Y - Yeoman

Yeoman /ˈjoʊmən/ 

First documented in mid-14th-century England, referring to the middle ranks of servants in an English royal or noble household. Yeomanry was the name applied to groups of freeborn commoners engaged as household guards, or raised as an army during times of war. 

Over time it came to mean a man holding and cultivating a small landed estate; a freeholder, ergo a yeoman farmer, farmed his own land. When it came to classes in English society yeoman were intermediate between gentry and labourers. 

There is quite an abundance of Yeomen in the families connected to my Davys family in Somerset and Devon. Some documents record them as Gentlemen, Farmers or Living on their own means.

Families include: Davys,Palfrey, Norman, Vickery, Yeandle, Stone, Williams, Surrage, Burge, Brewer, Hancock, Manning, Venn.

Farms include: Kingston, Upcott, Hurstone, Tripp, Chapmans, More, Hagley Bridge, Severidges, Chubworthy, Ashway, Giffords, Trowell, Shapwick, Cridlands, Shute, Little Knowle, Little Wilscombe, Washers, Gupworthy, Quartley, Bovey, Withey, Little Withey, Catford, Notwell, Monkham, Hellings.

Parishes include: Raddington, Milverton, Chipstable, Clatworthy, Luxborough, Treborough, Huish Champflower, Taunton, Ashbrittle, Brompton Ralph, Cutcombe, Dulverton, Withiel Florey, Upton, Skilgate, Morebath, Bampton, Tiverton, Clayhanger, East Anstey.

So how did these families find themselves in this position socially? The Davys' at least, were definitely in this class by 1719 at the start of the Georgian era when the document transferring entitlement to land at Hagley was drawn up between father and son. Had they played their cards right in a recent of historic event such as the Monmouth Uprising in 1685? Were they established in Somerset and Devon earlier than that? Did it date back as far as the Norman invasion in 1066 for some families?

We may never know.