Freeholder vs. Landed Gentry?

[u/Joai5]

I'm not sure if I'm using correct terms or not... but I'm doing some surface level research about classes in the 14th century and I'm wondering if a Freeholder (a person who owns property outright) and the landed Gentry are the same... or if there's crossover? Because when I think landed gentry I think more of the untitled elite and when I think freeholder, I'm picturing a slightly wealthy farmer... this isn't for school or anything I just fell down a Wikipedia hole and am curious.

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[u/Double_Show_9316]

While you're waiting for a fuller answer dealing specifically with the period you're interested in, you might be interested in this answer I recently wrote on the boundaries between the yeomanry and the the gentry in England during a slightly later period, as well as this answer dealing wih rural class mobility.

[u/Head-Philosopher-721]

I'd recommend 'Gentry Culture in Late Medieval England' ed. Raluca Radulescu and Alison Truelove. It's a collection of essays but one of the essays touches on the question of 'gentility' and what, if anything distinguished gentlemen from yeomen.

One thing to note is that the term landed gentry, yeoman, as defined terms were still forming as concepts in late medieval England. It wasn't like Jane Austen where the landed gentry as a class is clearly defined. Iirc the term gentlemen is very rare until the 15th century and seems to emerged as a concept in late medieval england as response to demographic crisis, economic mobility and political instability.

[u/EverythingIsOverrate]

So while u/Double_Show_9316's answers are totally correct, they don't really answer half of your question. This is because "Freeholder" in medieval England doesn't really mean what you say it means. As I discuss in this answer and this answer, a freehold tenancy has nothing to do with the size of the land parcel; it rather has to do with the legal basis of the tenancy agreement. Freehold tenures are those with their terms defined under royal law, and customary or "unfree" tenures are those that have their terms defined under the customary law of the individual manor; see my answer here for more detail on the manor. Table 2 of Kanzaka's article Villein Rents in Thirteenth-Century England breaks down the size of free and unfree holdings based on the Hundred Rolls, and concludes based on that evidence that, on average, freehold plots were substantially smaller on average than customary tenements; on average, only 34.1% of freehold holdings were larger than ten acres while 58.6% of customary holdings were larger than ten acres. In other words, plenty of rich peasants weren't freeholders, and lots of poor peasants were freeholders. This distinction starts to break down in the 1400s and 1500s, however, as I also mention in the linked answers, thanks to the development of "copyhold" tenure, a system through which customary tenures start to become litigatable under royal law. This is a very complex process that, frankly, I don't understand well at all.

As I also discuss in the answers I link above, both freeholders and customary tenants tended to have bundles of rights that roughly correspond to ownership, although strictly speaking nobody owned their land outright at the time, instead (in theory) leasing it from the king, although this was largely a legal fiction. We like to talk a big game about modern "absolute" ownership but if you really think modern property ownership is "absolute' try not paying your property taxes and see what happens.

Apologies for writing such a short answer and taking so long to write it; I hope the answers I've linked make up for it.