A valiaunte courage, which consisteth in
daungerous attempts, is lifted up righte worthely to the highest steppe of
honour and dignity. For it is a matter of no small importaunce so little to
esteeme of life as to bestowe it willingely and cherefully for the safegarde
and preservation of all men, and to refuse or feare for the wealth of our
country no daunger or terrour of the enemy. Wherefore almoste every man which
is inflamed with the love of glory+, and desireth greately renomne, doth employ
his labour moste arnestly to the study of chivalry and martian
affaires."/59 This was of course par excellence the virtue of the knight,
but there was this difference between the courage of the knight and the courage
of the gentleman: the knight, as any tale in Malory shows, ran eagerly into
danger and rejoiced to show his bravery in the enduring of suffering and loss,
or gladly met death, finding in death a reward, as it were, for his valor./60
The gentleman, though no less ready to prove his mettle in great and dangerous
undertakings, saw no virtue in meeting danger for its own sake. As Saviolo+
expressed it, "The dutie of everye Gentleman, is to temper his courage
with wisedome, that it may be kriowne, that neither he setteth so highlye by
his life that for safegarde of it, he will commit any vile act, nor yet that he
so slightlye regardeth it, as that without just cause he will deprive himself
thereof."/61 {Plutarch+} And for the Elizabethan, courage found its most
praiseworthy outlet, not in warlike exploit so much as in daring on the
sea. Sidney+ was ready to take extreme measures to join Sir Francis
Drake+ in a great expedition for exploration and
------
58 Hurault, op. cit., pt. II, ch. VII.
59 Op. cit., bk. II, fo. 25. See also Blandy, op. cit., fo. 10b.
60 Caxton, Book of Chivalry, ch. III, fo. b8a.
61 His Practise, bk. II, fo. Bb2a.
94 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [94
conquest, and chose to go to war in the Netherlands only after the Queen
had taken as extreme measures to restrain him from so venturing himself./62
More praiseworthy than mere courage was magnanimity+, highmindedness, a sort of
sublimation of courage, which belonged peculiarly to the gentleman, directing
all his actions, and giving to all his virtues a grace and splendor wanting for
the common man. Magnanimity sent a man into high enterprises which taxed to the
utmost the powers of mind and body, and before which lesser men would quail; it
also enabled a man to throw over his actions that fine air of carelessness+,
apparent disdain for his performance, which Castiglione+ made the essence of
good manners for the courtier, by preserving him from the attention to detail
which bred preciosity+ and denoted littleness of spirit. Piccolomini+, following
Aristotle+, called it the chief ornament of the virtues, and the most difficult
of all as presupposing the others and aspiring to great things most concerned
with honor, the reward of virtue./63 The distinction between courage and
magnanimity appeared in Hurault's definition: "Magnanimitie is a certaine
excellencie of courage, which aiming at honour, directeth all his doings
thereunto, and specially unto vertue, as the thing that is esteemed the
efficient cause of honour; in respect wherof, it doth all things that are
vertuous and honourable with a brave and excellent courage, and differeth from
valiantnesse or prowess, in that prowesse respecteth chiefly the perils of
warre, and magnanimitie respecteth honour. Insomuch that magnanimitie is an
ornament unto all vertues, because the deeds of vertue be worthy of honour, the
which are put in execution by magnanimitie."/64 It is magnanimity then
that gives the gentleman his highest personal worth, and makes him also of
greatest value to the state, for it is the mean between two extremes, either
one of which would cause loss to the state, meanmindedness, selfdepreciation on
the one hand, and on the other vanity or ambition, that is, inordinate pride in
himself and inordinate lust for power or wealth. It he underrated himself, he
would fail to make the mark he ought, to engage in the high enterprises
profitable to the state; if he overrated himself, he would cut a ridiculous
figure, and in his unchecked exercise of power overthrow justice completely,
taxing
------
62 Fulke-Greville, Life of Sidney, Tudor and Stuart Library, ch. 7.
63 Op. cit., lib. 6, cap. 9, fo. 267.
64 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. VIII, p. 287.
95] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 95
and robbing in order to maintain his ill got position../65 As Bacon+
summed it up"Magnanimity no doubt consisteth in contempt of peril, in
contempt of profit, and in meriting of the times wherein one liveth."/66
The magnanimous man must be therefore the good man par excellence. Aristotle is
explicit and emphatic. But the pagan character of the morality of gentility was
nowhere more clearly shown than in this point. Magnanimity as the virtue
belonging to the gentleman and only to him was the virtue of self-expansion,
selfassertion. The conduct of the highminded man was to be governed at all
points by an unshakable sense of his own undeniable worth, in comparison with
which nothing else had value. He engaged in great enterprises, therefore,
because he could not stoop to lesser ones. He sought great honor as his reward,
knowing that the greatest rewards men could bestow were inadequate, so high a
price has virtue. He conferred benefits liberally because by so doing he
maintained his superior position; only under necessity would he accept a favor,
and that he would return twice over so as to resume his superiority. He would
for this reason remember the benefits he had conferred and forget those he had
received, for superiority lay in giving, inferiority in receiving. He preserved
equanimity in the face of good fortune or bad; he ignored the wrongs done to
him by others, knowing that nothing external really touched him. He wondered at
nothing. {nil_admirari+} He never boasted+ of his accomplishments, even seemed
to minimize them by his air of disdain for them. Such was Aristotle+'s
description of the effect of magnamimity, and Piccolomini+ closely followed
Aristotle. The gulf between this conception of the good man's springs of action
and Christ+'s conception is evident. There is no love of his fellows and no humility
before either God or man in the magnanimous man[??] ??. Piccolomini, unlike his
master, could not escape drawing comparisons, and was conscious of an
incompatibility. He tried to show that it was only apparent by claiming that
the magnanimous man does not absolutely despise others, but judging them by
their virtue, he will not esteem those who lack it, not because he despises
them, but because in this life he values only virtue. It is stupidity and
pusillanimity, on the other
------
65 Elyot, op. cit., bk. III, ch. XV, XVI.
66 Bacon, "Discourse in Praise of the Queen," Letters and Life
of Francis Bacon, Spedding, 1858, vol. I, p. 326.
96 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [96
hand, for the humble man who knows he is virtuous to depreciate his own
worth and esteem others that are not virtuous more than he does himself./67 But
humility is something more than lack of contempt for others.
These then were the virtues thought necessary for the
gentleman as he was both governor and example, through which he might rule
justly, inspire obedience, and inculcate right ways of living among the people.
But when this has been said of the moral code of the gentleman, not all has
been said. Moralists like Elyot+ and Humphrey+ were interested in making the
gentleman good that he might bear worthily the responsibilities of his
position, and they managed to throw something of the glamor, the distinction of
the position over what were after all the virtues within the practice of all,
both high and low. Just so far, however, as theory claimed a peculiar character
or value for the virtues of the gentleman it provided for undue emphasis upon
certain qualities to the neglect of others, and gave room for the rise of a
more special code, or perhaps more exactly a special interpretation of the
code, which had for its fundamental assumption an essential difference in
standards between the man of gentle birth and the plebeian. And this was
exactly what happened; there developed in England, as on the continent, an idea
that furnished the gentleman with a more special criterion for conduct than
that of duty to the state, the idea of honor as it was related to courage. The
key to the moral code as it was indeed the special possession of the gentleman
lies here. For honor took on a new meaning or significance in the renaissance
which bent the whole code of Aristotelian+ morals to its own uses, and gave to
the gentleman his peculiar standard of conduct, the law or code_of_honor+,
which lasted well into the nineteenth century, and which though no longer
involved with dueling in England still actuates the conduct of, shall we call
them, old-fashioned gentlemen. Its only real counterpart in modern life, is the
professional code of the lawyer, the doctor, and others who have acquired a
group consciousness and pride, and feel the necessity of preserving the group
through emphasis on likenesses between members of the group, and differences
between the group and all outside of it. It may well be that the phenomenal
development in the sixteenth century of the
------
67 Aristotle, Ethics, Welldon's trans., bk. IV, ch. VIIX; Pccolomini,
op. cit., lib. VIII, cap. IX.
97] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 97
gentlman's code of honor, involving chiefly the theory and practice of
dueling, is to be accounted for by the need of some new distinguishing mark for
the class. All else was failing it, as has been pointed out, distinctions of
dress, ways of living, armorial bearings, even occupation. The gentleman was
driven finally back within himself to find the difference between himself and
other men, and what he found there he chose to call his sense of honor.
Just what honor meant to the sixteenth century is
difficult to analyze. Something seems to have entered into it that had not been
there before, but the definitions volunteered are obviously inadequate, though
there seems to have been a curious failure to appreciate their inadequacy. Up
to the sixteenth century it appeared to have only the meaning Aristotle gave
it, who called it the highest of external goods, the only proper reward for
virtue./68 It was synonymous with reverence, glory+, fame, and in the plural
with the special marks of fame, dignities, offices, titles, etc. Even the
knight who talked much about his honor meant something external. Malory used
honor and worship interchangeably and together, and worship somewhat more
frequently than honor in phrases where the sixteenth century regularly used
honor. "I may not with my worship save thy life." "Upon my
worship trust to my promise."/69 So sixteenth century writers also from
Elyot to Segar called honor the reward of virtue, that is evidence of esteem
which can be given only by, exterior signs. Cleland said of honor, it "is
not in his hand who is honored, but in the hearts and opinions of other men,
who either have seene his merits, or heard of his renowne, and good
reputation+"./70 Translations from Italian and French writers add little
more. "Honour in his true definition is a certaine reverence, which one man
yeeldeth to another extraordinarily, for his vertuous merit, and worthy desert,
so that it should nct be wealth, but vertue, which should make an honourable
man," was the definition in the Rich Cabinet, published in 1616. The good
man only was to be honored.
In another sentence the exterior quality of honor was
even more
------
68 Op. cit., bk. IV, ch. 7, pp. 113-4.
69 Morte d' Arthur, Camelot Series, "Sir Gareth," pp. 179,
185. See also "Merlin," p. 33; "Sir Balin Le Savage," pp.
40, 42, 46; "The Round Table," pp. 63, 65, 66; "Marvellous
Adventures," pp. II, 16, 99, 111, 112.
70 Op. cit., bk. V, ch. 6; Elyot, op. cit., bk. III, ch. II, p.200;
Segar, Honor Military and Civill, bk. I, ch. I, T. B.'s "Preface to the
Reader." See also La Noue, The Politicke and Militarie Discourses, 12th
Discourse, p. 164.
98 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [98
explicitly set forth: "Honour is most famous, when men are borne of
gentle parents; rise to live in great dignitie; die in glorious libertie; are
buried with ensignes of valor; and leave a memorie of their fames and glories+
to posterity./72 Du Refuges defined the means of showing honor: "Honour
consists either in the opinions we conceive of a mans perfections & merits,
or in the ceremonies of respect and reverence, wherwith we honour him who is
our superiour in power, authority, reputation+, wealth, or in some other
remarkable advantage./73 An Italian, Romei+, threw a little more light on honor
as it involved dueling. There are two kinds of honor, he said, the natural,
which is imperfect, and the acquired, which is perfect. Natural honor is a
common opinion that a man has never failed in justice or valor, that he is good
if he does not appear to the contrary. This is born in one, and is lost only by
an infamous act; but it is imperfect because negative. A man is thereby
honorable only because he has done nothing wrong. Acquired honor is a reward
for well doing, and is perfect because it is positive and requires action. The
duel is grounded upon the first sort./74 A man of ordinary feeling who fought
to preserve his honor, which all who upheld the practice of dueling asserted to
be the aim of the duel, would doubtless primarily, often solely, have in mind
his public reputation+. But it is clear that something more was involved in
honor as the finer spirits of the time conceived it, something nearer and more
precious to them. Certainly Gervase Markham meant more than reputation when he
said, "Honour is the food of every great spirit, and the very god which
creates in high minds heroicall actions; it is so dilicate and puer that any
excesse doth staine it, any unjust action dishonours it, any motion that smels
either of folly, of sloath+, or of rashnesse puts it out of countenance, but an
ignoble deed that utterly mines it." Praise, he also said, comes from
another; honor is of itself and in itself. But after that, he made honor, that
is exterior signs, a necessary thing, "for take away honour, where is our
Reverence? take away reverence? what are our lawes? And take away Law, and man
is nothing but a grosse masse of all impietie."/75 Ximenez the
------
72 Fo. 63a; 64b.
73 Treatise of the Court, ch. 30, p. 145.
74 The Courtiers Academie, London, 1597, "Of Honour," p. 79;
"Of Combat," p. 131.
75 Honour in his Perfection, P. 4.
99] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 99 Spaniard as an argument
against the duel said that honor dwells with virtue and no one can take away
honor unless he takes away virtue. Therefore a man can lose his honor only
through vice./76 Fausto de Longiano also said that honor cannot be lost except
through one's own fault, and that fault may be a secret one of thought./77
Something more intimate than reputation+ was meant.
There is a passage in Rabelais+ which, as Burckhardt+
points out, distinguishes more clearly than any Italian, or Englishman either,
this inner sense of honor from the outer passion for fame./78 Rabelais says of
his gentlemen and ladies of the Order of Free Will, "In their rule is only
this clause: Do as you wish. For free men, well born, well brought up, moving
in polite circles, have by nature an instinct and spur which at all times
impels them toward virtuous deeds, and draws them away from vice. This they
call honor."/79 Some such assumption must lie back of Romei's conception
of imperfect honor. Honor seems to have been, therefore, a sort of conscience+
directing the man of honor in his actions, not alone by desire of fame or fear
of damaged reputation, but by an inward impulse toward virtue and away from
vice; an "enigmatic mixture of conscience and egoism" Burckhardt
calls it, and comes as near perhaps as one can to comprehending in a phrase the
two aspects of this strange sense that, it need hardly be insisted, was taken
to be the possession of the gentleman alone.
This conception of honor, an individual standard, as
a guide to conduct arose in connection with the practice of dueling+, doubtless
as a rationalization of that lawless fashion, and the defenders of dueling
claimed that honor had its own laws which might go contrary to the laws of both
God and man. Divine law had God for io end; civil law the maintenance of
justice among ordinary people who were too ignorant and too debased to guide
themselves in virtuous ways of living. Civil law, moreover, was felt to be a
debased kind of law because, though drawn from the same sources as the law of
honor, that is from the moral law, it had been changed and ihterpreted by the
jurisconsults and squabbled over by lawyers until it was full of injustices and
contradictions. The law of honor,
------
76 Dialogo del Vero Honore Militari, Venice, 1569, trans. from the
Spanish pt. I. fo. 8a-8b.
77 Duello, Venice, 1560, bk. I, ch. VII.
78 Op. cit. p. 434.
79 Gargantua lib. -. cap. 57.
100 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
[100
on the other hand, "is founded on the most solid foundation, which
is reason+ and which cannot be destroyed. It is immutable and external, not
subject to the changes of time, and therefore it cannot receive diverse
interpretations. It has been approved by the universal+ consent of all men, and
of all ages. It began with the beginning of the world, and will endure while
the world endures. Everyone is held to the observance of this law, but the
civil law is not observed except in the most limited part of the inhabited
earth."/80 The law of honor was thus practically identified with the law
of nature+, about which one still heard a deal in the sixteenth century, which,
as it was usually defined, was the moral law, made known by reason+, inviting man
to do good through certain practical principles implanted in all men, such as
to reverence God, follow the golden_rul+, honor father and mother, help the
unfortunate, etc./81 The law of nature was in other words the absolute standard
of goodness. Honor then as a law unto itself became the justification for the
duel of honor, which during the sixteenth century took the place of the
judicial combat.
The origin of this particular form of combat is
obscure even today./82 Renaissance writers were disposed to trace it back
either to the Lombards, or even to antiquity,/83 but there were some with a
more scholarly, critical sense to show the fundamental difference between the
duel of honor and the single combats of the Greeks and Romans, waged to end
wars, or as a part of funeral obsequies, or in the arena by gladiators, and
between the duel of honor and the single combats of the Lombards waged to
decide certain judicial cases./84 The judicial combat even of the fifteenth
century was a very different sort of thing, fought according to rule, in a
specified place, and before regularly constituted judges, to establish justice
in doubtful cases. The duel of honor, on the contrary, was fought in private,
often without witnesses, not to decide the justice of a case, for the offence
was usually open, but to preserve honor from injury+.
------
80 Fausto de Longiano, Diffesa. . . . contra parte d'un consiglio de
l'Alciato govane per il S. Don Roderigo di Benavides, Venice, 1559, p. 42. See
also Mora, II Cavaliere, 1589, bk. I, 44-5
81 Piccolomini, op. cit., bk. VI, ch. V, p. 251; Wilson, The Art of
Rhetorique, London, 1560, Tudor and Stuart Library, p. 32.
82 Ency, Brit., eleventh edition, Duel.
83 Andrea Alciato, De Singulari Certamine, 1544, cap. II; Segar, op.
cit., lib. III, ch. 1-3.
84 Muzio, Il Duello,1558, bk. I, ch. I.
101] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
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Probably Massa's conclusion is the most profitable, that like every
custom its origin is obscure; it grew upon society unawares, gaining consent
first obscurely and then openly, at last ruling as a law and even more strongly
than law./85 According to the testimony of La Noue in 1587 the fashion of
private fights was new, quarrels having been rare among gentlemen not forty
years before./86 Francis I was credited with having started the fashion of
considering the lie+ injurious, out of which the mania grew./87 But if the
origin was uncertain, the underlying motives were clear. The better sort fought
from the desire for honor, and the fear of dishonor, motives which, as Muzio
said, rule human life, and animals as well as men, with an increasing force as
each is of a more refined spirit./88 The worst sort fought from contempt of
others and desire not to have a superior in anything, as Piccolomini analyzed
it, which is after all only a perverted notion of what honor consists in./89 No
account of the gentleman's code of morals can ignore the relation between
morals, particularly the virtue of magnanimity, or valor as it became more
familiarly called, honor the spur and the result of valor, and the duel, the
chief means in popular opinion of preserving honor. The defenders of the duel
not only exalted valor+, valor as exhibited in the single combat not as
exhibited against enemies in battle, but joined the whole cause of justice to
it, by placing the law of honor, as it applied to the punishment of private
wrong, above all other law so far as the gentleman was concerned. Popular opinion
backed dueling to avenge private wrong, but it is not the ill-considered and
rash opinion of ignorant and often upstart gentlemen that is to be taken
account of here. If that were all, the matter would scarcely belong in a
discussion of ideals. There were not wanting highminded men who either saw in
the duel under certain circumstances the gentleman's one suitable way of
maintaining his dignity and individuality (and the duel of honor arose in Italy
where individualism+ first developed),/90 and of winning repute as a man of
courage and honor, or who, because the world was so strongly minded that way,
acquiesced and strove to limit
------
85 Contra Usum Duelli, 1554,13-24.
86 Op. cit., 12th discourse, p. 159.
87 Bodin, The Six Bookes of a Commonweale, 1606, bk. IV, ch. 7, p. 528.
88 Op. cit. Dedication, fo. *IIb*IIIa.
89 Op. cit., bk. VII, ch. 2, p. 291.
90 See Burchhardt's chapter on "Morality," op. cit., pt. VI,
ch. I.
