- Location
- Lincolnshire
Isn't this what sets farming apart from other "careers" or at least used to set it apart before it became more corporate and industrial.
The yeoman class was never servant, never gentry, but fitted somewhere in between.
It wasn't just about farming either, it was a social niche and still is.
Is this what people from outside fail to understand? Living the life of a yeoman wasn't necessarily about maximising efficiency, it was more about enjoying a certain amount of independence and freedom. In some ways farming was a sideline and still is for some, a bothersome necessity rather than a raison detre.
You can trace the the yeoman families in this district back to Norman times though the spelling of the names has changed slightly. Pagnell has become Payne etc. Very few are left as landholders, most having being integrated into modern industrial society or their modest holdings merged into large estates that belong to the gentry.
But some remain, preferring a degree of independence over the chance maybe for greater wealth, but at the price of losing ones freedom and becoming a modern day bondsman.
So some people who might appear to be farmers aren't actually farmers first and foremost. They are yeomen who just happen to do a bit of farming. They aren't entirely beholden to it, some aren't particularly interested in it, some enjoy it, some have to do it. This is what sets farming apart.
There never was and never will be yeomen accountants or solicitors.
The yeoman class was never servant, never gentry, but fitted somewhere in between.
It wasn't just about farming either, it was a social niche and still is.
Is this what people from outside fail to understand? Living the life of a yeoman wasn't necessarily about maximising efficiency, it was more about enjoying a certain amount of independence and freedom. In some ways farming was a sideline and still is for some, a bothersome necessity rather than a raison detre.
You can trace the the yeoman families in this district back to Norman times though the spelling of the names has changed slightly. Pagnell has become Payne etc. Very few are left as landholders, most having being integrated into modern industrial society or their modest holdings merged into large estates that belong to the gentry.
But some remain, preferring a degree of independence over the chance maybe for greater wealth, but at the price of losing ones freedom and becoming a modern day bondsman.
So some people who might appear to be farmers aren't actually farmers first and foremost. They are yeomen who just happen to do a bit of farming. They aren't entirely beholden to it, some aren't particularly interested in it, some enjoy it, some have to do it. This is what sets farming apart.
There never was and never will be yeomen accountants or solicitors.
