The influence of class on values

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  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Gee D wrote: »

    When Adam delved and Eve span
    Who was then the gentle man?

    Should not the second line be "gentleman"?

    Not in the 17th century original.

    Seventeenth century? You are referring to the scene in Hamlet? John Ball spoke this in a 1381 open air sermon in Blackheath during the Peasant Revolt:

    "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman? From the beginning all men by nature were created alike, and our bondage or servitude came in by the unjust oppression of naughty men. For if God would have had any bondmen from the beginning, he would have appointed who should be bond, and who free. And therefore I exhort you to consider that now the time is come, appointed to us by God, in which ye may (if ye will) cast off the yoke of bondage, and recover liberty." (This is printed in modern prose, not fourteenth century form, so "gentle man" may indeed be also the version used in 1381.)
  • Neither "gentleman" nor "gentle man" are 14th century English.

    Chaucer, in his tales, uses both "gentil man" and "gentilman" and doesn't seem to draw a distinction between the two. It's likely that there's no semantic meaning to the space.
  • LydaLyda Shipmate
    Thanks for the info. As I said, what I quoted was a modern rendering.

    From Thomas Walsingham (d. 1422), Historia Anglicana:

    "Whan Adam dalf, and Eve span,
    Wo was thanne a gentilman?
  • My apologies, I had in mind it was from the Levellers.
  • No, Levellers were later.
  • Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?
    Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?

    Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.

    The village was run by the Vicar and the Headmaster - at least in their eyes anyway. The Vicar refused to Christen me as I came from the Council Estate.

    In the next village until the mid 1950's, the Rector was also the major landowner. The family still own the land and much of the housing. Until the 1970's people were thrown out if their daughter got pregnant before being married. A family member is still churchwarden.
  • No, Levellers were later.

    Yes, 17th century, which is why I gave that date first before Lyda corrected me.
  • KarlLBKarlLB Shipmate
    Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?
    Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?

    Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.

    The village was run by the Vicar and the Headmaster - at least in their eyes anyway. The Vicar refused to Christen me as I came from the Council Estate.

    In the next village until the mid 1950's, the Rector was also the major landowner. The family still own the land and much of the housing. Until the 1970's people were thrown out if their daughter got pregnant before being married. A family member is still churchwarden.

    It ought to be beyond belief. I'm willing to believe said headmaster was a sadistic bastard as well - it usually goes with the territory.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    Is a vicar (lower case deliberate) in the CofE allowed to refuse to christen? (As opposed to RCs or other non-established churches?) I feel that if he had done it, it would not have been done. On second thoughts, God would not refuse the sacrament because the person administrating was an unholy apology for a human being. How did you get Christened, then?
    And the evictions in the next village - appalling. I did not know this sort of thing went on. (Any connection between the occupation of a council house and the loss of tied housing for spurious reasons?)
    (And probably due to absorbing Catherine Cookson unread, any connection between the ruling families' offspring and the reason for eviction?)
  • ForthviewForthview Shipmate
    I thought that in England anyone had the right to be christened in the CofE parish church. Is it possible that the said council estate was not in this vicar's parish but in another one ?
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Leorning Cniht: Neither "gentleman" nor "gentle man" are 14th century English.

    Chaucer, in his tales, uses both "gentil man" and "gentilman" and doesn't seem to draw a distinction between the two. It's likely that there's no semantic meaning to the space.

    Agreed: According to my etymological source 'gentleman' dates back to the 12th century and referred to persons beyond the rank of yeoman, which confirm my understanding that John Ball's usage referred to the Lord of the Manor and upwards. In Eden there was no social distinction, including, essentially, gender roles.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Leorning Cniht - I like it.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.
    .

    A truly horrible verse. We refuse to sing it.
  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    edited April 14
    That really gives me pause about the otherwise admirable Mrs Alexander. It isn't in most books I know.
    When my family moved to rural parts, the patriarch of the "family" did not see my parents when they first attended the church. As in, their eyes passed over them as if they were not there. not even a see and ignore cut. Then he found out that Dad was an accountant, and as the church needed a Treasurer...
    But it wasn't as closed a village as those mentioned above.
  • KarlLB wrote: »
    Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?
    Penny S wrote: »
    Ethne Alba wrote: »
    Oh curtsying to the The Lady of The Manor was still around in my childhood. Rural England , 1969. Her Uppittyship stopped the cart and questioned me concerning “ manners”. Then appeared at school on Monday morning to complain!

    The headmistress explained that we had recently moved to the area.

    My father hit the roof, spectacularly so.

    Nineteen Sixty Flipping Nine? Where on earth was this? Some English version of Brigadoon? And how old was she? And what on earth did she think "manners" were?

    Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.

    The village was run by the Vicar and the Headmaster - at least in their eyes anyway. The Vicar refused to Christen me as I came from the Council Estate.

    In the next village until the mid 1950's, the Rector was also the major landowner. The family still own the land and much of the housing. Until the 1970's people were thrown out if their daughter got pregnant before being married. A family member is still churchwarden.

    It ought to be beyond belief. I'm willing to believe said headmaster was a sadistic bastard as well - it usually goes with the territory.

    Well the Head was an elder of the Congregational Church. Didn't seem very Christian to me.
  • ExclamationMarkExclamationMark Shipmate
    edited April 14
    Forthview wrote: »
    I thought that in England anyone had the right to be christened in the CofE parish church. Is it possible that the said council estate was not in this vicar's parish but in another one ?

    It was 200 yards from the church. Well within the parish. The law never bothered Vicars very much - a famous case from 1830s about baptism proves it.

    Apparently my dad didn't go to church regularly enough. He was a Farm labourer and animals have to be fed sometimes.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Exclamation Mark Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.

    But not the chapel.

    The stanza was certainly excluded from various Methodist Hymn Books dating back to the hymn's origins, and I suspect other nonconformist congregations left it out. Significantly, Mrs Alexander's husband was a Church of Ireland clergyman who became Bishop of Bishop of Derry Armagh. I guess the Irish Catholics, if acquainted with the hymn, made a similar elision!

  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    There are times when the concept of reincarnation seems attractive, with these folk with the sense of entitlement get reborn in the status they thought beneath them, as in the Magnificat. Or they roll up in Heaven and have to serve those they despised.
  • SojournerSojourner Shipmate
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Exclamation Mark Well where I lived, into the late 1970's the church sang All Things Bright and Beautiful with all the verses

    The Rich man in his castle
    The Poor man at the gate
    He made them high or lowly
    And ordered their estate.

    But not the chapel.

    The stanza was certainly excluded from various Methodist Hymn Books dating back to the hymn's origins, and I suspect other nonconformist congregations left it out. Significantly, Mrs Alexander's husband was a Church of Ireland clergyman who became Bishop of Bishop of Derry Armagh. I guess the Irish Catholics, if acquainted with the hymn, made a similar elision!

    Not in any RC hymnal of my acquaintance; mind you there are plenty of equally ornery ones therein


  • Penny SPenny S Shipmate
    I never came across that verse as a child - Songs of Praise, Congregational Praise. It was rumoured to exist later in my life, but I have never seen it in print in a book.
  • BroJamesBroJames Purgatory Host, 8th Day Host
    Hymnary.org only shows that verse appearing in, I think, two hymnals, one from the 19th century, and a Lutheran hymnal from 1917.
  • Ethne AlbaEthne Alba Shipmate
    I was supposed to sing that verse for about three years in one primary . The new headteacher banned it!
    Then was supposed to sing it for a final year in a new school.

    Thinking back, I should have just mimed the singing, there was a deal of pointless Being Kept In At Playtime
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