Yeomanry (Noun)
Meaning 1
A British volunteer cavalry force organized in 1761 for home defense later incorporated into the Territorial Army.
Classification
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects.
Meaning 2
Class of small freeholders who cultivated their own land.
Classification
Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects.
Examples
- The yeomanry of the village were known for their independence and self-sufficiency, living off the land they owned and worked themselves.
- In medieval England, the yeomanry played a crucial role in the country's agricultural economy, producing food for both local and national markets.
- The yeomanry of the American colonies were instrumental in the fight for independence, bringing their skills as farmers and militiamen to the battlefield.
- Historians have long debated the social and economic status of the yeomanry, with some arguing that they were a distinct class of small landowners and others seeing them as simply a subset of the larger peasantry.
- The decline of the yeomanry in the 19th century was a result of the increasing industrialization of agriculture and the consolidation of landholdings into larger estates.