SC - Myths -- Taillevent

[Decker, Terry D.]

But the OED is "English," and does not necessarily apply to the French.
There is some evidence that the French were far more rank concious than the
English and would be less likely to have yeoman squires.  The use of ecuyer
as opposed to escuier actually suggests gentry.  The gentry ride, while the
peasants walk in the dust of the road.

One also needs to keep in mind the organizational context of the squire.
For a common knight, a yeoman squire makes a certain sense, while a Royal
household would be more likely to have gentlemen as squires.

The 1380 date is interesting because it is at the beginning of a period
where a number of knighthoods were refused because the title of knight did
not have enough income to support the equipage requirements.  In fact,
without a war to support them a number of knights who had not gathered lands
and wealth during the last phase of the Hundred Years War became brigands or
condottieri opening the historical transition between bastard fuedalism and
the professional military of the nation-state.

Bear

> At 19:35 -0600 2001-01-25, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> > If we were talking German, I think we would be talking 
> about a knight
> > (Ritter or "rider").  "Ecuyer" roughly translates as 
> "rider".  However, this
> > is French and the word appears to derive from the Old 
> French "escuier" or
> > esquire.  The term is likely being used to describe petite 
> nobility, actual
> > rank being determined by the custom of time and place.
> 
> The OED has a citation from 1380 for the use of 'squire' to also 
> mean a servant or attendant or follower, without implication any 
> longer of being of the gentry.
> 
> Thorvald