102 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [102
the excesses into which the practice quickly fell./91 Muzio admitted
that he was writing not philosophically or Christianly, but cavalierly and
humanly./92 The printer Richard Jones with a little more assurance in the
dedication to Honor and Arms thus recommended the book, "This booke Both
not incite men to unadvised fight, or needles revenge (as some simple wit may
surmize) but enformeth the true meanes how to shunne all offences; or being
offended, sheweth the order of revenge and repulse, according unto Christian
knowledge and due respect of honor." Bacon himself who made no compromises
but labeled the whole business "a kind of satanical) illusion and
apparition of honour; against religion, against lawe, against morall vertue,
and against the presidents and examples of the best times and valiantest
Nations," was forced to admit that so strong was the stream of popular
opinion that even staid and sober-minded men who saw rightly the vanity of
dueling must conform "or else there is no living or looking upon mens
faces."/93 Among such staid and sober-minded men was Sir Philip Sidney+,
who could scarcely be restrained even by his queen from wiping out with his
sword the insults inflicted on the tennis court by the Earl of Oxford./94 The
opponents of the duel, and there were many who opposed it uncompromisingly,/95
fought it, as Bacon did, partly as grounded on a false notion of honor and
virtue, for, they said, honor rests not in opinion but in virtue which cannot
be hurt except by the action of the individual himself, and not in one virtue
alone but in all the virtues and in piety+, truth, temperance and justice
before valor;/96 partly as constituting a subversion of justice and an affront
to the law, "as if there were two laws, one a kind of gowne-law, and the other
a law of reputation" in which "the year books and statute books must
give place to some French and Italian pamphlets, which handle the doctrine of
duells;"/97 and partly as being an ineffective means of settling disputes.
As Massa pointed out, the con-
------
91 Of the former: Longiano, Duello; of the latter: Diego del Castillo,
De Duello, Taurini, 1525; Muzio, Il Duello, Le Risposte Cavallerische, Vinegia,
1559.
92 Le Risposto Cavallerische, bk. I, "Riposta Prima," fo.
107b.
93 The Charge of Sir Francis Bacon Knight, His Majesty's
Attorney-General, Touching Duels, 1614, pp. 12-13.
94 Fulke Greville, op. cit., ch. VI, pp. 63-9.
95 B. de Logue, Discourses of Warre and Single Combat, London 1591, pp.
45-68; G. Joly, Aanti-Duel, Paris, 1622, besid Ximenez di Urrea, and La Noue,
12th discourse, already cited.
96 See La Noue, op. cit., l0th discourse, pp. 128-133
97 Bacon, op. cit., p. 10.
103] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 103
troversy was not over the existence of injury+a man may indeed lose
esteem by being slandered, but over the method by which the injured should take
care of his honor./98 The duel settled nothing, leaving the spectators' opinion
of the right of a case where it was before.
But such arguments were of small avail even with the
high-minded so long as men believed in a law of honor above all lawdivine,
natural, and civilthat is to say above all human interpretations of law, and in
the duel as an instrument to punish vice and exalt virtue. The current
arguments for the duel explain the hold it had upon the imaginations of men:
Honor is to be preferred above life, laws, country, and everything else, and
endurance of injuries and contempt signifies a man unworthy of honor. The laws
take care of public injuries but not of private; knightly dignity will not
allow carrying a quarrel to the magistrate and asking for vindication. Lost
honor cannot be regained by the law, or by the force and valor of another, but
by a man's own valor and virtue. It is less evil for two men to risk their
lives than for the whole state to be in peril. Without the duel the friends,
relatives, and clients of one who receives injury fly to arms and civil war
results. So the duel preserves the commonwealth. It also helps to make men
virtuous; through fear of a challenge they will keep faith, and refrain from
inflicting injuries, since even the boldest become timid if they know they
fight against the truth, so great is the force of virtue. War, the universal,
is just; therefore the duel, the particular, is just./99 The argument that the
duel is necessary to prevent civil war was gravely presented by Bodin./100 La
Noue countered it by pointing out that the Italians had failed to keep vice
within limits by allowing common courtesans in every town, and it was more
likely that the civil wars arose out of such disorders, than that worse things
had been averted by them. "Such vices," he concluded, "as in the
sight of God are abominable, as whooredome & murther, ought never under
colour of eschuing greater inconveniences, to be permitted."/101 A
conclusion that modern times are just coming to. Of all these arguments in
favor of the duel, there is just one that really had validity: the duel did
supply a lack in the laws of the
------
99 Op. cit., p. 34.
99 Summed up by Massa, op. cit., pp. 39-41.
100 Op. cit., bk. IV, ch. VII.
101 Op. cit., 12th discourse, p. 158.
104 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 104] day which took no care of injuries
to reputation+ and feeling, but only to those to the body./102 The whole theory
of the law of honor and the duel is a part of the individualistic+ tendencies
of the renaissance. It reached its highest development in Italy where it
amounted to a religion, but its effect was seen in practice in England. Men
regarded their serving honor as their most precious possession; it was the best
part of them, almost the whole. Integrity+ comes the nearest perhaps to as a
synonym. Those who viewed it chiefly from the external point of view, as
susceptible to injury from without because it might so be lost in the opinion
of men, believed in the duel as a means of preservation; man gained dignity by
holding within his own hand the means of maintaining himself against all the
world. Not a little of medieval contempt for the law and lawyers/103 echoes in
the disdain often expressed in the renaissance for those who sought redress in
the courts, and something of the haughty independence of medieval barons whose
superiority, if not to the law itself at least to the mass of the people in the
eyes of the law, was recognized in the laws themselves./104 But the haughtiness
of the baron rested rather on the military strength of his castle and
men-at-arms, and the contempt for law rather on its partiality and the meanness
of its practicers, than on a sense of personal dignity, which is the
contribution of the renaissance to the development of man. The gentleman of the
renaissance believed that he followed a higher law than that of the courts, and
achieved, with the help of God, a stricter justice.
In the complete moral ideal of the gentleman, then,
the code of honor played in England as on the continent an important part. As
an active ideal it tended always to usurp the whole field. By its narrow
application to certain exterior aspects of social intercourse between members
of the upper classes, it set up a standard
------
102 Ency. Brit., Duel. For Proposals to remedy such lack see if
Publication of His Majesties Edict, and severe Censure against Private Combats,
and Combatants, London, 1613. 103 D. Chadwick,
Social Life in the Days of Piers Plowman, cambridge, 1922, pp. 43-9.
104 See the lists of privileges drawn up by the Italian and French
lawyers: Bonus de Curtili, Tractatus Nobilitatis, pt. V; Jean Renaud, Paris,
1475, Tractatus Nobilitatis, "Septima questio principalis"; Cepolla,
De Imperatore Militum Deligendo, sec. 4, P26-43; Chassaneux, Catalogus Gloriae
Mundi, Lyons, 5546, pt. VIII, fo. 168a170a; Tiraquellus, De Nobilitate, cap.
20.
105 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMANl05] for conduct which ignored other aspects and other relationships.
The gentleman thereby was free to pass as an honorable man and at the same time
be guilty of certain personal vices and social injustices, which were condemned
by the broader code of morals borrowed from the ancients+./105 It was never,
however, set forth by English writers as the whole ideal, for outside the
consideration of the gentleman's maintenance of his place aiming his equals,
there remained the consideration of his responsbility toward the common people
whose natural governor and protector he was taken to be, and always in the
English ideal this responsibility was a determining and directing force. To
turn for evidence from theory to practice, Sir John Cheke+ in his reproaches to
the northern rebels for their killing of Lord Sheffield+, eulogized his public
virtues: "a noble Gentileman and of good service, both fitte for counsel
in peace and for condit in war. Considered ye either the gravitye of hys
wysdom, or the authoritie of his personne, or hys service to the commune
wealth, or the hope that all men had in hym, or the neede that Englande had of
suche, or -----
105 William Paley thus describes the law of honor as it appeared to him
in 5799. "The Law of Honour is a system of rules constructed by people of
fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another; and
for no other purpose. "Consequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law of
Honour, but what tends to incommode this intercourse. "Hence this law only
prescribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals; omitting such as relate to
the Supreme Being, as well as those which we owe to our inferiors. "For
which reason, profaneness, neglect of public worship or private devotion,
cruelty to servants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependants, want of
charity to the poor, injuries done to tradesmen by insolvency or delay of
payment, with numberless examples of the same kind, are accounted no breaches
of honour; because a man is not a less agreeable companion for these vices, nor
the worse to deal with, in those concerns which are usually transacted between
one gentleman and another. "Again, the Law of Honour being constituted by
men occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, and for the mutual conveniency of such
men, will be found, as might be expected from the character and design of the
lawmakers, to be, in most instances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of
the natural passions. "Thus it allows of fornication, adultery,
drunkenness, prodigality, dueling, and of revenge in the extreme; and lays no
stress upon the virtues opposite to these." The Principles of Moral and
Political Philosophy, vol. II, bk. I, ch. II. The flaws that showed so
glaringly after two hundred years of use were present from the beginning.
[106 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 106
among many notablie good, hys singuler excellencie, or the favour of al
men toward him beyng loved to everey man, and hated of no man?"./106 This
survey of renaissance standards of conduct is incomplete without a
consideration of the Christian element, which, while it tended rather to run
parallel with the general code of morals than to be an integral part of it, was
held essential to the ideal. The Christian virtues of humility+, patience+, and
purity+ might be ignored, but piety+, however little talked about, was assumed
to be the foundation for the gentleman's rule of life. Humphrey, the only
writer to go into the subject of the gentleman's religious duty in
detailappropriately enough since he was a clergymanexplained the relation
between nobility and Christianity. The head and center of nobility is Christ+,
to whom God has made subject all dominions and powers. Christ is therefore the
pattern of nobility. A noble is Christianly and truly good who believes rightly
and lives rightly. He believes rightly when he fears God and embraces the true
faith, for which he should search the Scriptures himself. {Reformation+. He
lives rightly if he loves God and his neighbors+. But believing belongs to all,
even to the lowest of men; to the nobles belongs especially the support and
defence of religion, not in the knight's way by crusades to the Holy Land, but
in another fashion which Humphrey explained: "This is peculyer to Noble
men, to relieve the cause of the gospell faintinge and fallynge, to strengthen
with theyr ayde empoveryshed religyon, to shield it forsaken with theyr
patronage. For as it is incydente to all wretched, pore and beggerly to suffer:
so to succour the afflicted, belongth not but to them, who excell in
aucthoryty, whose power and lieuetenant labour, god useth in redeemynge and
defendynge relygion. Theyr parte hit is, to fight for theyr homes and Churches.
They be in maner the pastours of the people, & gardeins of orphane piety.
For great, yea greatest weight, hathe a noble mans judgemente on either parte.
Wherby, both the Tyranny of Princes is brideled, and the rage of the commen
people repressed, and the pryde of Prelates tamed So oughte they race out all
the rootes and sutes of superstition+: and suffer no delusion of Idolatry
creepe into the Churche."/107 Sir Henry Sidney's first daily precept to
little Philip was, "Let your first action be the lifting up of your hands
and mind to Al-
------
106 The Hurt of Sedition, fo. c5b.
107 Op. cit., bk. H, fo. kVIa, kVIIIa, m6b
107] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 107
mighty God by hearty prayer, and feelingly digest the words you speak in
prayer with continual meditation and thinking of him to whom you
pray."/109 Lord Burghley assumed for his son knowledge of the bond between
him and his creator, "in mentioning whereof, I meane not onely a bare and
Hystoricall knowledge, but with a reall and practical use adjoined, without
which, though with a seemely assumption, you could expresse to the Worlde in a
former habite and living portrayture all Aristotles_Morall_vertues+, and walke
that whole booke in Life and action; yet are you but a vaine and wretched
creature, the fayrest outside of the miserablest inside, that ever was
concealed by Toombe, or shadowing."/110 Piety therefore was recommended,
even assumed, though not stressed by those who wrote on the gentlemanly ideal.
During the seventeenth century the balance was completely shifted; a distinctly
religious point of view colored the handbook for the gentleman, and finally
usurped the whole field, turning the complete gentleman into a Christian
gentleman, and hardly a gentleman at all from the point of view of the
sixteenth century./109 The triumph of the puritanic+ view of man and life is
clear in these treatises, and serves to throw into relief the main lines of the
renaissance ideal, which are drawn against a pagan background; but one may
doubt whether at his best the puritan gentleman of the seventeenth century was
any more truly, though more ostentatiously, religious than the Elizabethan
gentleman at his best. Certainly no puritan gentleman could have lived and died
more edifyingly than Sir Philip Sidney+ according to the account of his friend
George Gifford, an eminent divine, who was with him during the last two weeks
of his life. "Although he had professed the Gospel, loved and favoured
those that did embrace it, entered deeply into the concerns of the Church,
taken good order and very good care for his family and soldiers to be instructed
and to be brought to live accordingly," said Gifford, "yet entering
into deep examination of his life now, in the time of his affliction, he felt
those inward motions and workings of a spirit
------
108 Letter to Philip, Oct. 17, 1564, Arber reprints, 1877, vol. 1, p.
41.
109 Certain Precepts, "Introduction," p. 2.
110 Braithwaite, The English Gentleman, London, 1630; Clement Ellis, The
Gentile Sinner, or England's Brave Gentleman, Oxford, 1661, 2nd ed.; Edward
Waterhouse, The Gentleman's Monitor, London, 1665; the epitome of piety is
reached in the nineteenth century in Sir Kenelm Digby's The Broad Stone of
Honour, London, 1822.
108 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [108
exciting him to a deep sorrow for his former conduct." At the end,
as he lay with closed eyes, Gifford said to him: "Sir, if you hear what I
say, let us by some means know it; and if you have still your inward joy and
consolation in God, hold up your hand." Sidney put both hands together on
his breast in the attitude of prayer, and so
died./111 There was never in England such a
widespread break between the spirit and form of religion, or such a loss of
spirit even with outward acceptance of form as took place in Italy.112 The
practical question remains of how these virtues, so necessary to the gentleman
for distinction and for his proper functioning, are to be inculcated in him. In
no respect did classical+ influence on the European ideal of the perfect man
show itself more clearly than in transferring the emphasis from a belief in the
virtues as innate and therefore more the possession of the well-born than the
baseborn.113 to a belief in the necessity of education for the development of
the virtues, a change due to the fuller recognition of the possible attainments
of the individual through education regardless of ancestry. The renaissance
admitted that nature as the force which produces and preserves all things had
planted in man as in all other animals an instinct toward the perfection
peculiar to him, which was virtue; that as a further aid to the acquiring of
virtue nature had also planted reason+ in man to serve in place of the instinct
which guides the lower animals; that she in addition had given him a
social_instinct+ which made him unite with his kind for mutual support and
comfort, virtues being impossible without society. But the renaissance refused
credit to nature for doing more; the virtues themselves were not in man by
nature, though not against nature, and were therefore to a certain extent
within the power of every man to acquire. As La Primaudaye+ said, men incline
to virtue by nature but they also incline by nature to pleasure, and therefore
nature must be corrected by study. "Although a man be well borne, yet if
he have not his judgement fined, and the discoursing part of his minde purged
with the reasons of philosophie, it will fall often into grosse faults, and
such as beseeme not a prudent man. For in those men that are not indued with
vertue ruled by certaine knowl-
------
111 H. R. Fox-Bourne, Sir Philip Sidney, 1893, pp. 345-50.
112 Burckhardt, op. cit., pt. VI, ch. 3.
113 Paris de Puteo, Duello, Naples, 1518, bk. VII, ch. I, fo. Nia.
[109 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 109
edge, nature bringeth foorth such fruits as naturally come from the
ground without the manuring and helping hand of man."/114 More
specifically the matter was analyzed by the Earl of Essex, who knew his
philosophy+ well even if he did not know well how to govern himself by it:
"Behaviour and good forme may be gotten by education; and health, and even
temper of the minde by good observation; but if there bee not in nature some
partner in this active strength, it can never be attained by any industry; for
the vertues that are proper unto it, are Liberality, Magnanimity, Fortitude
& Magnificence: and some are by nature so covetous, toand cowardly, as it
is as much in vaine to inflame or inlarge their minds as to goe about to plough
the Rockes. But when these active vertues are but budding, they must be
repaired by ripenesse of judgement, and custome of wel-doing. Clearnesse of
judgement makes men liberall, for it teacheth them to esteeme of the goods of
Fortune+ not for themselves (for so they are but Jaylors to them) but for their
use, for so they are Lords over them. And it maketh us know, that it is Beatius
dare, quam accipere; the one being a badge of Soveraignty, the other of
subjection. Also it leadeth us to Fortitude; for it teacheth, that wee should
not too much prize life, which we cannot keepe, nor feare death, which wee
cannot shunne."/115 An inheritable inclination to virtue, a disposition
toward good, was claimed as more likely to exist in the man of gentle birth,
but inclination alone without the aid of instruction and practice was
admittedly unable to bear fruit and produce a virtuous man. The bearing of this
whole matter upon the gentleman's relation to the state is well summed up in
one of the prefaces to William Baldwin+'s treatise on moral philosophy+, which
is recommended as "very expedient to al estates, but most necessarye (as
Aristotle+ sayeth in his Ethickes) to those that by vertue of knowledge shall
have the governaunce of a common welth; which ought not only to have good
willes to doe well: but also exactly to know, and searche out with diligence,
some ready war & meane, whereby they may at all times (as with a dearely
beloved familiar) either in hert or in hand receive suche advertisementes
------
114 La Primaudaye, The French Academie, 1586, ch. 16, pp. 170-6;
Hurault, op. cit., pt. I, ch. IX, pp. 57-60; Piccolomini, op. cit., bk. V, ch.
II, p. 184, ch. V; Palmer, An Essay of the Meanes how to make our Travailes
into forraine Countries the more Profitable and Honourable, 1606, pt. II, p.
61.
115 Profitable Instructions, London, 1633, Letter of the Earl of Essex
to the Duke of Rutland, fo. D4bD6b.
[110 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 110 and godlye counsailes as
shall never seme to swarve from such intencions, as be happely grounded in an
honest & godly will; that thereby not onely the true order & high
estate of princes, of nobilitie and honor, of justice and such other like
virtues, may effectually be knowne, but also of suche to be rightly
understanded, put in use and practised, by their due & peculiar offices, to
the common coumfort and commoditie of their countrey."/116 And so we come
to the most fruitful and far-reaching contribution of the renaissance to the
theory of the gentleman, or more broadly speaking to the theory of human
perfection, the demand for education+, without which a man may not hope to be
truly just, liberal, brave, wise, temperate, that is to play properly his paft
in the world.
------
116 Thomas Paulfreyman's preface to bk. II, fo. 54a.
CHAPTER VI+
THE EDUCATION OF THE GENTLEMAN
IN GENERAL
To estimate justly the achievement of the renaissance in combining
the ideals of scholar and knight, it is necessary to review briefly the popular
opinions upon education+ in England at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
During the middle ages two types of education had been recognized, that of the
knight, and that of the clerk, or scholar, whether lawyer or ecclesiastic/1,
and the respective merits and importance of the products, as has been seen, had
been sharply debated by continental writers, and were still being debated past
the middle of the sixteenth century, with echoes of the controversy in England.
An essential antagonism had thus been fostered between the knight and the
scholar. The knight was the man of action, the scholar the thinker, withdrawn
from mundane affairs and given to the consideration of things of the mind, if
not of the soul. The contempt of the knight, the practical man of affairs, and
of all practical men, for the other found expression in the common saying that
learned clerks are not the wisest of men. Such a cleavage still existed at the
beginning of the sixteenth centuryeven Castiglione raised the question of
whether book-learning is suitable for the soldier/2 --and the old arguments
against book learning were still current.
First of all, learning was useless; metaphiics,
astronomy, and geography, for example, did not help a man to live well or to
die well. {de_Officiis+} This belief was precisely the conclusion of the whole
subject of prudence in Barclay's Mirrour of Good Manners:
"Wherfore with good reason and according to right The Philosopher olde loude in the schole crying, Was under this maner reproved of the knight: Sayde he, worthy master assure me of this thing, What meaneth this clamour, what meaneth this brauling, What meane all these wordes+, all this discorde and strife, As betwene an husbande and a fell frowarde wife?
------
1 W. H. Woodward, Studies in Education during the Age of the
Renaissance, p. 244; Caxton, Book of Chivalry, ch. III.
2 The Courtier, Hoby's translation, The Tudor Translations, p. 87.
112 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [112
Ye braule and ye bable from morning unto night, Discording, one affirmeth, another doth deny. The sage Philosopher then answeres to the knight;
0 sonne we indever and dayly us apply, In seking of vertue and trueth thus busely, No man hath bene able in times without minde Inough these to search, nor parfitely to finde.
