When we picture Tudor power, we usually picture Dukes and Earls jostling for positions at court.

But most of the real work of running Tudor England fell to the families just below them.

At the start of Henry VIII's reign, there were 57 peers, and by its end, there were only 44.

Meanwhile, nearly 2,000 gentry served as

justices of the peace alone. Without them, nothing in the kingdom would have functioned.

These are the pastons of Norfolk, the tines of Longleet, and the Arendals of Cornwall, people

who weren't famous enough to dominate the history

books, but who kind of handled everything from tax collection to riot control. If the nobility were

the headline acts, the gentry were the stage crew keeping the whole show running. So the other

day we talked about the nobility in England and what they actually did.

But today we are going to talk about the gentry.

So get cozy, grab a beverage, settle in, and let's discuss.

Hey friend, welcome back to the YouTube channel for the Renaissance English History Podcast.

I am your host, Heather, and I've been podcasting on Tudor England since 2009 with my show,

which makes it the original Tudor History podcast, I am delighted, thrilled, just so very

grateful that you are here with me today to talk about Tudor Gentry. Let's dig into it.

First of all, who counted as gentry? Well, the Tudor Gentry included knights, Es esquires, and gentlemen, people with coats of arms,

land, and enough social standing to avoid manual labor.

They weren't actually noble, but they were part of the ruling class.

The line between gentlemen and man with money sharpened during this period, partly because heralds became

obsessed with who had the right to call themselves anything. Heraldic visitations from

1530 onward recorded pedigrees, confirmed armorial bearings, and occasionally told overambitious

...