Significance
The social class of franklin, meaning (latterly) a person not only free (not in feudal servitude) but also owning the freehold of land, and yet not even a member of the "landed gentry" (knights, esquires and gentlemen, the lower grades of the upper class) let alone of the nobility (barons, viscounts, earls/counts, marquis, dukes), evidently represents the beginnings of a real-property-owning middle class in England in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Note that the land and property owned by this English middle class might well be in the country, one factor distinguishing it from the mainland European bourgeoisie which term means "town-dwellers".
Read more about this topic: Franklin (class)
Famous quotes containing the word significance:
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—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Of what significance the light of day, if it is not the reflection of an inward dawn?—to what purpose is the veil of night withdrawn, if the morning reveals nothing to the soul? It is merely garish and glaring.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
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—Calvin Coolidge (1872–1933)