Yeoman - Etymology

Etymology

The word yeoman was spelled in various ways in the Middle Ages, such as yeman, yoman, yoeman, and may be derived from an Anglo-Saxon or other Germanic word yongeman or yongerman, yonge man or iunge man ("young man"). This may have referred to a freeborn servant (serviens or sergeant) ranking between an esquire (shield escort, from scutum) and a page (pagus, meaning "rustic" and later "young errand boy"). The term yongermen is found in text as early as the 12th century, and the term geongramanna is found in Beowulf at a much earlier period (700-800). Serving men of districts, since the days of the Gau polities in Germania, and the stretches of the Germanic peoples throughout Western Europe immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire would most likely be young men, or young men of the district. Yeoman or gauman within the definition of both land and/or service of a young man appeared mostly settled around the border regions or remote countrysides of their districts, or kingdoms (both modern and ancient); thus a connection or association with pagus (pages), or rustics to the term yeoman. In the 14th century the English language increasingly replaced Latin and Norman French in noble circles, and the French term valet and the Latin term valectus were replaced by the term yeoman. The term yeoman, primarily identified as "servant", is noted throughout the Calendar Patent Rolls in the early 14th century.

The Canon's Yeoman's Prologue and Tale appears in Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.