The knight in scorne smiled and to the sage thus saide. Nowe art thou gray hered and tourning to the grounde, And ready for to dye, and as a man dismayde, Haste thou nbt yet vertue with all thy study founde? What time shalt thou use it to live as thou art bounde? What time shalt thy studie thee with the same indue, Sith nowe in latter age thou sekest for vertue? What thing is thy purpose, what thinkest in thy mind, In another worlde this vertue for to use? A strawe for thy study, thy reason is but blinde, To waste time in wordes, and on no dede to muse.
But agayne to purpose! Therfore reader refuse Superfluous study and care superfluous, And tourne thy chiefe study to dedes+ vertuous.
Sith doing is the fruite and learning but the sede, And many joy the fruite which have no sede at all, And also sith the ende of learning is the dede Then seek to do wisely most chief and principal, Rather than the science of arts_liberal+ Better an idiot untaught and well living, Than a vicious doctor ill mannered and cunning./3
Not only was learning useless, but it was harmful; it reduced the
valor of a man, making him effeminate and fearful, more fond of the ease of the
study than the hardships of camp. As late as 1618 a French writer on nobility
thought it necessary to defend learning from this charge against Justus
Lipsius+, who argued that Francis_I+ and Pope_Leo_X+ degenerated through their
learning into a certain delicate effeminacy, and against Botero+ who claimed
that the French in the time of Charles_VIII+ had found it easy to subdue the
Italians because their princes knew better how to write books
------
3 Reprint Spenser Soc., vol. 38, p. 17.
[113 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 113
than to handle sword or lance, and indeed that the ancient nations which
had flourished in the sciences had been dominated by those that had no
learning./4 Furthermore, much learning made a man unfit for the administration
of great affairs, because he was likely to stand musing on questions of ideal
conduct when he needed to bestir himself to wind himselfe out of the briers and
to get out of some shrewd pinch./5 Bacon+ also was at some pains to answer all
these charges in his Advancement of Learning./6 The evidence for the general
scorn and lack of learning not only at the beginning but also at the end of the
century is plentiful in the complaints. Sir Thomas Elyot+ labored against those
who held "that pestiferous opinion that gret lerned men be unapt to the
ministration of thinges of waighty importaunce, and who would have gentlemen's
children spend their time hunting, and hawking, and playing at dice./7 Pace
told an oft repeated story of a noble who one day protested vehemently at table
that he would rather see his son hanged than learned, the knowledge of how to
blow a horn, hunt, and rear hawks belonging to the sons of nobles, the
knowledge of books to the sons of rustics./8 At the end of the century the same
opinion apparently prevailed, for Cleland said, "False and fantastical
opinion prevaileth so against reason now a daies that ignorance is thought an
essential marke of a noble man by many. If a young childe loveth not an hawke
and a Dogge while he sitteth upon his nurses lap, it is a token, saie they, he
degenerates."/9 Henry_VIII+ complained that for want of education among
the nobles the high offices of the realm had to be given to men of low
origin." Latimer+ burst out indignantly, "Is there never a noble man
to be a Lorde president, but it muste be a prelate? Is there never a wyse man
in the realme to be a comptrolle of the mynte? I speake it to youre shame, I
speake it to youre shame. Yf there be never a wyse man, make a water bearer, a
tinker, a cobler, a slave, a page, comptroller of the mynte. Make a meane
gentylman, a Groome, a yeoman,
------
4 L'Institution de la Noblesse, livre III, p. 273 ff.
5 Hurault, Politicke, Moral, and Martial Discourses, pt. I, ch. XI, p.
76.
6 Spedding ed., 1858, vol. III, p. 264 ff.
7 The Governour, bk. I, ch. XII; The Image of Governance, Preface, fo.
aIVa-bIa.
8 De Fructu qui ex Doctrina Percipitur, Basle, 1517, prefatory letter to
Colet, P. 15.
9 Institution of a Young Noble Man, bk. IV, ch. 3, p. 134.
10 Einstein, The Italian Renaissance in England, p. 214.
114 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [114
make a pore begger Lorde president: Thus I speake not that I would have
it so, but to your shame. If there be never a gentleman mete nor able to be
Lorde presidente. For whye are not the noble men and yon gentlemen of England
so brought up in knoweledge of God and learnynge that they maye be able to
execute offices in the commun weal./11 Ascham echoed his words a few years
later, "The fault is in your selves, ye noble mens sonnes, and therfore ye
deserve the greater blame, that commonlie the meaner mens children cum to be
the wisest councellours, and greatest doers, in the weightie affaires of this
Realme,"/12 and the first parliament of Edward_VI+ passed an act extending
benefit of clergy for a first offence to peers who could not read./13 Nor could
those who scorned learning and with it the arts for themselves be expected to
foster it in others. The scholar, said Gabriel Harvey+, must use his ingenuity
to find some sort of labor that would keep body and soul together,/14 and the
muses of Spenser+ dropped many a tear over the neglect of learning and the arts
by those who should foster them./14 This scorn for learning itself which meant
ignorance toward the end of the century diminished into the scorn which merely
made pretence of ignorance. George Pettie protested earnestly against the
misconception of some who thought that a gentleman should conceal his skill and
seem to do everything by mother wit, and who therefore denied they were
scholars even though they spent all their time in study. "Why, Gentlemen
is it a shame to shewe to be that, which it is a shame not to be? In divers
thynges nothyng so good as learning, you are desirous to seeme to be that,
which you are not, and in Learning, the best thyng of all others, are you
afearde to shewe to be that, which you are? Alas, you wyll be but ungentle
Gentlemen, yf you be no Schollers: you wyll doe your Prince but simple service,
you wyll stande your Country but in slender steade, you wyll bryng your selves
but to small perferment, yf you be no Schollers. Can you counsayle your Prince
wysely; foresee daungers providently, governe matters of state discreetely,
without Learning? no, experience
------
11 Sermon of the Plough, preached at St. Paul's, Jan. 18, 1548, Everyman
Library, pp. 62-3.
12 The Scholemaster, Mayor ed., p. 40.
13 Trail, Social England, 1909, vol. III, p. 246.
14 Marginalia, ed. G. C. Moore Smith, Shakespeare Head Press, 1913, p.
151.
15 The Tears of the Muses, 11. 79-90.
DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN must then be your guide, which wyll be but a blynde one: it must be your Scholmaister, but you shall finde it a dangerous one. To come lower, can you discourse with Strangers, inquire the state of forraine Countries, give entertainment to Ambassadours, being no Schollers? no surely, unless it be with dum shewes and signes, Tyke as of late a pleasaunt Gentleman (who could have spoken sufficiently, yf he had been put to it) being amongst others commaunded to ryde to meete an Ambassadour that was comming to the Court, at his returne a Noble man asked hym merily what he sayd to the Ambassadoure when he met hym. nothing (sayd he) but kist my Horses mayne, and came my way. To come lowest of all, Can you so much as tell your Mistresse a fine tale, or delight her with pleasant device, beyng unlearned? no, it must needes eyther be altogether unsaverie, or els seasoned with the salte of others; and whether thynke you it more shame that you should skew to have of your owne, or that she should knowe you filche from others? Therefore (Gentlemen) never deny your selves to be Schollers, never be ashamed to shewe your learnyng, confesse it, professe it, imbrace it, honor it: for it is it which honoureth you, it is only it which maketh you men, it is onely it whiche maketh you Gentlemen./16
The influence of Castiglione may doubtless be seen through this
admonition, who, though he made his courtier a scholar, insisted that he must
remove all smell of the lamp and display his accomplishments as natural and not
acquired. The gentleman must be to all appearance a lily of the field, though
within he might be as wise as Solomon.
And yet, as Pettie urged, the scholar's equipment was
needed by the gentleman. Times had changed. In earlier days to be sure when a gentleman's
main business was fighting in time of war and attendance at court or on great
nobles in time of peace, an education which taught thSe exercises of the
soldier and included enough instruction in manners, music, and the intricacies
of carving/17 to make the young man persona grata to his lord met all practical
tests. Chaucer+'s squire felt no more need of Latin and philosophy as he faced
the world than his father had before him.
wel coude he sitte on hors, and faire ryde, He coude songes make and wel endyte, Juste and eek daunce, and wel purtreye and wryte. So hote he lovede, that by nightertale He sleep namore than Booth a nightingale.
------
16 Guazzo, The Civile Conversation, trans. by Pettie, 1581, Preface, fo.
17 Furnivall, The Babees Book, "Forewords," E E. T. S., 32,
pp. IVV.
116 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN [116
Curteys he was, lowly, and servisable, And carf biforn his fader at the table.
The education of the young pages in Edward_IV+'s court was of the
same sort, as shown in the duties assigned to the Master of the Henchmen./18
But when war ceased to be the gentleman's chief profession, and he was
challenged to help solve the complicated problems of an increasingly
complicated world, something more was needed, and thoughtful men were not slow
to point the need, and to warn of the results of the current scorn for learning
among - the nobility. Higher public affairs would suffer, or their management
would pass out of the hands of the old nobility into the hands of men of low origin.
The pressure of events forced the knight to compound with the scholar for
enough of his learning at least to compete in the open lists for civil honors,
which the world was coming to prize more than military.
That Italian humanis+ts had evolved an ideal and
framed a system of education ready to their hand was the good fortune of the
English reformers. Somewhat different influences to be sure had been at work in
Italy to bring about the combination of knight and scholar. More directly was
felt the influence of classic types, the philosopher-statesman, and the orator,
which represented personal rather than class ideals, and which, grafted onto
the soldier ideal, united inward quantities, moral and intellectual, to
outward, manifested in physical perfection, bravery of action+, grace of
manner.
In the intervals between their wars, the lords of the
small city states of Italy relieved the tedium of inactivity by cultivating for
themselves and encouraging in their courtiers the new learning which the new
race of scholars and schoolmasters was eager to spread Poggio, Guarino,
Vittorino, Bembo. Nowhere in Europe has the scholar and literary man ever
assumed such authority in the counsels of princes, or so autocratically ruled
in matters of style and taste./19 The revival of a great past, which for
Italians was their own direct heritage, furnished all classes with an
enthusiasm for learning that was never felt by the northern nations. When the
first English humanists, then, fired by contact with Italy, sought to introduce
the new culture into England, and the new ideal of man, who should be fit for
counsel as well as for war, and adorned with
------
18 Furnivall, op. cit., p.11.
19 J. A. Symonds, The Revival of Learning, London, 1897, ch. V, VII.
[11 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN 117
graces of the mind as well as of the body, their appeal was based on the
narower and more practical ground of class interest.
The first man in England to formulate the new
humanistic+ ideal was not, however, an Englishman. Vives+, the Spanish scholar,
lecturer at Oxford, and tutor to the Princess_Mary+ published in 1523 and 1524
two works, e Ratione Studii Puerilis and ntroductio ad Sapientiam, hich gave
the foundations of the educational theories later elaborated in his De
Tradendis Disciplinis, published in 1531 after his banishment from England./20
As a member of the Oxford group he may be taken for their mouthpiece,
expressing the ideals of Erasmus+, Sir Thomas More+, Linacre+, Colet+, which
had already been put into way of realization by Colet in his school.
But more important for the forming of the gentleman,
was the first English treatise, The Governour, because Elyot+, a member of the
same band of humanists, wrote especially for the gentleman, where Vives,
Erasmus, and Colet worked more generally for the cause of education, minding
rather to turn out scholars than gentlemen. Of all the long line of men who
sought to meet the need of the ne age already upon them none so urbanely, even
lovingly, strove to make studies attractive to the gentleman as Elyot in the
numerous works which, though a busy lawyer, he produced for the benefit of the
gentleman and the profit of his country. Knowing by experience, he said, how
tedious repetitions of serious matter would be to readers who for the most part
had not been inured by training to endure them, he condensed the long
definitions of scholars and sprinkled his exposition with pleasant tales as
breathing space for himself and recreation for his readers./21 His own catalogue
of his works is interesting enough to quote as showing the spirit of the man,
and the variety of his interests. "All thoughe I do neither dyspute nor
expounde holy scripture, yet in suche workes as I have and intende to sette
forth my pore talent shall be, God willing, in suche wyse bestowed, that no
mannes conscience shalbe therwith offended. My boke called the Governour,
instructing men in suche vertues as shalbe expedient for them, which shal have
authority in a weale publike. The Doctrinal of princes, whiche are but the
counsayles of wyse Isocrates+, inducing into noble mens wittes honest opinions.
The Education of chyldren, whiche also I translated out of the wise Plutarch+,
making men
------
20 J. M. Berdan, Early Tudor Poetry, pp. 302-4.
21 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. XII, Everyman Lib., p. 166.
118 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [118
and women, which will folowe those rules, to be wel worthy to be fathers
and mothers. The little Pasquill, although he be mery and playne, teching as
well servantes how to be faythfull unto their masters, as also masters how to
be circumspect in espying of flaterars. Semblably the office of a good
councellour with magnanimity or good courage in time of adversity, may be
apparantly founden in my boke called, Of the knowlege belonging to a wise man.
In reding the sermon of saynt Cyprian by me translated, the devout reder shal
find no little comfort in plages or calamities. The banket of Sapience is not
fastidiouse, and in litle rome sheweth out of holy scripture many wise
sentences. The castle of health being truly red shall long preserve men (being
some phisicions never so angry) from perillous syknes. My litle boke callid the
defence of good women, not only confoundeth villainous report, but also
teacheth good wyves to know well theyr dueties. My dictionary declarynge latyne
by englishe, by that tyme that I have performed it, shall not only serve for
chyldren, as men have excepted it, but also shall be commodiouse for them
whiche perchaunce be well lerned. And this present boke, whiche I have named
the Image of Governaunce, shall, be to all them whiche well rede it sincerely,
a very true paterne, wherby they may shape all theyr procedynges."/22 Here
may be found a sort of prospectus of the subjects that interested the sixteenth
century when it was minded to be serious. Many were the new editions of Elyot's
works called for throughout the century, particularly of The Governour, which
went through eight editions in the next fifty years, and even later was quoted as
an authority. A man worthy to be the friend of Sir Thomas More+, he rivaled him
in popularity, and labored more effectively to bring philosophy out of the
closet to dwell familiarly among men. Most timely and far-reaching in their
effects were Elyot's ideas on education which if not directly borrowed by his
successors, represented the prevailing theory of the century and were
repeatedly set forth, by such men as Ascham+, Mulcaster+, Cleland+, Peacham+,
and Lyly+, in a less professional way. Elyot, like the well read scholar that
he was, drew widely on the ancients+ for his authorities, gratefully
acknowledging his debt especially to Plato+, Aristotle+, Cicero+, Seneca+,
Quintilian+, Plutarch+. That he knew the Italians, particularly Patrizi+ and
Pontano+, is clear,/23 and his verferation for Erasmus+, whom he must have
known in the flesh, is shown in his recommendation of The Institution of a
Christian Prince, which
------
22 "The Preface," fo. aIIIa-aIVb.
23 See H. H. S. Croft, The Governour, London, 1883, Introduction, notes
and appendices.
119] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 119
"wolde be as familyare alwaye with gentilmen, at all tymes, and in
every age, as was Homere+ with the great king Alexander+, or Xenophon+ with
Scipio+; for as all men may juge that have radde that warke of Erasmus+, that
there was never boke written in Latine that, in so Lytle a portion, contayned
of sentence, eloquence, and vertuous exhortation, a more compendious
abundaunce."/24 These same author's continued to influence educational
theory throughout the century, with the additions of later men, Vives+,
Lipsius+, Melancthon+, Osorius+, Bembo+, and particularly Sturm+.
I The ancients were quoted by these men quite as a
matter of course without regard for changes in circumstances. Mulcaster to be
sure deprecated the fashion and gave to his own books a more modern, ractical
character by his attempt to adapt old ideas to new conditions./25 Castiglione+
has so far perhaps been conspicuous for his absence, but a special place should
be reserved for him, though his influence can hardly be cstlled pedagogical in
its usual professional sense. For it is probable that his Courtier did more
than any other one book to persuade the Elizabethan gentleman to unite learning
to courtly graces, "which booke," Ascham said, "advisedlie read,
and diligentlie followed, but one yeare at home in England, would do a Yong
Jentleman more good, I wisse, then three yeares travell abrode spent in
Italie."/26 At least in its presentation of the new ideal of a complete
personality, and its emphasis on the elements of beauty rather than of solidity
in that ideal it served as a balance and corrective to the somewhat pedantic
and over-moralized presentations of English imitators and adaptors.
English renaissance theory concerning the proper
education for the gentleman was drawn chiefly, then, from the ancients+, whose
ideals of philosopher-kings+ and orator_citizens+ looked primarily to the wider
relationships of life, and from the scholars of northern Europe who took a
tremendously serious view of life and man's responsibilities+; and it was saved
from the narrowness and incompleteness of the later puritanic+ ideal by the
sweet reasonableness and completeness of classical ideals, and the light grace
of the Italian.
Since the English governor was felt to need first of
all the virtues, the chief ground for advocating education was the relation
which
------
24 The Governour, bk. I, ch. XI, p. 48.
25 Positions, rep. 1888, ch. 3, 4.
26 Op. cit., p. 61.
120 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [120
the humanists+ believed to exist between knowledge and virtue. English
humanists seldom went so far as to believe with Socrates+ that to know good was
to do goodthey were too good Christiansbut they did believe with the ancients,
as has been said, that knowledge was an aid to virtue in that it at least
taught what was good and what was evil, and thus allowed intelligent choice.
Elyot said, "Seneca+ sayeth we instructe our children in
liberall_sciences+, nat because those sciences may gyve any vertue, but bicause
they prepare the mynde and make it apte to receive vertue. Whiche beinge
considered, no man will denye but that they may be necessary to every man that
coveteth very nobilitie; whiche as I have often tymes said is in the havynge
and use of vertue. And verely in whome doctrine hath ben so founden joyned with
vertue, there vertue hath sewed excellent and as I mought saye
triumphant?"/27 This knowledge which the study of books supplied was a
part of prudence, and held essential to all the other virtues, since without it
a man even when he tries to practice the virtues may fall into the vices,
mistaking prodigality for liberality, severity for justice, superstition for
piety./28 Other values then the moral were also recognized in the liberal
sciences. The content of some was to be sought to perform certain practical
tasksarithemetic for keeping the accounts of a large estate; geometry for
surveying and conducting war; foreign languages for state business; law for
settling tenants' disputes. Nor was the pleasurable and ornamental side
ignoredhow could it be by a good Ciceronian+. Elyot waxed enthusiastic over the
delights of cosmography, the survey of the world from an arm chair: "For
what pleasure is it, in one houre, to beholde those realmes, cities, sees,
ryvers, and mountaynes, that uneth in an olde mannes life can nat be journaiyed
and pursued: what incredible delite is taken in beholding the diversities of
people, beastis, foules, fisshes, trees, frutes, and herbes: to knowe the
sondry maners and conditions of people, and the varietie of their natures, and
that in a warme studie or perler without perill of the see, or daunger of longe
and paynfull journayes. I can nat tell what more pleasure shulde happen to a
gentil witte, than to beholde in his owe house every thynge that with in all
the worlde is contained."/29
------
27 Op. cit., bk. III, ch. XXIV, p. 27
28 La Primaudaye, The French Academie, 1586, ch. 10, p. 207; ch. 11, p.
117.
29 0p. cit., bk. I, ch. XI, p. 43.
121] D OCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 121
The more disinterested purpose of enlargement of horizons, that he might
possess the world and not be possessed by it, was thus not altogether
neglected. Make the young gentleman universal, said Cleland, "that all the
world may be his book. The finest and most noble spirits are universal+ and
most free; by this manner the imagination having before contemplated al things
admireth no thinge, which is the highest point of wisdome."/30 If the
renaissance ideal of education did nothing else, it opened new vistas and
assisted in the liberation of the spirit of man.
