Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Tables and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Approaching the Stonors and their Papers
- 1 The Stonors: A Gentry Family Biography
- 2 Lineage
- 3 Landed Estate
- 4 The Stonors' Lords
- 5 Early Social Networks: Judge John to Thomas I
- 6 Later Social Networks and Gentry Values: Thomas II and William
- Conclusion: Gentry Networks, Culture, Mentality and Society
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - The Stonors' Lords
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Abbreviations
- List of Tables and Maps
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction: Approaching the Stonors and their Papers
- 1 The Stonors: A Gentry Family Biography
- 2 Lineage
- 3 Landed Estate
- 4 The Stonors' Lords
- 5 Early Social Networks: Judge John to Thomas I
- 6 Later Social Networks and Gentry Values: Thomas II and William
- Conclusion: Gentry Networks, Culture, Mentality and Society
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Because of their extensive lands, the Stonors could number themselves among the greater or élite gentry, their income, too, being commensurate with this elevated status. Like other gentry, they were concerned with their lineage and with their lands. But with a comfortable income from their estate, they did not necessarily have to look for lordship, at least not to provide them with more than small additions to their income in the form of retaining fees. H. L. Gray has argued that the greater and lesser gentry held a larger share of national wealth compared with the baronage, but criticism of his analysis has focused, in part, on the £7000 of life annuities paid to the gentry by the baronage, which had some effect on the balance of their respective shares. Even so, his central thesis, that the peerage did not dominate late-medieval society, may be allowed to stand. He and McFarlane concluded that the balance of income between baronage and gentry, and the greater numbers of gentry, allowed the latter independence in the political forum of the commons.
Moreover, the extent to which the gentry, particularly substantial gentry, needed ties with their superiors in order to have influence in the county, should not be overestimated. Payling has suggested that it was unlikely that more than a minority of the greater Nottinghamshire gentry, the ‘natural governors of the shire’, were retained by baronial superiors.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The World of the StonorsA Gentry Society, pp. 99 - 128Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2009