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74 THE ANCESTOR gentlemen, but a fair number figure in that drawn up in 1431. In Fuller's so-called 'List of Gentry in 1433/ which, as 1 have already shown, was not a list of gentry and was made in 1434, only forty-two persons in the twenty-eight counties referred to are returned as gentlemen ; that is to say, fifteen in Derbyshire, two in Lincolnshire, twelve in Rutland, as many in Stafford- shire, and one in Yorkshire. Amongst the wills in the York Registry, I noticed only one before 1430 and nine between 1430 and 1450,^ in which the testator or the testator's husband is described as ' gentilman.' ^ Of the persons referred to six resided at York, for the custom seems to have been first intro- duced in the towns and to have made its way but slowly into the country districts. The register of York freemen, published by the Surtees Society, is particularly valuable for our purpose, for it commences in 1272 and gives the rank or profession of almost every person admitted to the freedom of the city. From 1394 onwards one or two esquires are usually found in the list. In 141 6 we first meet with husbandmen and yeo- men, and in 141 7-8 with ^ Willelmus Holthorp^ gentilman.' A second ' gentilman ' is entered in 1426, and after 1433 there is hardly a year in which two or three do not occur. A few years later gentlemen have become so common that they are beginning to be recognized as a separate class of the community. In Peacock's 'Repressor,'^ written in 1449, we find the phrase ' whether he be knyght, squyer, gentilman, yoman or lougher,' and in the statute of 1463,^ 'no esquire, nor gentleman, nor none other under the degree of a knight.' But even in the latter half of the fifteenth century the order of gentlemen was ^ Thomas DufFeld of York, Jan. 7, 1427-8. John Tonge of York, Nov. 1430. Agnes Kenlay of York, June 26, 1433. John At Well of Beverley, Oct. 3, 1434. John Stirtaunt of York, April 22, 1434. Henry Meleton of York, Jan. 10, 1436. John Kirkby of York, Nov. 2, 1436. Joan Cotyngham of Howme, 1437. John Tymw^orth of Acome, Oct. 22, 1438. Thomas Water of Sywardby, April 20, 1449. 2 There must be one or two others. Thomas Lyndley of Lyndley, w^ho died in 1439, is described as * gentilman ' in his will and as Armiger in the margin of the Register, but neither description is appended to his name in the index published by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society. ^ Chronicles^ etc. ii. 371. * II. 399.