But the controlling aim of education in England, as
has been said, was practiceal, its chief concern the production of men who were
guided in ation by moral standards. Such was the end to which Elyot+, Ascham+,
Mulcaster+ turned the new learning. As Mr. Woodward puts it, "It was not
from a passion for learning for its own sake, not from a wish to dignify outward
life and leisure; not from a national instinct for a great past; not from a
desire to reform doctrine or ceremony in religion; but first and foremost to
meet a demand for better governance, to call into play, from new sources as
well as old, forces better equipped for the more complex tasks of the modern
State; it was for such an end, practical, and, in a certain sense, limited,
that the Englishmen first grasped the weapons which the Renaissance held out to
them from Italy."/31 But where was the gentleman to find the education he
needed to meet the demands upon him? The natural place to turn to was the
universities, and that gentlemen did so in increasing numbers is indicated by
the complaints that the colleges were filled with gentlemen's and rich men's
sons to the exclusion of poor men's sons, for whom the foundations had
originally been made and fellowships granted./32 But the university system left
much to be desired as a preparation for active service in the state. Old
ecclesiastical traditions still survived too completely to suit the spirit of
thisworldiness which more than any other one thing marked the difference
between the middle ages and the renaissance./33 Though the curriculum was
broadened during the century to admit most of
------
38 Op. cit., bk. II, ch. III, p. 59.
33 Op. cit., p. 302.
32 Latimer, Fifth Sermon before Edward VI, April 5, 1549, Everyman Lib.,
p. 155; Harrison, Description of England, rep. New Shake. Soc., Ser. VI, no. I,
bk. II, ch. III, p. 77.
33 A. F. Leach, The Schools of Medieval England, London, [1915], p. 324.
122 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [122
the subjects and authors recommended by the humanists,rhetoric,
arithemtic, geography, philosophy, Aristotle in the original, and the other
Greeks,"/32 there were important omissions, the modern languages
conspicuously, and all the physical exercises which were thought necessary for
accomplishments if not for the maintenance of health./33 As Bacon pointed out,
the colleges were dedicated to the professions; in none of them were men free
to devote themselves to history, modern languges, political and social sciences
in order to fit themselves for affairs of state./34 The only alternative was
private education under tutors at home or more often in some nobleman's house
with other gentlemen's sons, a custom in vogue from at least the time of
Henry_II+. The greater part probably of gentlemen's sons were thus educated.
The advantages of such private education were obvious: subjects could be chosen
to fit the gentleman's needs; attendance on the lord and his household gave
opportunities to improve precept with practice and avoided the gaucherie of the
mere scholar. The disadvantages were also obvious, as illustrated in a letter
from the tutor of the Duke of Richmond to Wolsey+, complaining of the
interuption to studies and interference with hours and methods of instruction
by officious persons with more authority than interest in intellectual
progress./37 The relative value of public and private education was discussed
by the schoolmasters, Mulcaster arguing in behalf of public as less partial, of
better quality, less subject to parents' and teachers' whims, and not so likely
to encourage conceit because of the salutary testing and leveling of
competition, which also acted as a spur to greater achievement./38 One solution
suggested to the problem of educating gentlemen's sons was the foundation of a
national academy. There is extant a complete scheme, down to the salaries for
teachers, drawn up by Sir Humphrey Gilbert, which reached at least Lord
Burghley's hands, if not the Queen's./39 His was not a new idea. Latimer called
------
34 Mullinger, The University of Cambridge, . . . . to 1535, Cambridge,
1873, p. 630.
35 Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Queen Elizabeth's Academy, E. E. T. S., Ext
Ser. no. VIII, p. 17.
36 Op. cit., pp. 323-4.
37 Ellis, Original Letters, third series, Letter CXIX, vol. 1 and 2, p.
333.
38 Op. cit., pp. 184-190.
39 Furnivall, "Forewards," E. E. T. S., Extra Series VIII, p.
II, note. Text, pp. 1-12.
123] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 123
attention to the need for a school for wards in his Sermon of the
Plough. A scheme similar to Gilbert's had been proposed in 1561 by Sir Nicholas
Bacon./40 The idea of a national academy for the education of the gentry recurs
throughout the seventeenth century./41 The purpose of Gilbert's Academy was to provide
education both for the royal wards, the orphans of the nobility who, farmed out
as was the custom among the nobles, often suffered from the cupidity or
indifference of their guardians, and also for the children of the gentry in
general. The advantages of such an academy Gilbert set forth in a passage so
full of interest that it seems worth while to quote it in full despite its
length.
"The Comodities which will ensue by erecting this Achademy.
"At this present the estate of gentlemen cannot well traine up
their childeren within this Realme but eyther in Oxford or Cambridge, whereof
this ensueth: "ffirst, being theare, they utterly lose their tymes yf they
doe not follow learning onely. ffor there is no other gentlemanlike qualitie to
be attained. "Also, by the evill example of suche, those which aply their
studies are drawen to licentiousnes and Idlenes; and, therefore, yt were every
way better that they were in any other place than theare. "And weareas in
the universities men study onely schole learninges, in this Achademy they shall
study matters of accion meet for present practize, both of peace and warre. And
yf they will not dispose themselves to letters, yet they may learne languages,
or martiall activities for the service of their cowntrey. Yf neyther the one
nor the other,Then may they exercize themselves in qualities meet for a
gentleman. And also the other universities shall then better suffize to releive
poore scholers, where now the youth of nobility and gentlemen, taking up their
schollarshippes and fellowshippes, do disapoinct the poore of their livinges
and avauncementes. "Also all those
gentlemen of the Inns of cowrte which shall not apply them selves to the study
of the lawes, may then exercize them selves in this Achademy in other qualities
meet for a gentleman. The Cowrtiers and other gentlemen abowt London, having
good oportunity, may likewise do the same. All which do now for the moste parte
loose their times. "ffurther, wheareas by wardeship the moste parte of
noble men and gentlemen within this Realme have bene brought up ignorantly and
voide of good educac[i]ons, your Majesty may by order apoinct them to be ------
40 J. P. Collier, Archaeologia, vol. 36, pp. 343-4.
41 Monroe, Cyclopedia of Education, "Courtly Academies."
124 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [124
brought up during their minorities in this Achademy, from XII to his
full age, if he [be] a gentleman by the father of five dissentes and to have
the prynses allowanse towardes the same, whosoever have the wardshipppe of his
bodye, yf yt shallbe fownde by office that he may yearely dispend 13/ 6/ 8d.
Both Plato+ and Licurgus+ withe other greate Philosophers, having bene of
opinion that the educacion of childeren should not altogeder be under the
poissaunce of their fathers, but under the publique power and aucthority,
becawse the publique have therein more Intereste then their parentes. Wherby
the best sorte are most like to excel in vertue, which in tymes paste knew
nothing but to hallou a hownd or lure a hawke, which thing will much asswage
the present grief that good and godly parentes endure by that tenure of
wardship. ffor (as yt is) yt not onely hurteth the body, but also (as yt were)
killeth the sowle and darkeneth the eyes of reason+ with Ignorawnce. And when
the best shall ordinarely be men of such rare vertue, Then the prince and
Realme shall not so much from tyme to tyme be Charged, as they have bene, in
rewarding the well deservers. ffor honour is a sufficient paymente for him that
hath inoughe. Wheareas in tymes paste the poorest sorte were best able to
deserve at the princes handes, which, without great Charges to the prince,
could not be maintained. So that when theis thinges shalbe performed, ordinarie
virtue can beare no price. And then younger brothers may eate grasse, yf they
cannot atchieve to excell, which will bring a blessed emulation to England. It
being also no smalle Commoditie that the nobility of England shalbe therby in
their youthes brought up in amity and acquintaunce. And above all other, this
chiefly is to be accompted of, that, by these meanes all the best sorte shalbe
trained up in the knowledge of gods word (which is the onely fownda[c[ion of
true obedience to the prince), who otherwise, thorough evill teachers, might be
corrupted with papistrie. "0 noble prince, that god shall blesse so farre
as to be the only meane of bringing this seely, frosen Island into such
everlasting honour that all the nations of the World shall knowe and say, when
the face of an English gentleman appeareth, that he is eyther a sowldiour, a
philosopher, or a gallant Cowrtier "To conclude, by erecting this
Achademie, there shalbe heareafter, in effect, no gentleman within this Realme
but good for some what, Wheareas now the most parte of them are good for
nothinge. And yet therby the Cowrte shall not only be greatly encreased with
gallant gentlemen, but also with men of vertue, wherby your Majesties and
Successors cowrtes shalbe for ever, in steade of a Nurserie of Idlenes, become
a most noble Achademy of chivalric pollicy, and philosaphie to your greate
fame" Some such adaptation as Gilbert's of the new ideal of education was
assumed to be necessary, for though scholars were gentlemen,
125] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 125
speaking from the herald's point of view, gentlemen were not intended to
be scholars in the strict sense, even in the humanist's scheme of things. That
the pursuit of studies was limited for the gentleman by practical
considerations was not only implicit in the assumption that he was a man of
affairs, but was explicitly stated, as we have seen, more than once. Osorius+
speaks at greatest length on the subject, and may fairly be allowed to
represent the general opinion of the age. "Gentility is a most glorious,
and lively image of auncient progenie, most commonlye garnished wyth excellente
vertues, and for asmuch as everye one which excelleth in all vertue and
honestye, cannot attayne the title of honoure and Nobilitye, this large
definition is to bee restrayned by limitation, for neyther may they, which the
rather to attayn knowledge and wysedom have abandoned all company and live in
continuall studye be thought most worthye & honourable, although they be
fornished wyth rare and singular vertues, and for profound knowledge in
deepeste matters be had in admiration, for that they do not earnestly employ
the benefit of their artes and sciences to the availe and commoditye of the
common wealth. Neither yet any Noble family hath been able at any tyme to winne
unto itself the tytle of honour & soveragnty, for that many of that Noble
line excellinge in qualities of witte, to avoide a Courtiers life, have
addicted them selves to the dimensions of Geometry, or the rules of Phisicke,
or the recordes and sweet Harmony of Musicke. If this be true, what kinde of
vertue is that through the cleare shininge whereof the Noblenes of any Kindred,
the Dignity and Honour of any family may be knowen ? Forsoth even that kinde of
vertue which extendeth it selfe to the common profit of al men, which a
voydinge idlenes is altogether occupied about the maintenaunce, and
preservation of a Commonwealth; as for example puissance, and valiantnes in
warlike affaires, in time of peace the execution of Justice+ and Equity+, and
to these' the study of Oratorie|, the knowledge of the Civil lawes+, and
whatsoever is of force, & apperteineth to the government of a
Commonwealth."/42 Or to put it succinctly as Elyot does in recommending
Marcus Aurelius, the governor should be "neyther by study withdrawen from
affaires+ of the publike weale, nor by any busynes utterly pluckyd frome
PhilosopHy+ and other noble doctrynes."/43 Some distinction should be
drawn here, perhaps, between the gentleman par excellence, that is the noble
whose position by in-
------
42 Civile Nobilitie, bk. I, fo. 5b-6a.
43 Op. cit., p. 279. See also Hurault, op. cit., pt. 2, ch. II.
12 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [126
heritance of great estates and titles entailed upon him, whether he
would or no, the task of governing others, and the ordinary gentleman,
especially he who raised himself to prominence by the practice of a learned
profession. Such a one as the latter Ascham+ seemed particularly to have in
mind: "As I began plainlie and simplie with my yong Scholer, so will I not
leave him, God willing, untill I have brought him a perfit Scholer out of the
Schole, and placed him in the Universitie, to becum a fitte student for
Logicke+ and Rhetoricke+; and so after to Phisicke+, Law+, or Divinitie+, as
aptnes of nature, advise of frends, and Gods disposition shall lead
him."/44 Some such distinction seems to have been in the mind of the Earl
of Essex when he wrote to Lord Burghley concerning his son's education, "I
have wished his Education to be in your Household, though the same had not bene
allotted to your Lordship as Master of the Wardes; and that the whole Tyme
which he shold spend in England in his Minority, might be devided in Attendance
upon my Lord Chamberlayne and you, to the End, that as he might frame himself
to the Example of my Lord of Sussex in all the Actions of his Life, tending
either to the Warres or the Institution of a Nobleman, so that he might also
reverence your Lordship for your Wisdome and Gravyty+, and lay up your
Counsells and Advises in the Treasory of his Hart."/45 The thoroughness
with which a man studied physic, divinity, and law, or any other of the great
branches of learning in preparation for his future would depend upon the
particular calling he had in mind, but the gentleman, whether of higher or lower
rank, must wear his learning with a difference, valuing it only as a part of
his wisdom, the other and more important part to be gained from experience and
not from books. There was general agreement with Guevara+'s advice, extended to
other matters than arms. "When amongst Knights or Gentlemen talk is of
armes, a Gentleman ought to have great shame to say, that he read it, but
rather that he saw it. For it is very convenient for the philosopher+ to
recount what hee hath read, but the Knight or Gentleman it becommes to speake
of things that hee hath done."/46
------
44 Op. cit., p. 91.
45 Letter of Essex to Burghley, 1576, quoted by Furnivall, The Babees
Book, "Forewords," p. XV.
46 Familiar Epistles, p. 69.
127] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 127
One may expect to find, then, in the systems of education drawn up
especially for the gentleman breadth but not depth, and the utilitarian test
applied to every subject. Indeed it was only thus that philosophy+ could be put
to use in the counsels and businesses of men, and the great professions really
liberalized and lifted from the hands and ways of mean practitioners./47 What,
then, should be the education of a gentleman? Euphues+ presents to his Ephorbus
an epitome of his educational system which may serve very well for a sketch of
the commonly accepted theory of a proper education for a gentleman:
"First, that he be of honest parents, nursed of his mother, brought up in
such a place as is incorrupt, both for the ayre and manners, with such a person
as is undefiled, of great zeale, of profound knowledge, of absolute perfection,
that be instructed in Philosophy+, whereby he may atteine learning, and have in
al sciences a smacke, whereby he may readily dispute of anything. That his body
be kept in his pure strength by honest exercise, his wit and memory by diligent
study. That he abandon al allurements of vice, and continually encline to
vertue."/48 In early training two points were stressed, the importance of
choosing wise and upright men for tutors, and the necessity of leading the
child gently into the way of knowledge lest his mind and body receive
irreparable hurt. Dull wits may be overloaded and gross bodies cudgeled without
particular harm, but the high spirit and sensitive body of a child of gentle
birth must be handled with great wisdom, if all of his possibilities are to be
realized./49 For studies, Elyot would begin with only a little Greek+ and
Latin+ grammar, for the child is soon wearied, and then proceed to the pleasant
fables of Aesop+, merry dialogues of Lucian+, great Homer+ whose heroes inflame
a noble spirit to emulation of their virtues, Virgil+ of infinite variety to
suit the fancy of any child, Ovid+, Horace+, Lucan, Silius+, and Hesiod+. All
these, not thoroughly read but so far as is profitable, should occupy the child
until he is fourteen, and then he should turn to more serious studies, logic+
from Cicero+ or Agricola+; rhetoric+, the principles from Hermogenes+,
Quintilian+, or Cicero+, or Erasmus+ "for him that nedeth nat, or
------
47 Mulcaster, op. cit., pp. 206-7.
48 Euphues, Arber rep., p. iii.
48 Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman, London, 1634, Tudor and Stuart
Library, P. 23-4.
128 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [128
doth nat desire, to be an exquisite oratour," the practice from
Isocrates+, Demosthenes+, Cicero+; cosmography; history+, Livy+, Xenophon's
Cyropaedia, Quintus Curtius+, Caesar+, Sallust+, Tacitus+. At seventeen the
youth should be moral_philosophy+, the first books of Aristotle's_Ethics, in the
original, "for the translations that we yet have be but rude and grosse
shadow of the eloquence and wisedome of Aristotle," then Cicero's
de_Officiis+, and last Plato+ "when the judgment of a man is come to
perfection." The historical books of the Bible+ are necessary after a man
is mature; and always should be familiar to gentlemen Erasmus+'s Institution of
a Christian Prince." Such was the program which Elyot set forth in the
early part of the century of studies necessary to fit a gentleman for authority
in the commonwealth.
It differed from the program recommended later in the
century in several respects. In the later treatises poetry was not confined to
the first years, and prose to the later, but Cicero+'s letters particularly
along with the colloquies of Erasmus+, Vives+, Chastalio+, or Corderius+ were
recommended for the first reading. The number of ancient Latin and Greek
authors was extended to include Terence+, Plautus+, Juvenal+, Persius+,
Euripides+, Aristophanes+, and Pindar+. The subjects were increased, admitting
economics and politics, which had been differentiated from history; mathematics
which included arithmetic, geometry, and astrology; law; physic; modern
languages, especially French+ and Italian+; Hebrew+ and divinity./51 In the last
two was reflected the change in religion. Elyot gingerly approached the study
of the Bible+, practically restricting it to maturity and the historical books.
"The residue, (with the new testament)," he explained, "is to be
reverently touched, as a celestial) Jewell or relike, having the chiefe
interpretour of those bokes trewe and constant faithe, and dredefully to sette
handes theron, remembrying that Oza, for putting his hande to the holy shryne
that was called ArchaFederis, whan it was broughte by king David from the citie
of Gaba, though it were waverynge and in daunger to fall, yet was he stryken of
god, and fell ded immediately."/52 Humphrey, on the other hand, put Christ
among the orators and Paul1. among the economists (in Ephesians and Timothy)
making the Bible
------
50 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. X, XI.
51 Humfrey, The Nobles, bk. III, fo. r6ay8a; Ascham, op. cit.; Cleland,
The Institution of a Noble Man, bk. II, ch. 8-12.
52 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. XI, p. 48.
129] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 129
in general a textbook for rhetoric, economics, and history; and Cleland+
would set the child to learning Greek from the New Testament. The chief bulwark
of the Protestant+ against Papistry+ was, of course, sound instruction in the
"true religion," which could be found, these men felt, nowhere so
well as in the Holy Writ itself. The study of Hebrew+, therefore, was advocated
in order to understand the Bible better, in the same spirit as a knowledge of
Greek and Latin masterpieces in the original was felt to be essential to a
perfect understanding of them.
A further difference lay in the visible gain of the
moderns, though Lord Herbert of Cherbury+ might still agree with Erasmus+
"that with slight qualification the whole of attainable knowledge lies
enclosed within the literary monuments of ancient Greece."/53 Besides the
moderns already mentioned, Humphrey recommended Sturm+, Osorius+, Lucus
Gauricus+ in politics, and Sleidanus+, Paulus Jovius+, and Bembo+ in history.
Cleland in his list for private reading in modern history included
Sidney's_Arcadia+, Philip de Commines+, Du Bellay+, De la Noue+, Guicciardini+,
Piccolomini+, Tasso+ on nobility, Boccaccio+ (except the Decameron), and of
course Castiglione+, long recommended on the side as the chief companion of the
gentleman; these by the side of Thucydides+, Herodotus+, Caesar+, Tacitus+,
etc, for ancient history.
In general through the century there may be observed
a progress in theory toward an educational program which was better suited to
actual conditions and needs, though what it all amounted to, if certain frills
are omitted, was an education chiefly in the literature of ancient Greece+ and
Rome+, out of which to be sure the gentleman was firmly admonished to secure
the precepts and examples necessary to guide him in the turbulent, confusing
times in which he lived.
A comprehensive list of subjects for the gentleman
will, however, include everything that moralists, divines, martialists, fencing
masters, and heralds, as well as pedagogues prescribed for the attainment of
perfection, and such a list Gilbert drew up, with but few omissions, for his
Academy. For convenience in handling, these have been divided into studies for
the training of the mind, and exercises for the body, with a chapter devoted to
each.
------
53 Autobiography, ed. Sidney Lee, 1906, p. 25; Erasmus, Ratio Studii ac
Legendi Interpretandique Aucthores, Paris, 1511.
