Gentry are "well-born, genteel and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past. Gentry, in its widest connotation, refers to people of good social position connected to landed estates, upper levels of the clergy, or "gentle" families of long descent who in some cases never obtained the official right to bear a coat of arms. The gentry largely consisted of landowners who could live entirely from rental income or at least had a country estate; some were gentleman farmers. In the United Kingdom, the term gentry refers to the landed gentry: the majority of the land-owning social class who typically had a coat of arms but did not have a peerage. The adjective "patrician" describes in comparison other analogous traditional social elite strata based in cities, such as the free cities of Italy and the free imperial cities of Germany, Switzerland, and the Hanseatic League.
Cleric, knight, and peasant archetypes represent the virtues of prudence, fortitude, and temperance, respectively. In classical antiquity and Christendom, prudence and fortitude were seen as the cardinal virtues that should govern society.
This part of a 12th-century Swedish tapestry has been interpreted to show, from left to right, the one-eyed Odin, the hammer-wielding Thor and Freyr. This triad corresponds closely to the trifunctional division: Odin is the patron of priests and magicians, Thor of warriors, and Freyr of fertility and farming.
Europe and the Byzantine Empire 1000 CE
George Washington
Manorialism, also known as seigneurialism, the manor system or manorial system, was the method of land ownership in parts of Europe, notably France and later England, during the Middle Ages. Its defining features included a large, sometimes fortified manor house in which the lord of the manor and his dependants lived and administered a rural estate, and a population of labourers or serfs who worked the surrounding land to support themselves and the lord. These labourers fulfilled their obligations with labour time or in-kind produce at first, and later by cash payment as commercial activity increased. Manorialism was part of the feudal system.
Ploughing on a French ducal manor in March from the manuscript, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, c.1410
The great hall at Penshurst Place, Kent, built in the mid 14th century. A manor house hall was where the lord and his family ate, received guests, and conferred with dependents
Reconstruction of a medieval castle, Bachritterburg, Baden-Württemberg