What Is a Yeoman?
The story behind our name
Yeoman is a family name: Yeoman & Company was founded in 2012 by brothers Cory and Andrew Yeoman. The word itself is far older, and for most of its history it has been about property.
A household attendant
The word first appears in Middle English in the 1300s, as yoman or yeman. Its origin is uncertain; the likeliest explanation is a contraction of “young man”. The earliest yeomen were attendants in royal and noble households, ranked below a squire and above a page.
A landholder with a voice
By the fifteenth century the word had come to mean something more lasting: a commoner who held and farmed his own land. Yeomen ranked below the gentry but above tenants and labourers, and they were the backbone of the English countryside.
Their land gave them a say. From 1430, a man whose freehold was worth forty shillings a year could vote in county elections. Owning property, and knowing what it was worth, brought standing, along with the taxes and duties that came with it.
Yeoman’s service
Yeomen supplied many of the longbowmen at Crécy and Agincourt and earned a reputation for steady, dependable work. The phrase “yeoman’s service”, meaning useful work done well, keeps that reputation alive; in Hamlet, Shakespeare has the prince use it of his own careful handwriting.
Henry VII founded the Yeomen of the Guard as his bodyguard in 1485, and it remains the oldest surviving British military corps. Its cousins, the Yeoman Warders, still serve at the Tower of London.
Keeper of the record
In the United States Navy and Coast Guard, a yeoman is the sailor responsible for records, correspondence and administration: the person who makes sure the paperwork is right.
The name today
Owners who knew their property and their rights, did the work carefully and kept an accurate record: it is a fair description of what we do for property owners across Canada, through assessment reviews, appeals and tax management.