Logic+ and rhetoric+ come first in Gilbert's list, appropriately
enough since they were held particularly important for the gentleman, who must
often speak in Parliament, council, or embassy. They teach the art of speaking,
sharpen reason, and keep fresh in memory a store of useful knowledge, "all
the noble exploytes that ever were or are to be done togeather with the
occasions of their victories or overthrowes." Since speaking must be
chiefly in English Gilbert would have the practical part of rhetoric in English
too, through orations on themes drawn from histories+, for want of which
practice, he complained, men came raw from the universities. "I
omit," he added, "to shew what ornament will thereby grow to our
tongue, and how able it will appear for strength and plenty when by such
exercises learning shall have brought unto it the choice of words, the building
of sentences+, the garnishment of figures+, and other beauties of
oratory." Mulcaster, a little later, even urged that English should be
taught first before Latin and Greek, as a foundation for them, and wrote his
Elementarie to show how to begin./1 Other Englishmen also felt keenly on the
matter, pride ink country and pride in mother tongue waxing strong together./2
This growing interest is evidenced in many waysthe controversy over inkhorn+
terms stretching from Elyot's days through the century and beyond, experiments
with style such as Lyly+'s, the considerable number of rhetorics published in English,
and other books closely allied. Such a one was The Garden of Eloquence by Henry
Peacham_the_elder+, whose dedication to this dry and astonishing array of
figures+ of words, and of sentences, figures grammatical and the topical, is
couched in the terms an Elizabethan lover addressed to his mistress. "When
of late I had consydered the needeful assistaunce that the one of these do
requyre of the other, that wisedome doe requyre the lighte of Elo-
------
1 Positions, rep. 1888, ch. 5, p. 30; Elementarie, Tudor and Stuart
Library, ch. 13, 14.
2 John Palsgrave, trans. of Acolastus, 1540, Dedication to Henry VIII;
Brinsley, Ludus Literarius, rep. Liverpool, 1917, ch. III, p. 22.
130
131] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 131
quence, and Eloquence the fertillity of Wysedome, and saw many good
bookes of Philosophy+ and preceptes of wysedome, set forth in English, and very
few of Eloquence: I was of a sodaine mooved to take this little garden in
hande, and to set therein such Fyguratyve+ Flowers, both of Grammer+ and
Rhetorick+, as doe yeelde the sweete savour of Eloquence, & present to the
eyes the goodly and bewtiful coulors of Eloquution: such as shyne in our speech
like the glorious stars in Firmament; such as bewtify it as flowers of sundry
coullors, a gallant Garland; such as garnish it, as precious pearles, a
gorgious Garment: such as delight the eares, as pleasaunt reports, repetiens,
and running poyntes in Musick, whose utility is so great, that I cannot
sufficiently prayse them, and the knowledge so necessary, that no man can reade
profytably, or understand perfectlye, eyther Poets, Oratours, or the holy
Scriptures, without them: nor any Oratoure able by the waight of his wordes to
perswade his hearers, having no helpe of them. But being wel stored with such
plausible furniture, how wonderfully shall his perswasions take place in the
mindes of men, and his wordes pearce into their inward partes."/3 It will
not then seem strange to find the son of this Henry Peacham setting forth in
his Compleat Gentleman a fuller program than is to be found elsewhere for the
acquiring of a good English style in a study of both ancient writers and
English. The means to compass such a style were to be imitation+ of the best
authors in oratory and history, original composition, and conference with those
who speak well. Among the ancients he named the usual orators and historians,
but especially Cicero, "whose words and stile (that you may not bee held
an Heretique of all the world) you must preferre above all other, as well for
the sweetnesse, gravity, richnesse, and unimitable texture thereof: as that his
workes are throughout seasoned with all kind of learning, and relish of a
singular and Christianlike honesty."/4 There was complete faith in the
sixteenth century in the efficacy of a study of the ancients for mastery of a
good English as well as Latin style, and those who neglected English works were
not thereby, in intention at least, ignoring the need of an Englishman to speak
English well. There was indeed much reason for Ascham+'s assumption that the
method he proposed for the study of Cicero+ would "worke a true choice and
placing of wordes, a right ordering of sentences, an easie understandyng of the
tonge, a readines to speake, a facilitie to write, a true judgement, both of
his owne, and
------
3 London, 1577, fo. AIIb
4 London, 1622, ch. VI.
132 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [132
other mens doinges, what tonge so ever he doth use."/5 But toward
the end of the century with the increase in English books worthy of study for
their style there was increasing recognition of the need for the direct study
of English style as well as the indirect. Peacham's recommendation of models is
interesting as criticism of Elizabethan literature by a contemporary: Sir
Thomas More+'s Life of Richard III, Sir Philip Sidney+'s Arcadia, Bacon+'s
works, Hooker+'s Politie, Sir John Hayward+'s Henry VIII, Daniel+'s first part
of the English kings, Cardinal Allen+'s Apology, Robert Parsons+, the Earl of
Essex+'s Apology, and Advice for Travel to Roger Earl of Rutland, Raleigh+'s
Guiana and "Prefatory Epistle" to his History of the World, Queen
Elizabeth+, James_I+, the speeches made in Parliament, learned sermons, and in
term-time the pleadings in the courts, "whereby you shall better your
speech, enrich your understanding, and get more experience in one moneth than
in other foure, by keeping your Melancholly Study, and by solitary
Meditation." For models among the poets he named Spenser+'s Hymns,
Chapman's Iliad, Samuel Daniel, Drayton's Heroical Epistles, Queen Elizabeth+,
Southwell+, Henry Constable+, Edward Dyer+, George Gascoigne+, Sackville+,
Surrey+, Wyat+, Raleigh+, Donne+, Hugh Holland+, Fulke Greville+'s Mustapha,
Ben Jonson+. He chose, he said, those authors whose English had most propriety
and was "nearest to the phrase of the court and the speech used among the
noble and among the better sort in London."/6 Was Shakespeare+ too mixed
to be safe? As for logic+, it had been much discredited as leading rather to the
fine art of wrangling than to clear reasoning, and was largely swallowed up by
rhetoric+, with which it was usually coupled as in Gilbert+'s handling of it./7
When recommended as a distinct subject the caution was added to avoid
subtleties {Polonius+}, tolerable enough in a mercenary lawyer, but not
commendable in a sober and well governed gentleman. Bacon+ found this fault
with the universities that they brought the student too young into the study of
logic and rhetoric also, before their minds were well filled with matter, so
that these "gravest of sciences" became contemptible and turned to
the uses of "childish sophistry+ and ridiculous affectation."?8
------
5 Op. cit., p. 2.
6 Edmund Bolton gives a much extended list in Hypercritica, Oxford,
1722, written 1610-18.
7 For instance, William Kempe, The Education of Children, fo. c2bc3a.
8 Advancement of Learning, Spedding, vol. III, p. 326.
133] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 133
History+ stood second in Gilbert's list, or as he called it, "the
politic part of moral philosophy." It would easily however stand first in
a survey of genteel opinion of the day, as the most needed information for wise
governing, and the most ornamental for polite conversation, for, as Elyot said,
"It nat onely reporteth the gestes or actes of princes or capitaynes,
their counsayles, and attemptates, entreprises, affaires, maners in lyvinge
good and bad, descriptions of regions and cities, with their inhabitauntes, but
also it bringeth to our knowlege the fourmes of sondry publike weales with
augumentations and decayes and occasion therof; more over preceptes,
exhortations, counsayles, and good persuasions, comprehended in quick sentences
and eloquent orations."/9 History was valued by the sixteenth century as a
great storehouse of examples+, and therefore a much better instructor for the
gentleman in politics and morals than philosophy. Philosophy+ might be
dangerous since its precepts ignored the modifications of circumstances and
left the gentleman ignorant of the proper manner of execution. It was not
enough for the gentleman to know what he should do; he must know as well how he
should do it. History, on the other hand, taught everythingprecept,
application, and manner, and taught it so pleasantly as not to fatigue the
gentle spirit. So sixteenth century writers never have done extolling
history./10 Many set forth the art of writing and reading history. From these
it is clear how largely historical interest was biographical interest; history
for the renaissance, as for Carlyle+, was chiefly the record of individuals.
Thus one such writer, drawing chiefly on Patrizi+, enumerates in detail the
things to be considered by one who would chronicle a man's life: "the name
of the man, his familie, his parentes, and his Countrye, and also his destinie,
fortune, and force or necessitie, (if they seeme manifestly to appertayne to
the action), his nature, affections, and election, proceeding eyther of
wysedome, passion, or custom, his education, exercises, deedes, and speaches,
and also the age, and time, wherein every notable acte was done, and the
qualities of his bodye, whether they were signes and tokens of his mynde, or
else helps to the actions, And as the writer is bounde to shew the education of
the person chronicled, and those exercises and studyes whereby hee hath formed
hys manners, so also he is bounde to tell
------
9 Op. cit., bk. III, ch. XXV, p. 281.
10 Institucion of a Gentleman, fo. h5ah7b; Earl of Essex, op. cit. fo.
Ebb.
134 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [I34
every deede, worde, signe, or token, that maye signifie eyther his
maners, his nature, his affections, thoughts, or any maner of motion of the
mynde." He is no less explicit as to who should be thus chronicled,
"all those persins whose lyves have beene such as are to be followed for
their excellencie in vertue, or else to be fledde for their excellencie in
vice." Princes of course should be recorded to show how they governed, but
private as well as public persons may well serve for examples. Three things are
then to be read forknowledge of the providence of God, wisdom in governing our
actions, and inspiration to follow the good. Note-taking as a help to memory
was advised of examples that would have weight in persuading others, classified
under the subjects they illustrated./11 The histories recommended for the
gentleman's study were almost entirely ancient, though not necessarily
classical, and such writers as Osorius+ might be included for the universal
history of which the world-minded Elizabethan was so fond. English educational
theory paid little attention to English history, practically none at all until
the very end of the century. Peacham+ was the first to consider the study of
English history in detail. It was a common fault of Englishmen, remarked by
foreigners, he said, to travel for information about other countries, when they
could tell nothing about their own, and Lord Burghley+, when anyone came to him
for a license to travel, would question him on English history, and if he found
him ignorant would order him to stay at home and become acquainted with his own
country first./12 To the historical works already mentioned for a study of
rhetoric he added the Britannia and Annales Rerum Anglicarum Regnante
Elisabetha of Camden+, "the glory of our nation," "as well for
his judgment and diligence as the purity and sweet fluence of the Latin+
style," and the Fanus zinglorum, Titles of Honor, and Mare Clausum of John
Selden, "the rising Starre of good letters and antiquity," rising too
late of course for the Elizabethan to gaze on. Thus was the gentleman to be
well furnished with sound instruction in political economy, wisdom for his own
governance, and pleasant matter for witty discourse. ------
11 The True Order and Methode of Wryting and Reading Hystories, 1574,
"Whose lyves ought to be chronicled"; Foxius Morzillus, De Historiae
Institutione, 1557; Bodin, Methodus ad Facilem Historiarum Cognitionem, 1610;
Lorenzo Ducci, Ars Historica, 1604; Richard Braithwaite, The Schollars Medley,
or a Survey of History, 1614.
12 OP. cit., p. 50, marginal note.
135] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 135
Moral_philosophy,+which Gilbert omitted, perhaps because of the
difference between the pagan philosophers and Christ, was in reality one of the
most praised of subjects. "Lorde God, [broke forth Elyot,] what
incomparable swetnesse of wordes and mater shall he finde in the saide works of
Plato+ and Cicero+; wherin is joined gravitie with dilectation, excellent
wysedome with divine eloquence, absolute vertue with pleasure incredible, and
every place is so infarced with profitable counsaile, joyned with honestie+,
that those thre bokes [Aristotle+ also] be almoste sufficient to make a
perfecte and excellent governour."/13 It must be remembered that moral
philosophy covered the whole wide range of human conduct. To use Lyly+'s
summary: "By this shal we learne what is honest, what dishonest, what is
right, what is wrong, and that I may in one word say what may be said, what is
to be knowen, what is to be a voyded: how we ought to obey our parents+,
reverence our elders, entertein strangers+, honour Magistrates, love our
friends+, live with our wives, use our servaunts. Howe wee shoulde worshippe
God, be duetifull+ to our Fathers, stand in awe of our superiours, obey lawes,
give place to Officers, how we may choose friends, nurture our children and
that which is most noble, how we should neither be too proude in prosperitie,
neither pensive in adversitie, neither like beastes overcome with
anger+."/14 The commodity of philosophy was not disputed except by those
puritans+ who would find all wisdom in the Bible. Like Burghley, most accepted
both the Bible and Aristotle+.
Poetry+, as its numerous defenders during the century
prove, was somewhat under a cloud as a fabricator of lies, debaser of morals,
and corrupter of manners. Sir Thomas Elyot first came to its defence with an
attempt to show how many good lessons may be obtained from the poets, even from
Ovid in his most wanton books./15 Sidney+'s defence is too well known to quote;
he would prove the poet a better teacher by precepts than the philosopher+, and
by examples than the historian+, and something more than a teacher. Sir John
Harrington admitted that all poetical and philosophical studies are in a way
vain to Christians but divinity is too strict and stoical, too profound for
even the highest wits without pre-
------
13 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. XI, p. 48.
14 Euphues, Arber rep., 1868, p. 239.
15 0p. Cit., bk. I, ch. XIII, p. 57-60; William Webbe quotes Elyot's
examples to prove the same point, if Discourse of English Poetry, Arber rep.
1870, pp. 40-5.
136 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [136
paration. Poetry gives the needed preparation, "specially
Heroical_Poesie+, that with her sweet stateliness doth erect the mind &
lift it up to the consideration of the highest matters; and allureth them, that
of themselves would otherwise loth them, to take and swallow & digest the
holsome precepts of Philosophie, and many times even of the true
divinitie."/16 Peacham+, with far more reason to be sure than his
predecessors, spent a chapter on the study of poetry, running over for the
benefit of his reader the chief poets, ancient and modern, Latin and English,
most of whom have been named in earlier lists. On the whole, then, poetry
gained a place as a sugared dose of morality, not pleasure but precept its avowed
aim.
Theology+ was provided for in Gilbert's Academy, but
without comment. Humphrey said of it that as the ancients made philosophy the
foundation of all arts, so he wished theology to be the beginning and goal of
the gentleman's studies. Theology, or divinity as it was often called, was the
knowledge of God as set forth in the Old and New Testaments, the fountain of
all knowledge, without which all other learning was vain./7 The importance of
such instruction was keenly felt by certain groups in Elizabethan England as
one of the chief means of preserving English Protestantism+. As a practical
measure for reducing the number of Papists, Burghley urged upon the' ueen a
scheme for the compulsory education of the children of the powerful in approved
doctrines at appointed places. "As for schoolmasters, [he argued,] they be
a principal means of diminishing their number; the lamentable and pitiful
abuses in this way are easy to be seen, since the greatest number of papists+
is of very young men: but your Majesty may prevent that bud, and may use,
therein, not only a pious and godly means, in making the parents, in every
shire, to send their children to be virtuously brought up at a certain place
for this end appointed; but you shall also, if it please your Majesty, put in
practice a notable strategem, used by Sertorius+ in Spain, by choosing such fit
and convenient places for the same, as may surely be at your devotion; and by
this means, you shall, under color of education, have them as hostages of the
parents fidelities, that have any power in England, and, by this way, their
number will quickly be lessened."/8
------
16 Apology for poetry, rep. Haslewood, Ancient Critical Essays . . . . ,
vol. II, P. 124.
17 Euphues, pp. 155-7; Peacham, op. cit., p. 40-2.
18 Advice to Queen Elizabeth in Matters of Religion and State, Hari.
Misc., 1809, vol. II, p. 279. See also John Stockwood, The Only Duty of Fathers
and Schoolmasters to Teach Religion, pp. 93-7.
137] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 137
The great minister was never simple in his counsel. Ascham+, Humphrey+,
Mulcaster+, Cleland+, Peacham+, all were careful either to endorse their
precepts as perfectly compatible with true religion, or to give a place to
religion in the content of education, or among the duties of the gentleman.
Hence education in England was given at least nominally a religious as well as
moral foundation and aim. Something of Sturm+'s ideal of Sapiens et Eloquens
Pietas might seem here to be suggested, if it were not that the emphasis among
English educators falls so overwhelmingly upon Sapiens and Eloquens rather than
upon Pietas.
Civil_law+ was not much recommended in England,
though it was occasionally advised as useful in the handling of foreign
affairs. Common law was obviously of more use to the average gentleman, and
Gilbert provided for a lawyer who should teach the grounds of common law,
drawing them into maxims as in the case of civil law. He was also to teach the
offices of a justice_of_the_peace+ and sheriff, which the gentleman should be
able to hold. If more knowledge of law was wanted, it should be got at the Inns
of Court. Cleland+ advised the study of Justinian+'s Institutes, the King's
Statutes, Acts of Parliament, Canon Law, and customs of the country. The
commodity of a knowledge of both kinds of law was thus set forth, "I deny
not, but after our longe peace and quiet, (which God continue) the
common_lawes+ of this Realme hath both advaunced and enritohed many. . . . .
But touching the civill lawes, I say that is a most noble knowledge, beeinge
the law almost universall to all Christendome, & therefore such as attaine
to the knowledge therof, shall not onely in this lande, & many other,
liable them selves to get their owne liveload, but also be men most fit to
counsel Princes, and all estates of governments both in causes Civill and
Martial! For by them all differentes bee dissided. The learned Civilian
therfore (besides his owne perticular) is a man very fit, and imployable in all
counsels of estate and Ambassages., as hee that is skilfull of the government
universall."/19 Another subject generally included in gentlemanly studies,
and recommended by Gilbert was mathematics+. Arithmetic and geometry Gilbert
considered important only for their use in war, the strategy of troop
movements, building of fortifications, laying out of encampments, and use of
artillery and other instruments. Others
------
19 Cyvile and Uncyvile Life, rep. Roxburghe Library, pp. 70-1.
138 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [138
found them useful to a gentleman in the practices of peace also,
geometry in surveying his lands, measuring timber, rebuilding, and so forth,
and arithmetic for overseeing his accounts and even in judicial and diplomatic
functions. Like every other favorite subject arithmetic and geometry could be
proved absolutely essential to every business under the sun, secular and
divine, and neither lacked its apotheosis. Kempe's dedication to his Arithmetic
ran as follows: "Who is there of what facultie or profession soever, that
can either attain to the exact knowledge of his art, or fitly and wittily
exercise the same without the helpe of Arithmeticke? In divinitie, how many
questions are dissolved, and places plainly interpreted, especially by the
benfit of this art? In civill policie and in the seate of judgement, the golden
rule of proportion is the law of equitie. In Physicke, Hippocrates+ willeth his
sonne Thessalus to learne Arithmeticke, that thereby he might judge of the
increasing, decreasing, continuing, and chaunging of diseases, as also
compounding of medicines. In the workemanship of heaven and earth we are taught
and see, that God hath made all things in number, in measure, in weight, that
is to say, in a just proportion. Astronomie+ doeth not only measure the
quantitie of celestiall creatures, but also numbreth their motions. What is
Music+ in sownes, in harmonie, and in their spaces, , concords, and different
sorts, but only Arithmeticke in hearing? Take away Arithmeticke, ye take away
the merchants eye, whereby he seeth his direction in buying and selling; ye
take away the goldsmith's discretion, whereby he mixeth his metalles in due
quantities; ye take away the captaines dexteritie, whereby he embattaileth his
armie in convenient order; finally yee take from all sortes of men, the
facultie of executing their functions aright." Robert Recorde had written
similarly of arithmetic earlier in the $1 century, and had sung the same tune
of geometry./20 One had the comfortable assurance in those days, no matter what
he studied, of finding it useful, no matter what his occupation.
