Certainly in early modern usage, armiger is the Latin for esquire; anything
else is a mistranslation.
The Latin for knight is miles (which is the classical Latin for a soldier).
I asked on this list a couple of years back what the significance of the
description 'chevalier' was. The eventual conclusion that I reached from
the discussion was that this was the (Norman) French for knight.
The Latin for gentleman is (I think) something like generosus, but I do not
recall often seeing this.
I had always understood that the traditional training for a knight started
off with him being a page in a noble household; then he spent his teenage
years as an esquire, before being knighted at about the age of 21. However
I suspect that a lot of the lords of small manors (even if holding their
manor by knight service) did not proceed as far as being knighted and thus
remained squires for the rest of their lives.
Peter King
-----Original Message-----
From: From: Local-History list [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Postles, Dr D.A.
Sent: 30 December 2004 14:20
To: Peter Wickham King
Subject: armiger
The status of armiger relates to the person who carried the knight's arms
(arma), his esquire. The use of armigerous to indicate having a coat of
arms is a later use and I have never come across the noun's use in this
sense, although it does occur in some dictionaries. Gentleman is a very
broad status, distinguished usually by the title Master, and which became
increasingly contested as many aspired to it, including non-armigerous
families - thus Mayors and Aldermen insisted on being addressed as Master
and as Gentleman.
DP
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