Yeoman

Yeoman (apparently from an assumed A.S. gaman or gedman, 'a villager;,' from same root as Ger. gatt, and man), a term which seems, in early English history, to have been applied to a common attendant menial servant, but after the 15th century came to denote a class of small freeholders, forming the next grade below gentlemen (see FRANKLIN). The term yeoman was also given to the forty shillings freeholder (see PARLIAMENT) or, more loosely, to any small farmer or countryman above the grade of labourer. The term is also familiar in the titles of functionaries in royal households, such as Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, Yeoman of the Robes, &c.