Astronomy+ and cosmography+ were thought especially
fitting for gentlemen because necessary in navigation, an art recommended to
them particularly, as well it might be in that time of gentlemen-adventurers
who scoured the seas for the glory of their prince and themselves. Gilbert
assigned one day for the study of books and
------
20 Kempe, Translation from Ramee; Recorde, The Ground of 4rtes,
"The Commodities of Arithmetic," fo. 1-7; The Pathway to Knowledge,
The Preface, declaring briefly the Commodities of Geometric, and the necessity
thereof," 8 pp.
139] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 139
the next for practice, for which he would have the school possess fully
equipped models of a ship and a galley to teach the parts and the art of the
shipwright. Cosmography had still wider uses for the gentleman than to help him
find his way safely from port to port. Like arithmetic and geometry it was
invaluable in the conduct of an army, in the preservation of health by teaching
climates, nature of waters, complexions of inhabitants, character of herbs and
other ingredients of medicines, in the study of divinity to locate the Garden
of Paradise and other places, and in history for descriptions of countries, and
last but not least, as Elyot+ described, for pleasure at home in a warm study,
where the sweet of travel without the bitter may be enjoyed./21 It will be
perceived that cosmography covered a wide range of subjects: according to
Peacham+, astronomy, astrology, geography, and chorography, and according to
modern divisions, physiography, geology, botany, and climatology besides.
Something of the thrill of the new discoveries in the heavens and the earth
which sent men to their maps and books with fresh interest in an old world made
new is to be felt in Peacham's recommendation of the latest maps. For
authorities he named Blundeville+, Cosmography, and The Sphere, Dee+, Euclid's
Elements, Cooke, Principles of Geometry, Astronomy, and Geography, Gemma
Frisius+, Ortelius+, Copernicus+, Mercator+, among others, and of ancient
writers, Ptolomy+ and Dionysis Halicarnassus+.
One of the subjects which was usually included under
either cosmography, or history, Gilbert differentiates under the name of
naturalphilosophy+, a part really of physic. A natural philosopher and
physician were to have this course in charge. The business of the physician was
to teach the common ailments of man and also the medicines appropriate to their
cure, with the underlying reasons. "This reader shall never alleage any
medicine, be yt of simples, salves, saltes, balmes, oyles, spirites, tinctures,
or otherwise, But that he shall declare the reason philosophicall of every
particuler ingredience for such operation, And spew his hearers the mechanicall
making and working utensiles apertaining to the same."
------
20 Peacham, op. cit. ch. 7, 8.
21 William Cunningham, The Cosmographical Glass, "The Preface of
the Author;" Peacham, op. cit. ch. 7, 8.
140 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [140
And he and the natural philosopher were to keep a garden in which to
grow all kinds of simples, and to experiment together to search out the secrets
of nature. Their results were to be set forth in plain language and delivered
yearly to the Treasurer of the Academy for the benefit of successors. Great
things, if any were hidden, must thus be brought to light. The physician was
also to teach surgery, which suffered through being learned only in the barber
shop. Lord Herbert thought some knowledge of medicine becoming to a gentleman,
for he might thereby increase his credit by effecting cures, as he himself had
done, where physicians had given over./22 A case for foreign_languages+
scarcely needed to be made out in view of the custom of sending young gentlemen
abroad to complete their education. Gilbert would have French, Italian,
Spanish, and High Dutch taught, probably in consideration of their need in the
diplomatic service. And yet though French and then Italian were taken for
granted as a part of the equipment of any well educated gentleman, one of the
main arguments for going abroad being the acquirement of these two languages,
neither was included in the regular curriculum of any school until long after 1600,/23
nor was it recommended in any special scheme for the gentleman outside of
Gilbert's. Yet textbooks for the learning of French and Italian flourished in
the latter part of the century; by 1567 an Italian dictionary had gone through
three editions, and four Italian grammars were published between 1550 and
1600./24 Florio+'s First Frutes appeared in 1578, Second Frutes in 1591, and
New Word of Words in 1595. The French Littleton by Claudius Hollybande+ came
out in 1581, drawing from Gascoigne a commendatory poem for now allowing the
English to stay at home instead of risking their lives to secure the pearl of
price, French.
The next subject which Gilbert listed was drawing+
for the purpose of map and chart making. Elyot+ had been the first of English
humanists to advocate the teaching of drawing not only for map making and
devising of artillery, but also for the pleasure of exercising the imagination
in portraying the stirring deeds of history, and for the advantage in judging
accurately works of art. He
------
22 Autobiography, ed. by Sir Sidney Lee, 1906, pp. 28-9.
23 Foster Watson, The Beginnings of the Teaching of Modern Subjects in
England, p. 395.
24 J. Ross Murray, The Influence of Italian upon English Literature
during the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, p. 21. Sixteenth and
Seventeenth Centuries, p. 21.
141] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 141
would also give instruction in sculpture, if the child's inclination
turned that way./25 Castiglione+ made the same recommendation, and even went
farther to urge the advantage of painting as an increase to fame. Falling short
of artistic accomplishment, the gentleman still would find his appreciation of
beauty increased, and consequently his delight in the world about him./26
Drawing for gentlemen did not then find any other prominent advocate except
Mulcaster+, until Peacham+ treated the subject at length./27 The last subject
recommended by Gilbert, heraldry+, one is not prepared to find among recognized
studies. Its merits were often urged, but by the heralds themselves who might
be suspected of undue bias. Gilbert, however, acknowledged their claims in part
at least by including on his staff a herald to teach the blazon of arms, and
the art of heraldry, and to keep a register in the Academy of the young
gentleman's "pedigrees." Heraldry had already fallen into some
disrepute by Elizabeth's time, particularly for the selling of newly invented
arms under pretence of having found them recorded for ancestors in old registers./28
The numerous writers on the subject were interested either in arousing interest
among gentlemen in a subject which they represented as comprehending the whole
of gentlity, or in bettering the status of heralds themselves. Gerard Legh+,
the first to write on heraldry in English (after the author of The Book of St.
Allbans had this double aim, to write for gentlemen that seek to know all good
things, and to raise a memorial to heralds, "that bath serched foorth the
way, to make the body not much inferior to the soule" and "who have
made distinction, between the gentle and the ungentle, in whom there is as much
difference, as betweene vertue and vice."/29 But of those who wrote on the
general education of the gentleman Gilbert and Peacham alone prescribed heraldry
as a necessary subject. The whole ground which the heralds gave for considering
arms (in the heraldic sense) a serious part of the gentleman's equipment cannot
be better presented than in Peacham's words: "How should we give Nobility
her true valiie, respect, and title, without notice of her Merit? and how may
we guesse her merit, without these out-
------
26 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. 8; Foster Watson, op. cit., p. 136.
26 The Courtier, Tudor translations, pp. 92-6.
27 Elementarie, cap. V, p. 22; op. cit., ch. 13.
28 Sir Thomas Smith, De Republica Anglorum, rep. 1906, lib. 2, ch. 20,
p. 40.
29 Accedens of Armory, "The Preface, fo. IIa-IIb.
142 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [142
ward ensignes and badges of Vertue, which anciently have beene accounted
sacred and precious; withall, discerne and know an intruding upstart, shot up
with the last nights Mushroome, from an ancient descended & deserved
Gentleman, whose Grandsires have had their shares in every foughten field by
the English since Edward the first? or my selfe a Gentleman know mine owne
ranke; there being at this instant the world over, such a medley (I had almost
said Motley) of Coates, such intrusion by adding or diminishing into ancient
families and houses, that had there not beene within these few yeares a just
and commendable course taken by the right Honourable the Earles Marshals for
the redresse of this general and unsufferable abuse, we should I fear me within
these few yeeres see yeomen as rare in England, as they are in France. "Besides,
it is a contemplation full of pleasing varietie and for the most part,
sympathizing with every Noble and generous disposition; in substance the most
refined part of Naturall Philosophie, while it taketh the principles from
Geometry, making use almost of every severall square and angle. For these and
other reasons, I desire that you would bestow some houses in the study of the
same: for a Gentleman Honourably descended to bee utterly ignorant herein,
argueth in him either a disregard of his owne worth, a weakness of conceipt, or
indisposition to Armes and Honourable Action."/30 As a record of ancestral
greatness and a spur to imitation of the virtues which caused that greatness,
armorial bearings played in theory a high and serious part in maintaining the
character and status of nobility.
Such, in a general way, were the studies which the
best minds of the sixteenth century devised for the making of a gentleman, so
far as masters in schools and university, or more often tutors at home, could
fashion him. There was yet one more process necessary, however, before the
young man was felt to be fully equipped mentally to take his share in serious
affairs. Whatever men like Ascham+ might say about the dangers of foreign
travel, the advantages in the opinion of most men justified all the risks to
life, health, morals, and purse. Such men as Lord Burghley+, Sir Philip
Sidney+, the Earl of Essex+, Secretary Davidson+ saw in travel and particularly
in contact with the French court the best training for public service by
experience, without the responsibility of office. Thus Sidney wrote to his
brother, "You purpose, being a gentleman born, to furnish yourself with
the knowledge of such things as may be serviceable
------
30 Op. cit., p. 160.
143] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 143
for your country and calling; which certainly stands not in the change
of air, for the warmest sun makes not a wise man; no, nor in learned languages
(although they be of serviceable use), for words are but words in what language
soever they be; and much less in that all of us come home full of
disguisements, not only of apparel but of our countenances (as though the
credit of a traveler stood all upon his outside), but in the right informing
your mind with those things which are most notable in those places which you
come unto. For hard sure it is to know England, without you know it by
comparing+ {Gulliver+} some other country; no more than a man can know the
swiftness of his horse without seeing him well matched." He then went on
to detail the kinds of information that were profitable to pick upthe
topography of each country, revenues, defences, leagues, character of the
people, that is, passions, vices, virtues, religion, laws, education of
children, military discipline, etc./31 The advantage to the individual of such
note-taking, the great geographer Ortelius+ set forth modestly in his
Itinerarium Belgiae. "If in our peregrinations and travels, we shal
observe and note in our tables, or papers those things which doo occurre and
seeme worthie of regard, we shall make our journies and voyages in great
measure, pleasant and delectable unto us; not thinking that our diligence can
search & mark any thing in any place, which other men before us have not
seene, but to discourse and recorde any thing, rather then to passe the way,
and spend the time in idlenesse: and with all by this means, this commoditie is
reaped, that whatsoever the eye seeth, is the easier and the better remembred,
if it be once written. And when the time commeth, that we make an ende of our
travels, and personall view of forren parts, it will bee a singular pleasure
unto us, whensoever we are so disposed to recognize, and recount those things
which we have seene, quietlie and in our chambers, without any trouble of
journie, or toile of bodie."/32 Each country was felt to have something
particular to contribute. Germany was to be observed with an eye toward future
alliances, France and Spain for their attitude, Flanders for methods of
governing merchants, Italy for her silk and wine production.
------
31 Profitable Instructions, 1633, fo. F7bG1b. For other lists see Jerome
Turler, The Traveler, 1575, bk. I, ch. 5; Albertus Meierus Certain Briefe and
Speciall Instructions, 1589; Thomas Palmer, The Travailer, ,1606, pt. II, pp.
53-326; Bacon, Essays, "Of Travel," 1625.
32 Translated and appended to Meierus, op. cit., last page.
144 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [144
The differences between these nations especially interested travelers
from all of them as is shown by the more or less elaborate comparisons drawn by
many of the writers on travel. For an amusing example part of Turler's
description will serve: "The Germane+ hath the gesture of Cutter or
Russian+, the gate of the cock, a fierce looke, a manly voyce, rude behaviour,
variable apparell, and nothing hansome. The Frenchman hath a soft gate, a
moderate pace, a milde countenaunce, a pleasaunt voyce, a redy toongue, modest
demeanure, immoderate apparell. The Italian hath a slow gate, a grave gesture,
an inconstance countenance, a lowe voyce, an hasty speach, magnificall
behaviour, undecent and unseemlye apparell. The Spaniard a commendable gate,
maners, and gesture, a proude looke, a flexible voyce, a fine speach, exquisite
apparel," etc."/33 The small part that England yet played in European
affairs is reflected in the fact that continental writers do not include the
Englishman in these comparisons. Andrew Borde, however, an Englishman,
undertook to set off his countrymen:
I am an English man, and naked I stand here, Musying in my mynde what rayment I shal were; For now I wyl were thys, and I wyl were that; Now I wyl were I cannot tel what. All new fashyons be plesaunt to me; I wyl have them, whether I thryve or thee. Now I am a frysker, all men doth on me looke; What should I do, but set cocke on the hoope? What do I care, yf all the worlde me fayle? I wyl get a garment, shal reche to my tayle; Than I am a minion, for I were the new gyse. The next yere after this I trust to be wyse, Not only in wering my gorgeous aray, For I wyl go to learnyng a hoole somers day; I wyl learne Latyne, Hebrew, Greeke and Frenche, And I wyl learne Douche, sittyng on my benche. I do feare no man; all men feryth me; I overcome my adversaries by land and by see; I had no peer, yf to my selfe I were treu; Bycause I am not so, dyvers times I do rew. Yet I lake nothyng, I have all thynge at wyl;
------
33 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. IV.
145] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN 145
Yf I were wyse, and wolde holde my self styl, And medel with no matters not to me partayning, But ever to be treu to God and my kynge. But I have suche matters rolling in my pate, That I wyl speake and do, I cannot tell what; No man shall let me, but I wyl have my mynde, And to father, mother, and friend I wyl be unkynde: I wyi folow myne owne mynd and myn old trade; Who shal let me, the devyls nayles unpared? Yet above al thinges, new fashions I love well, And to were them, my thryft I wyl sell. In all this worlde, I shall have but a time; Holde the cuppe, good felow, here is thyne and myne." /34
The numerous books of advice for travelers, on how to conduCt
themselves, what pitfalls to avoid, and what things to learn which appeared in
the last quarter of the century further testify to the seriousness with which
the tour of Europe was regarded as the final stage in the preparation of the
gentleman for public service./35 The lack of authentic printed information
regarding foreign countries, governments, and peoples gave firsthand observation
and personal inquiry an importance and necessity that it lacks to-day. The
young gentleman who was ambitious of playing a part in state affairs needed to
collect such information as a sojourn in the various capitals, often with the
English ambassador's train, could give, and such poise and ease of manners as
home-keeping youths could not obtain. To judge by complaints, the solider
advantages of travel were too often neglected, but one advantage, which still
remains, facility in acquiring foreign languages, was generally appreciated and
more often urged than anything else as a reason for travel. One point, however,
was well agreed upon: the better informed a man was when he went on his
travels, the more information he could bring home with him./36 To insure that
proper use be made of his opportunities, a tutor was recommended./37 Provided
with a wise tutor, plenty of funds, and introductions to prominent
------
34 The Introduction of Knowledge, London, 1542, rep. E. E. T. S., 1870,
Extra Series no. 10, pp. 336-7.
35 For an interesting and full account of these books see Clare Howard,
English Travelers of the Renaissance, London, 1914.
36 Mulcaster, Positions p. 209
37 Bartholomew Batty, The Christian Man's Closet, fo. 528; Cleland op.
cit., bk. VI, ch. I, P. 252-3; Bacon, "Of Travel."
146 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [146
men, foreigners and Englishmen abroad, the young gentleman of serious
intent and corresponding ability could expect to return to England from a two
or three years' stay abroad a far wiser and better bred man than when he left.
It would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of
the ideal of education which has just been sketched in its far-reaching effect
both on the sixteenth century and succeeding centuries. The scheme which was
first fully set forth for the gentleman's son, and which had small effect on
practice in the grammar schools during the sixteenth century was adopted little
by little into the schools, and is still the foundation for public education in
England and in the United States. This new type of education had two opposite
effects in this century, effects which it has continued to exert even until
today. Its more obvious but less important effect was aristocratic in
character. The difference between the type of education given in the
grammar_schools+ and this given to gentlemen's sons by tutors gave the new
studies the character of a class distinction; and besides, the whole system had
been framed avowedly to suit a class, the governing class. Rapidly as the class
broadened out and widely as the new studies tended to spread, the fundamental
assumption was that whoever of the lower classes received this training rose
thereby out of his class./38 Although in the last century particularly
education has been spreading downward,this same education designed for the
gentleman, has been democratized we think, the same tendency has continued to
consider education the means of rising out of one's inherited environment into
a "higher" one, and therefore to continue the formation of an
educated class, marked off from lower classes by certain distinctions of dress,
manners, occupation, and so forth. Only recently has protest begun to rise
against this stratifying effect of education, particularly against the
association of education with only certain sorts of work, as if there were
something inherently incompatible between the reading of Horace+ and the
digging of ditches.
But if there was an aristocratic tendency there was
also a democratic. The recognition of the need of education in preparation for
thevarious tasks of governing set a premium not only on education but upon the
man who possessed an education. Personal qualities thus were emphasized, which
were acknowledged to be independent /38
------
38 Woodward, op. cit., p. 117.
147] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 147 of birth, possessed not only
by the son of the gentleman but by the son of the laborer. Even Mulcaster, who
argues at length for the restriction of education to a small group of
hereditary gentle- men, did not base his argument on an inherited difference of
wit but on the necessities of the government. If everyone will to school, there
must be, he argued, an over-supply of educated men with corresponding
overcrowdingof certain professions, and lack in the trades; and to educate a
man and thereby set him in the way to mount but then to hold him back is to
breed discontent and disorder. Therefore the law should restrain "this
flocking multitude which will needs to school."/39 But the trend of the
times was against Mulcaster and those who like him would restrict the blessing
of education to those who enjoyed the other advantages of gentle birth, and
with Archbishop Cranmer who would draw no such line in admitting children to
the Canterbury Cathedral Grammar School. The argument as told in Strype's
Memorials of Cranmer is well worth quoting since it so completely covers the
debated ground. "When they should elect the children of the
grammar-school, there were of the commissioners more than one or two, who would
have none admitted but sons or younger brethren of gentlemen. As for other
husbandmen's children, they were more meet, they said, for the plough, and to
be artificers, than to occupy the place of the learned sort; so that they
wished none else to be put to school, but only gentlemen's children. Whereunto
the most reverend father, the Archbishop, being of a contrary mind, said, 'That
he thought it not indifferent so to order the matter: for,' said he, poor men's
children are many times endued with more singular gifts of nature, which are
also the gifts of God, as, with eloquence, memory, apt pronunciation, sobriety,
and such like; and also commonly more apt to apply their study, than is the
gentleman's son delicately educated.' Hereunto it was on the other part
replied, 'That it was meet for the ploughman's son to go to plough, and the
artificer's son to apply the trade of his parent's vocation; and the
gentleman's children are meet to have knowledge of government and rule in the
commonwealth. For we have,' say they, 'as much need of ploughmen as any other
state; and all sorts of men may not go to school.' 'I grant,' replied the
Archbishop, 'much of your meaning herein as needful ',.r in a commonwealth; but
yet utterly to exclude the ploughman's son and the poor man's son from the
benefit of learning, as though they were unworthy to have the gifts of the Holy
Ghost bestowed upon them as well as upon others, is as much to say, as that
Almighty God should not be at liberty to -----
39 Op. cit., ch. 37.
148 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH GENTLEMAN
[148 bestow his great gifts of grace upon any person, nor nowhere else, but as
we and other men shall appoint them to be employed, according to our fancy, and
not according to his most goodly will and pleasure: who giveth his gifts both
of learning and other perfections in all sciences, unto all kinds and states of
people indifferently. Even so doth he many times withdraw from them and their
posterity again those beneficial gifts, if they be not thankful. If we should
shut up into a strait corner the bountiful grace of the Holy Ghost, and
thereupon attempt to build our fancies, we should make as perfect a work
thereof as those that took upon them to build the Tower of Babel; for God would
so provide that the offspring of our best-born children should peradventure
become most unapt to learn and very dolts, as I myself have seen no small
number of them very dull, and without all manner of capacity. And to say the
truth, I take it, that none of us all here, being gentlemen born (as I think),
but had our beginning that way from a low and base parentage: and through the
benefit of learning, and other civil knowledge, for the most part all gentlemen
ascend to their estate.' Then it was again answered, 'That the most part of the
nobility came up by feats of arms and martial acts.' 'As though said the
Archbishop, 'that the noble captain was always unfurnished of good learning and
knowledge to persuade and dissuade his army rhetorically: who rather that way
is brought unto authority, than else his manly looks. To conclude, the poor
man's son, by painstaking, will for the most part be learned, when the
gentleman's son will not take the pains to get it. And we are taught by the
Scriptures, thatAlmighty God raiseth up from the dunghill, and setteth him in
high authority. And whensoever it pleaseth him of his divine providence, he
deposeth princes unto a right humble and poor estate. Wherefore, if the
gentleman's son be apt to learning, let him be admitted; if not apt, let the
poor man's child that is apt enter his room.' With words to the like effect.
Such a seasonable patron of poor men was the Archbishop./40
The tide was running too strong to be turned backward. Education had
been made by force of circumstances the means for a layman to rise to important
positions in the state. Improvement in facilities for obtaining an education
was bound to follow not only for the gentleman but for all who wished to seek
it.
------
40 Oxford, 1848, vol. I, pp. 202-4.
CHAPTER VIII+
EXERCISE AND RECREATION
But if in the ideal of the gentleman intellectual culture held an
important place, physical perfection was from some points of view hardly less
important. The renaissance ideal of education combined training of the mind
with training of the body; as it was applied to the mere scholar, therefore, it
taught him to care for his body, which had been sadly neglected in medieval
theory; as it was applied to the mere gentleman, it taught him to care for his
mind, which also had been sadly neglected. But if the gentleman should value
his health for the sake of his mind, he had still other reasons, weightier
perhaps, that is military prowess and social distinction. For he was still a
knight, a combination of soldier and courtier; he must be ready to fight at need,
or to play his part in the ceremonies and pastimes of courts. Physical
strength, skill at certain exercises, and grace were therefore counted
essential in the gentlemanly ideal, as they had been in the chivalric.
The writers on education for the gentlemanand few
wrote upon him that did not try to educate himagree very well upon the
exercises suitable and necessary to him. Those recommended especially for
health were running, leaping, walking, wrestling, swimming, and tennis.
Wrestling+, since it was a popular sport among the common sort, had a somewhat
dubious status, but was felt to be beneficial if not carried on too roughly.
Thus Cleland+ recommends it: "Wrestling is a good exercise, so that it be
with one that is equal in strength, or somewhat weaker, and the place be soft,
that in falling your bodies be not bruised. There bee divers manners of
wrestling, but the best, both for the health of body, & exercise of
strength is in laying your hands mutuallie one over an other's neck holding
each one other fast by the arme, and clasping your legs togither, to enforce
your selves with strength and agilitie to throw downe each other: undoubtedly
it shalbe found profitable in warres, in case yee be constrained to cope with
your adversarie hande to hand, either of you having your weapon broken, or
lost; and it hath beene seene that the weaker person by slight bath overthrown
the stronger, almost before he could fasten on the other anie violent
stroakes."/1
------
1 Cleland, The Institution of a Young Noble Man, bk. V, ch. 21. p. 220.
See also Peacham, The Compleat Gentleman, p. 215. 149
150 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [i50
Tennis+ was felt to be too strenuous to be a good form of recreation for
everyone, and at best to be used moderately. Football+ was forbidden as too
rough and dangerous and calling forth only brute force, though Mulcaster+ put
in a good word for 1t./2 Swimming+ was admittedly dangerous, but was counted
worth the risk especially since it might prove convenient in time of peril./3
Mulcaster wrote in praise of walking+, and thereby proved himself a true
Englishman. "Among those exercises which be used abroade, what one
deserveth to be set before walking, in the order and place of traine: what one
have they more neede to know, which minde, the preservation and continuaunce of
health? what one is there, which is more practised of all men, and at all
times, then walking is? I dare saye that there is none, whether young or olde,
whether man or woman, but accounteth it not onely the most excellent exercise,
but almost alone worthy to beare the name of an exercise. When the weather
suffereth, how emptie are the townes and streates, how full be the fieldes and
meadowes, of all kindes of folke? which by flocking so abroad protest themselves
to be favourers of that they do, and delite in for their health? If ye consider
but the use of our legges, how necessarie they be for the performaunce of all
our doings, nature her selfe seemeth to have appointed walking, as the most
naturall traine, that can be to make them discharge their duetie well. And sure
if there be any exercise which generally can preserve health, which can remedie
weaknesse, which can purchace good haviour, considering it is so generall, and
neither excludeth person nor age, certainly that is walking"/4 More highly
recommended still were the exercises which were felt to be particularly
advantageous in war. Of these the most frequently mentioned from Elyot+'s day
to Peacham's was the handling of the long_bow+, the science of which no less a
scholar than Ascham+ thought worthy of setting forth. In the earlier part of
the century there was good military ground for urging it because the bow was
still an effective weapon,/5 although even Elyot lamented its decay./6 But it
is curious to meet the same argument for its use even until the end of the
century. For by the middle of the century Latimer+ was complaining that it had
fallen into disuse for exercise,/7
------
2 Elyot, The Governour, Everyman Library, bk. I, ch. XXVII, p. 113.
3 Spenser, The Fairie Queene, V, II, XVI; Elyot, op. cit., bk. I, ch.
XVII, pp. 75-8.
4 Positions, rep. 1888, ch. 20.
5 C. W. C. Oman, in Traill, Social England, 1909, III, p. 96.
6 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. XXVII, p. 114.
7 Sixth Sermon before Edward VI, April 12,1549, Everyman Library, pp.
170-1.
151] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 151
a clear indication of corresponding disuse in war, and by 1587 Barnaby
Rich in enumerating the weapons effective in battle dismissed the bow as
already laid aside though some might still be found to argue for it. Gilbert
left it out of his scheme, and Sidney made no mention of it in his sketch for
his brother's education. The argument indeed raged more hotly on paper among military
folk between 1590 and 1600 than before, and rumblings still were being heard as
late as 1634./8 As a matter of fact the bowmen intheir very argument admitted
that the day was lost, and stroverather to bring back what was gone than
maintain what was going. All had not been said, however, with the overthrow of
the bowas an effective weapon in war, since it had its value as recreation.
Men like Elyot+ and Ascham+ stressed far more the
latter advantage. "Shoting is fitte for great mens children," said
Ascham, "both bycause it strengthneth the body with holsome labour, and
pleasethI the mynde with honest pastime and also encourageth all other youth
ernestly to folowe the same."/9 And those who recommended shooting usually
recommended Ascham, who, as Mulcaster said, "both for trayning the Archer
to his bow, and the scholler to his booke, hath shewed himelfe a cunning
Archer, and a skilfull maister."/10 Cleland, Peacham, Lord Herbert of
Cherbury long after the practical use of the bow in war had ceased prescribed
it among desirable exercises for the gentleman.
Training in other weapons was also recommended.
Gilbert provided for his Academy one perfectly trained soldier to teach the
handling of the arquebus+, along with the various troop formations. Most
especially the weapons of fence+ were necessary for the gentleman's armory,
both for use in war and for private defence. Indeed if doughty John_Silver+ is
to be believed fencing was valuable from every point of view, a science that
"is Noble, and in mine opinion to be preferred next to Divinitie; for as
Divinitie preserveth the soule from hell and the devill, so doth this noble
------
8 In favor of the bow: Sir John Smith, Certain Discourses, 1590,
Instructions, Observations, and Orders Mylitarie 1595; Matthew Sutcliffe, The
Practice, Proceedings, and Lawes of Armes, 1593, ch. XII, pt. 2, pp. 189-90; R.
S., Brief Treatise, 1596, (in behalf of bowyers and fletchers); William Neade,
The Double-Armed Man, 1625; Against the bow: Sir Roger Williams, A Brief Discourse
of War,1590; Humfrey Barwick, A Brief Discourse, 1594 (?).
9 Toxophilus, Arber Rep., 1868, p. 36.
10 Op. cit., p. 103.
152 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [152
Science defend the bodie from wounds & slaughter. And, moreover, the
exercising of weapons putteth away aches, griefs, and disease, it increaseth
strength, and sharpneth the wits, it giveth a perfect judgement, it expelleth
melancholy, cholericke and evill conceits, it keepeth a man in breath, perfect
health, and long life. It is unto him that hath the perfection thereof, a most
friendly and comfortable companion when he is alone, having but only his weapon
about him, it putteth him out of all feare, & in the warres and places of
most danger, it maketh him bold, hardie, and valiant."/11 Gilbert included
among the weapons of fence the rapier and dagger, sword and buckler, battle axe
and pike. His list is indicative of changing fashions. The first weapons of the
English in single fight were the sword and buckler, a heavy, long sword which
like the battle axe and mace was used for a blow. Italian fencing masters about
1560 brought in the fashion of the rapier and dagger and the thrust, not, one
may be sure, without encountering the fierce contempt and opposition of English
fencing masters. George Silver was one such, and has left a racy account of the
discomfiture of the Italians before the good old English practice.
"Now, o you Italian teachers of Defence, where are your Stocatas, Imbrocatas, Madritas, Puntas ,& Puynta reversas, Stramisons, Passatas, Carricados, Amazzas, & Incartatas, & playing with your bodies, removing with your feet a litle aside, circle wise winding of your bodies, making of three times with your feet together, marking with one eye the motion of the adversary, & with the other eye the advantage of thrusting? What is become of all these jugling gambalds, Apish devises, with all the rest of your squint-eyed trickes, when as through your deepe studies, long practises, & apt bodies, both strong and agilious, you have attained to the height of all these things? What then availeth it you, when you shal come to fight for your lives with a man of skill?"/12
His testimony to be sure is to be taken with a good grain of salt.
Saviolo+, at any rate, seems to have been a man of parts, handsome,
extraordinarily skilful with weapons of all sorts, able to teach and moderate
in his charges, and besides a good dancer. His popularity is well attested./13
And the new rapier play was an advance over the old according to modern
judgment. Egerton Castle says,
------
11 Paradoxes of Defence, 1599, rep., 2898, fo. Bib.
12 Op. cit., p. 55, and pp. 64-72.
13 Florio+, Second Frutes, 1592, ch. 7, pp. 117, 119; Castle, Schools
and Masters of Fence, 1898, ch. V, p. 314, 128.
153] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 153
"Rapier-play, coarse as it may seem to modern fencers, was such an
improvement on the older-fashioned sword and buckler fighting, and so much
better suited to the requirements of a gentleman, that the first successful
teachers of the foreign art were bound to be looked upon with immense favour by
the society which flourished under Elizabeth; the quaintness of the foreign
terms they used, and the philosophical digressions on what had hitherto been
considered as a most matter-of-fact subject, that of hard knocks, were then
thought especially fascinating."/14 The Italian school had gained
sufficient ground in 1570 or thereabouts to have added the new weapons to the
old, but the old were not discarded, and the short sword and blow were taught
by English fencing masters at least until the end of the century. Sidney+
advised his brother Robert to use the blow as well as the thrust, for "it
is good in itself; and besides increaseth your breath and strength and will
make you a strong man at the tourney and barriers."/15 George Silver's
quarrel with the Italians was that the rapier--bird-spit he called it-and
thrust were more dangerous to life in the duel and utterly useless in war where
men observed no nice rules of when and where to strike, but killed as they saw
a chance./16 He was perhaps right, but the sword was already going the way of
the bow, put out of business by the gun with its long range.
Whether Gilbert or any other Englishman took the
Italian theory of honor and the duel as seriously as Italian practice, it is
hard to say but seems doubtful. Muzio+ wrote the book which Saviolo+
translated/17 in an attempt to reduce the excesses into which dueling had
fallen in Italy by distinguishing the kinds of injuries that demanded revenge
from those that did not, and by clearly prescribing a certain form for the
challenge and answer which should guard against trickery. So much advantage lay
with the defender in choice of weapons, place, etc. that unscrupulous men
endeavored, even when they had committed the wrong, to make the injured bear
the burden of challenger, a trick easy to work if a man were ignorant of
dueling punctilio, or unwary. As an example, Brantome+ relates how a short man
insulted a tall man, and gaining for himself the position of defender and
therefore the right to select weapons and armor, he invented a steel collar of
sharp points sticking upward
------
14 Op. Cit., p. 127.
15 Letter, Oct. 18, 1580, Arber reprints, 1877, vol. I, p. 309.
16 Op. cit., pp. 9, 32-7; 51-6.
17 For evidence see Modern Language Notes, Jan. 1924, pp. 33-5.
154 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [154
and easily despatched his adversary who could not look down without
cutting his own throat, while the short man needed only to look up./18 But the
refinements on lies and the minute prescriptions for procedure seem rather to
have excited ridicule among the downright English, who apparently never
indulged in the outrageous tricks which won for Italian and French nobles such
an evil name. Shakespeare+ finds merely a jest for Touchstone+ in Muzio's
catalogue of lies.
Of all manly arts horsemanship+ was held in highest
repute, and none concerned failed to include it among the gentleman's necessary
accomplishments. "Of all outward qualities," said Ascham+, "to
ride faire, is most cumelie for him selfe, most necessarie for his contrey, and
the greater he is in blood, the greater is his praise the more he doth excede
all other therein."./19 And evidently there were not wanting the same extravagant
eulogists among the practicers of this art as of all the others. Sidney+ at the
beginning of his Apologie for Poesie humorously related how Pugliano, under
whom he learned horsemanship while in Italy, exalted the horse and those who
rode him. "Hee sayd, Souldiours were the noblest estate of mankinde, and
horsemen, the noblest of Souldiours. Hee sayde, they were the Maisters of warre
and ornaments of peace: speedy goers, and strong abiders, triumphers both in
Camps and Courts. Nay, to so unbeleeved a poynt hee proceeded, as that no
earthly thing bred such wonder to a Prince, as to be a good horseman. Skill of
government, was but a Pedanteria in comparison: then would hee adde certaine
prayses by telling what a peerlesse beast a horse was. The onely serviceable
Courtier without flattery, the beast of most beutie, faithfulnes, courage, and
such more, that if I had not beene, a peece of a Logician before I came to him,
I think he would have perswaded mee to have wished my selfe a horse." The
horse thus recommended was known as the great horse, in distinction to
palfreys, coursers, and nags. He was of huge size in order to carry a rider
clad in complete armor, and was used only in war and the tournament./20 Because
of the skill required to manage so powerful and spirited an animal riding the
great horse was felt to be a particularly manly exercise, and like all
------
18 Discours sur les Duels de Brantome, Paris, 1887, p. 57.
19 The Scholemaster, Mayor ed., p. 29.
20 Richard Berenger, History and Art of Horsemanship, 1771, I, pp. 169,
170.
155] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 155
properties which men wished to restrict to a specially favored class as
a mark of distinction, it was held appropriate to the gentleman alone because
no one could acquire perfection in it but a noble spirit. Such was the ground
of Morgan+'s appeal "To the gentlemen of Great Britain:" "Shall
man then (so divine a Creature) so much degenerate, to become so slymy and
earthy, not to awake his thoughts from the sleepe of idlenes, to imbrace the
true knowledge of nature, Art and practise of Horsemanshippe, tending so much
to the honour of the King, and preservation of the whole body of the
common-weal? Can any calling bee more noble then a good Horse-man? are they not
tryumphers both in Camps and Courts? Doth any earthly thing breede more wonder,
and hath not the same from all beginning beene hereditarie in the moste noble
persons? how then, shall not that action be accompted most best and honourable,
that is evermore performed by the best ?"/21 Morgan evidently belonged to
the breed of Pugliano. But Spenser+ too makes such skill hereditary.
"In grave poursuitt of honorable deed, There is I know not what great difference Betweene the vulgar and the noble seed, Which unto things of valorous pretence Seemes to be borne by native influence; As feates of armes, and love to entertaine; But chiefly skill to ride seemes a science Proper to gentle blood"/22
What the exercise involved is well described by Cleland+, "Yee
should learne to ride nowe while the sinewes of your thyghes are not fully
consolidated: & your principal study shoulde bee, after that yee have
learned a comelie carriage of your body in the saddle, to practise most these
things, which are most requisit at the wars; as to runne well at the Tylte,
when your bodies are able; to leape on horse-back ate everie side without
styrrop or other helpe, and especiallie while he is going, and being therein
expert, then armed at al points to essaie the same, the commoditie wherof needeth
no declaration. Also to run at the ring with a comelie fashion is as honourable
for a Noble man in al honourable companie as it is shame for him, to run his
Lance against the post, turning his face awry, or not to be able to keep his
horse within the rinck. Learn al the marks of a good
------
21 The Perfection of Horsemanship, London, 1609, ch. 5, p. 9.
22 The Fairie tueene, II, IV, I.
156 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [156
horse; and be able to name al sort of haires, to judge of his age, of
his diseases and remedies, not onlie that yee maie discourse of al things
pertinent thereunto, as becommeth an Horseman, but also that you maie see them
applied for your owne privat use."/23 But even in Elizabeth's day this art
seems to have fallen into decay (as what art or virtue had not in those
decadent times) to judge from the complaints that gentlemen sat their horses
"like wind shaken redes handling their hands & legs like
weavors," or were forced to ride badly broken horses for want of better."/24
The whole century had witnessed efforts to improve the breeding and managing of
horses. Henry_VIII+ had introduced two Italian masters of horse, and Sidney+
and Leicester+ brought in others. Grisone's Art of Riding was translated about
1560, and Claudio Corte's in 1584. These Italians Sidney recommended to his
brother to be read along with his practice, that so he might "profit more
in a month than others in a year."/25 Imitations quickly followed./26 And
yet except for the young blades who tilted before Queen Elizabeth and often
ruined their horses for real service with their curvetting tricks, riding the
great horse remained only a part of the theory of what best becomes a
gentleman. And here again gunpowder was to blame for emasculating the noble youth
of England, for with its introduction heavy armor fell into disuse, and a
lighter armor took its place. A lighter and more active horse then became
necessary, and was accordingly used./27 So do mechanic inventions upset the
best laid ideals of men.
Next to shooting and riding, hunting_and_hawking+,
sports belonging from ancient times most peculiarly to the gentleman, were
recommended in the sixteenth century "as being most royall for the
statelines therof, most artificial for the wisedom & cunning thereof, and
most manly and warlike for the use and endurance thereof."/28 There was
nothing better, on the one hand, to chase away the dumps and refresh the body
than to hunt with spaniels
------
23 Op. cit., bk. V, ch. 21, p. n8.
24 Blundeville, "Chapter to Reader" in his translation of
Grisone, The Art of Riding, London, n. d.
25 ibid.
26 John Astley, The Art of Riding, 1584; Christopher Clifford, The
School of Horsemanship, 1585, dedicated to Sidney; Gervase Markham, How to
Chuse, Ride, Traine, and Diet, both Hunting-horses and Running Horses, 1599.
27 Berenger, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 182-5.
28 Gervase Markham, Country Contentments, 1615, pt. 1, ch. I, p. 3.
157] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 157
and hawks, to train hawks, cure their diseases, fashion their
trappings,/29 and on the other to keep the body, and mind too, in condition for
the serious business of war, for, as Sir Thomas Cockaine+ said, "Hunters
by their continual) travaile, painfull labour, often watching, and enduring of
hunger, of heate, and of cold, are much enabled above others to the service of
their Prince and Countrey in the warres, having their bodies for the most part
by reason of their continual exercise in much better health, than other men
have, and their minds also by this honest recreation the more fit and the
better disposed to all other good exercises?"/30 There was an ancient lore
on the craft of catching the beasts of the field and the forest, and on the
training of hounds and hawks, which the renaissance busily set forth anew for
the sole edification of gentlemen, and which was seriously recommended to them
by their teachers. To quote Cleland+ again: "The things that you are to
observe in this exercise (to my skil) are, that you know the nature of beastes
which you are to hunt, their wiles, the time and season when they should be
hunted, the places where they remaihe in winter, and where in sommer, the winds
which they feare and flie from, to find them out, to knowe their courses, and
whether they be for land or water; to flesh a dogg, uncouple houhdes, followe
them, keepe standing, that ye can blow the morte, the retraite, the chase, to
hollow the time, to holde in time, to let slip in time; and especially that you
can hunt in time and not at all times. For if you neglect your necessarie
affaires you deserve to be punished with Lycaon+ and Acteon+, who were both
hunted and killed by their owne dogges. I would not have you ignorant of the
proper tearmes of hunting, that you maie discourse therof, as wel as hunt, yet
not so, that you can nether do, say, or think of anie thing besides hunting and
dogges, but sparinglie, and at fit times."/31 He was a poor gentleman in
fact who could not discourse learnedly of such matters, but as Cleland
indicated the gentleman needed little urging to his horn and hounds, and only
too often wanted warning against too complete absorption in them to the
hindrance of more important business.
------
28 Op. cit., bk. V, ch. 22, p. 223.
29 George Turberville, The Booke of Faulconrie or Hawking, 1575.
30 A Short Treatise of Hunting, London, 1591, "To the Gentlemen
Readers."
158 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [158
Angling was usually joined to these recreations in treatises on
gentlemanly recreations,/32 though, so mild and solitary a sport, it would seem
to have nothing in common with them except that the fish of the stream, like
the fowl of the air, and the fox of the field looked particularly to the
gentleman for destruction. It is not specifically mentioned in treatises on the
ideal until Peacham+'s Conpleat Gentleman, where a chapter is devoted to
certain practical matters well for an angler to know, with the simple
introduction, "I have taken so much delight in the Art of Angling, that I
may wel terme it the honest and patient mans Recreation, or a Pastime for all
men to recreate themselves at vacant houres." But in 1615 Gervase
Markham+, that indefatigable minister to gentlemen's profit and pleasure,
published a book called The Pleasures of Princes in which appeared this
eulogium. "What worke unto men can be more thankefull then the discourse
of that pleasure which is most comely, most honest, and giveth the most liberty
to Divine meditation, and that without all question is the Art of Angling,
which having ever beene most hurtlesly necessary, hath beene the sport or
recreation of Gods Saints, of most holy Fathers, and of many worthy, and
reverend Divines, both dead, and at this time breathing. "For the use
thereof (in its owne true, and unabused nature) carrieth in it neyther
covetousnesse, deceipt, nor anger, the three maine spirits which (ever in some
ill measure) ruleth in all other pastimes: neyther are they alone predominant
without the attendance of their severall handmaids, as Theft, Blasphemy, or
Bloodshed; for in Dice-play, Cards, Bowles, or any sport where money is the
goale to which mens minds are directed, what can mans avarice there be
accounted other then a familiar robbery, each seeking by deceipt to couzen, and
spoyl other of that blisse of meanes which God had bestowed to support them,
and their families? And as in every contention there must be a better-hood or
super-excelling, so in this, when the weaker deceipt is deprived his
expectation, how Doth it then fall into curses, oathes, and furies, such as
would make Vertue tremble with the imagination? But in this Art of Angling
there is no such evil), no such sinefull violence, for the greatest thing it
coveteth is, for much labour a little Fish, hardly so much as will suffice
Nature in a reasonable stomacke: for the Angler must yntice, not command his
reward, and that which is worthy millions to his contentment, another may buy
for a groate in the Market. His deceipt worketh not upon men but upon those
Creatures whom it is lawfull to beguile for our honest recreations or needefull
uses,
------
32 See Brydges, and Joseph Haslewood, British Bibliographer, 1811, vol.
II, "A Catalogue of Books on Angling," vol. II, p. 353-370.
159] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 159
and for all rage, and fury it must be so great a stranger to this civill
pastime, that if it come but within view or speculation thereof, it is no more
to be esteemed a Pleasure, for every proper good thereof in the very instant
faileth, skewing unto all men that will undergoe any delight therein that it
was first invented, taught, and shall for ever be maintained by Patience only.
And yet I may not say only Patience, for her other three sisters have likewise
a commanding power in this exercise, for Justice+ directeth and appointeth out
those places where men may with liberty use their sport, and neyther doe injury
to their neighbours, nor incure the censure of incivility. Temperance+ layeth
downe the measure of the action, and moderateth desire in such good proportion
that no excesse is found in the overflow of their affections. Lastly,
Fortitude+ inableth the minde to undergoe the travall and exchange of with a
healthfull ease, and not to dispaire with a little, expense of time, but to
persever with a constant imagination in the end to obtaine both pleasure, and
satisfaction."/33 At any rate after Isaak Walton+ who could deny its
gentility? Among indoor games chess+ was the only one generally favored.
Card-playing+, more rarely dice+, was sometimes allowed if used moderately and
honestly, but both were usually condemned out of hand./34 Chess, however, was
found altogether praiseworthy for certain qualities which Rowbothum+ pointed
out in his translation of an Italian work. "Strange (perchance) may it
seeme to some (curteous Reader) that any man should employ his time, and bestow
his labor in setting out such bookes, whereby men may learne to play, when
indeed most men are given rather to play, than to studie and travell: which
were true, if it were for the teaching of Games unlawful', as dice-play, or
cogging, or falsehoode in card-play, or such like. But forasmuch as this Game,
or kingly pastime, is not onely void of craft, fraud, and guile, swearing,
staring, impatience, fretting and falling out, but also breedeth in the
players, a certaine study, wit, pollicie, forecast and memorie, not onely in
the play thereof, but also in actions of publike governement, both in peace and
warre: wherein both Counsellers at home, and Captaines abroade may picke out of
these wodden peeces some pretty pollicy, both how to governe their subjects in
peace, and howe to leade or conduct lively men in the field in warre: for this
Game hath
------
33 Ch. 1, pp. 1-3.
34 ForElyot, op. cit., bk. I, ch. XXVI, p.111; Cleland, op. cit., bk. V,
ch. 24, 25. AgainstAscham, Toxophilus, pp. 51-57; Institucion of a Gentleman,
fo. G4b-G6b; Lord Herbert of Cherbury, op. cit., p. 42.
160 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [160
the similitude of a ranged battel, as by placing the men, and setting
them forth in the march, may very easily appeare."/35 Elyot+ likewise
heartily recommended it, especially if the players have read "the
moralization of chess," that is Caxton's Book of Chess which he had
translated out of the French, where quaintly enough were set forth, piece by
piece, all the degrees of a commonwealth and their duties from king to common
people.
For social recreation in mixed companies dancing+ and
music were favorites, and were provided for in Gilbert's Academy. Dancing of
course, however suspect in strait-laced circles, was necessary for a gentleman
at court, Elizabeth herself being extremely fond of the art and a good vaulter
as the painting at Penshurst+ proves. Sir Christopher Hatton+ was said to have
won her favor by his fine dancing./36 It was approved by the schoolmasters
Ascham+ and Mulcaster+ for the sake of health and pleasure without the
elaborate philosophical interpretation which Elyot devised to clothe it with
respectability and moral sanction./37 Cleland+'s recommendation recalls
Castiglione+'s cautions: "I thinke it one of the best exercises that a
Noble man can learne in his young yeares, and that fashioneth the bodie best. Alwaies
I commend mediocritie in al things: for there is nothing so good, but if it be
used with excesse wil become bad. Wherefore I praise not those Ordinarie
Dauncers, who appeare to he druncke in their legs . . . . in shaking alwaies
their feet, singing continuallie, onetwothree: foure; and five. When you go to
Daunce in anie Honourable companie, take heede that your qualitie, your
Raiment, and your skil go al three togither: if you faile in anie of those
three, you wilbe derided. Imitate not so much the Masters Capers, as to have a
good grace in the carriage of your bodie: this is the principal, and without
the which al the rest is naught."/38 {sprezzaturaaa+} Lord Herbert of
Cherbury+ recommended it to gentlemen in terms that suggest Chesterfield and
the eighteenth century drawing-room, for grace in movement "that when he
hath occasion to stir, his motions may be comely and graceful, that he may
learn to know
------
35 Ludus Scacchiae: Chess-Play, London; 1597, "Address to the
Reader." See also Elyot, ibid; Bossewell, Workes of Armorie, London, 1572,
bk. II, fo. 41a, who quotes Elyot.
36 Sir Robert Naunton, Fragmenta Regalia, Arber rep., 1870, p. 44.
37 The Scholemaster, p. 59; Positions, ch. 16, p. 75; The Governour, bk.
I, ch. XXI-XXV.
38 Op. cit., bk. V, ch. 23, pp. 225-6
161] DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN 16i how to come in and go out of
a room where company is, how to make courtesies handsomely, accordingly to the
several degrees of persons he shall encounter, how to put off and hold his
hat," all of which was taught by the more accurate dancing masters in
France."/39 Music+ had classical authority to give it a place among
studies and also popular use, for it played a large part in the life of the
time./40 The Queen was an able performer on the virginals, and rare must have
been the young gentleman of the court or city who could not play and sing a
song to his lady. It was valued chiefly for the relief it afforded from serious
labor or melancholy mood. Sidney+ wrote his brother, "Take a delight to
keep and increase your music; you will not believe what a want I find of it in
my melancholy times."/41 Ascham+ went farther and even recommended it as
indispensable for the divine and lawyer in teaching them to control their
breathing and modulate their voices. "For the hearers, as Tullie+ sayeth,
be muche affectioned,as he that speaketh. At his wordes be they drawen, yf he
stande still in one facion, their minder stande still with hym: If he thundre,
they quake; If he chyde, they fearer If he complayne, they sory with hym; and
finally, where a matter is spoken, with an apte voyce, for everye affection,
the hearers for the moste parte, are moved as the speaker woulde. But when a
man is alwaye in one tune, lyke an Humble bee, or els nowe up in the top of the
churche, nowe downe that no manne knoweth where to have hym: or piping lyke a
reede, or roring lyke a bull, as some lawyers do, whiche thinke they do best,
when they crye lowdest, these shall never greatly moove, as I have knowen many
wel learnned, have done, bicause theyr voyce was not stayed afore, with
learnyng to sung. For all voyces, great and small, base and shril, wek or
softe, may be holpen and brought to a good poynt by learnyng to synge."/42
But music, like all gentlemanly accomplishments, was to be used with moderation
and in private. Better no knowledge at all, said Elyot+, than such exact
knowledge as to lead to inordinate delight
------
39 Op. Cit., p. 38.
40 Foster Watson, The English Grammar Schools to 1660, Cambridge, 1908,
p. 216; Shakespeare's England, Oxford, 1916, vol. II, pp. 21-3.
41 Op. cit., p. 308.
42 Toxophilus, p. 42. See also William Byird, Medius Psalmes, Sonets,
and songs, London, 1588, "Reasons Briefely set downe by th' author, to
persuade every one to learne to sing."
162 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [162
and neglect of public business./43 And even at the end of the century
gentlemen were being referred for instruction in the decent use of music to
Elyot+ as well as to Aristotle+."/44 The sixteenth century, therefore,
held games of recreation, as Bacon said, a part of "civil life and
education."/45
43 Op. cit., bk. I, ch. VII, pp. 26-7.
44 John Case, The Praise of Music, 1586, "Preface to the
Reader."
45 Advancement of Learning, Spedding, vol. III, p. 379.
CONCLUSION+
What can be said for this ideal man which renaissance Englishmen
fashioned to express their need, this combination of soldier, scholar, and
courtier, this new citizen in whose hands was to be the management of affairs?
What chiefly strikes one is his manysidedness. Fit to serve in war, he has the
virtues and qualities of the soldier,courage+, endurance+, patience+,
generosity+ toward friend and foe, foresight+, adaptibility+, knowledge of
military science. What he lacks that the medieval knight had is joy in the
fight for its own sake. He prefers peace to war. Fit also to serve in peace, he
has the virtues of peace,justice, liberality, courtesy, prudence, the knowledge
how to govern_himself+ and others. He is more than a soldier in that he has the
ability and training to administer the laws and serve in any public capacity in
which his prince may employ him; he is less than a scholar in that he values
learning+ not for its own sake but for its usefulness+. As a courtier+ he
covers the soldier's brute strength and roughness and the scholar's aloofness
and awkwardness with a grace+ of speech and action, a mastery_of_himself+ in
every situation that may arise, an interest in every aspect of life, a
readiness of wit and fund of general knowledge that make of him good company.
He is the ornament as well as the prop of states, and is himself the one best
argument for an aristocracy+.
This ideal, evoked in the sixteenth century from many
and heterogeneous elements, continued to hold men's imagination through the
next two hundred years, so nearly intact that Burke+'s description in 1791 of
what he called a natural aristocracy+ may well serve as a summing up of the
preceding pages. "A true natural aristocracy is not a separate interest in
the state, or separable from it. It is an essential integrant part of any large
body rightly constituted. It is formed out of a class of legitimate
presumptions, which, taken as generalities, must be admitted for actual truths.
To be bred in a place of estimation; to see nothing low and sordid from one's
infancy; to be taught to respect one's self; to be habituated to the censorial
inspection of the public eye; to look early to public opinion; to stand upon
such elevated ground as to be enabled to take a large view of the wide-spread
and infinitely 163
164 DOCTRINE OF THE ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN [164
diversified combinations of men and affairs in a large society; to have
leisure to read, to reflect, to converse; to be enabled to draw the court and
attention of the wise and learned wherever they are to be found;to be
habituated in armies to command and to obey; to be taught to despise danger in
the pursuit of honour duty+; to be formed to the greatest degree of vigilance,
foresight and circumspection, in a state of things in which no fault is
committed with impunity, and the slightest mistakes draw on the most ruinous
consequencesto be led to a guarded and regulated conduct, from a sense that you
are considered as an instructor of your fellow-citizens in their highest
concerns, and that you act as a reconciler between God and manto be employed as
an administrator of law and justice, and to be thereby amongst the first
benefactors to mankindto be a professor of high science+, or of liberal and
ingenuous art+to be amongst rich_traders+, who from their success are presumed
to have sharp and vigorous understandings, and to possess the virtues of
diligence, order, constancy, and regularity, and to have cultivated an habitual
regard to commutative justicethese are the circumstances of men, that form what
I should call a natural aristocracy, without which there is no nation Men,
qualified in the manner I have just described, form in nature, as she operates
in the common modification of society, the leading, guiding, and governing part
It is the soul+ to the body, without which the man does not exist. To give
therefore no more importance, in the social order, to such descriptions of men,
than that of so many units, is a horrible usurpation."/1 During the last
hundred years the steady and ever more rapid infiltration of democratic ideas
has so changed the organization of society that the renaissance gentlemanly
ideal can scarcely be said now to be a class ideal even in England. But it
still persists as a personal ideal, and however much it may seem to have lost
of urbanity, of courtier-like grace, in all the more important relations of
life it is still the guide of aspiring man,, nor for a believer in the
ascending star of democracy is its beauty more than temporarily dimmed.
------
1 An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, 1791, Works and
Correspondence, vol. IV, p. 486.
A TENTATIVE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL LIST OF TREATISES
ON THE GENTLEMAN AND HIS TRAINING
PUBLISHED IN EUROPE TO 1625
[942 treatuses listed, to be added to this web site subsequently]
This is a tentative list of the available material on certain
aspects of the social background of the renaissance. It cannot pretend to
completeness for the field is too great and boundaries are too indefinite. Many
have small claim to be included, and some which I have not seen may prove to
have none. I have gone on the principle that it is better here to risk
irrelevancy than omission, since the list will presumably be used for far
different purposes than my own. The books marked with a star are all those
consulted for my treatise, some of which were helpful only in the preface, or
in a few cases only in the title. All the rest have been added since the
treatise was written, and of them I have seen only those marked with a dagger.
They have been collected from all sorts of sources, from the obvious catalogues
of the British Museum to random reading. A few special bibliographies, such as
Levi and Gelli's on dueling, have been small mines of pure gold. A list of
these is appended at the end of this notice. The Italian section I owe almost
wholly to the generosity of Dr. Bullock, who has ,given of his time in
unstinted measure, both in the making of this list, and in the careful
correction of the proofs. He has also had the kindness to place at my disposal
for examination the large number of these books contained in his own library.
A word should be said about the character of the
entries. To make the contents clear, I have made the titles as complete as
possible from available material, omitting nothing in the case of books that I
have seen except complimentary dedications, and descriptions of the author's
attainments, when they seemed unilluminating. Such omissions I have indicated.
Author, place, printer, and date are given with no indication of whether they
were secured from the title page or elsewhere. In parentheses are dates for all
the editions I have run across, except when more than one came out in the same
year. Capital letters following dates indicate libraries in the United States
where these editions may be 165 1 found. (See the key below.) My main object in
noting other editions than the one cited by title is to indicate something of
the importance of the book, at least in contemporary opinion. I must disclaim real
bibliographical value for these dates, since I have not verified them, nor have
I included further helps to identification of editions and impressions in
place, printer, or publisher. Lack of time and technical training precluded my
doing more than I have saidfurnishing such a list as I myself should have been
very glad to have, when ten years ago I set out to survey the field.
Classification of the alphabetical list proved
impracticable because of overlappping, but an index by number under subject headings,
subdivided into nations, will accomplish the same purpose, I trust. When a
treatise gives considerable space to various topics, the number has been
repeated under those headings, except in the case of most of the general
treatises on the gentleman, courtier, etc., where it may be assumed one will
find something of everything education, morals, sports, and so on. 166
Buisson, F. Repertoire des ouvrages pedagogiques du XVIree siecle.
Paris, i886.Cockle, M. J. D. A bibliography of English military books up to
1642 and of contemporary foreign works. 1900.
Crane, T. F. Italian social customs of the sixteenth
century. New Haven, 1920.
Gutierrez de la Vega, Jose. Del can i del caballo.
Sevilla, 1889. (Not seen.) Haym, N. F. Biblioteca italiana ossia notizia de'
libri rani italiani divisa in quattro parti cioe Istoria, Poesia, Prose, Arti e
Scienze gia compilata da Niccola Francesco Haym. Milano, 1803.
Jusserand, J. J. The ambassador. London, 5924.
Leguina y Vidal, Enrique de. Libros de esgrima, espafioles y portugueses.
Madrid, 1891.
Levi, G. E. and Gelli, J. Saggio di una bibliografia
del duello. Milano,1903.
Magendie, M. La politesse mondaine et les theories de
l'honnetate, en France, au xviie siecle, de 1600 a 1660. Paris. Bibliography IX
XXXVIII.
Moule, Thomas. Bibliotheca heraldica magnae
britanniae. An analytical catalogue of books on genealogy, heraldry, nobility,
knighthood, & ceremonies: with a list of provincial visitations, pedigrees,
collections of arms, and other manuscripts; and a supplement, enumerating the
principal foreign genealogical works. By Thomas Moule. London, 1822.
Nuys, E. Les commencements de la diplomatie et le
droit d' ambassade jusqu' a Grotius. In Revue de droit international et de
legislation comparee. Bruxelles et Leipzig, 1884, vol. XVI, pp. 170-189.
Schwerdt, C. F. G. R. Hunting, hawking, shooting,
illustrated in a catalogue of books, manuscripts, prints and drawings collected
by C. F. G.R. Schwerdt. Three volumes. (Privately printed for the author by
Waterlow and Sons. Not seen.) Scott, M. A. Elizabethan translations from the
Italian. Boston, 1916.
Souhart, R. Bibliographie generale des ouvrages sur
la chasse la venerie & la fauconnerie publie ou composes depius le XVe
siecle jusqu'a ce jour en Francais, Latin, Allemand, Anglais, Espagnol, etc.
Paris, 1886.
Thimm, C. A. A complete bibliography of fencing and
duelling, as practised by all European nations from the middle ages to the
present day. London and New York, 1896.
Vigeant, N. L. P. La bibliographie de 1' escrime
ancienne et moderne. Paris 1882. 167