Gentry (Themiclesia)
The Themiclesian gentry (百姓, prêk-sjêngh; lit. "the many tribes") are a class of families closely associated with public office and political power, typically possessing large amounts of land and tenancies. Though initially associated with specific settlements, their political influence expanded together with the centralization of politics and was instrumental in shaping early national identity in Themiclesia. In the Hexarchy, their support often determined cities' loyalties to competing monarchs, and later they formed royal administrations centrally and locally, holding sufficient power to depose monarchs or ruling houses. After the 16th century, the gentry grew to encompass notables in commerce who desired political access, and the Great Settlement of 1801 has been called a gentry revolution that resulted in constitutional democracy in 1845.
Name
The Shinasthana term sjêngh (姓) has a broad range of derived meanings, concentrating on common heritage. In Themiclesian usage, the term implies social organization based on common descent, but more nebulously compared to words like tsok (族), which means a descent group, usually patrilineal, that acts as a tangible political or even military unit. In this sense, the word sjêngh is comparable to the Sylvan word tribus "tribe" or Kyrian word phratry (φρατρία) "kinfold", which are communal identities reckoned upon common descent that may not be clearly traceable or adhere to a common nucleus of authority. The word prêk, lit. "hundred", is used figuratively to mean a multitude of tribes.
The Anglian name "gentry" has two etymologies. On the one hand, certain Casaterran authors writing about Themiclesia during the medieval period thought the powerful families that dominated the royal court bore a certain resemblance to contemporary Casaterran nobility and translated sjêngh or "clan" into Sylvan gens, whence the Sylvanate term "gentry". On the other hand, more recent authors have also compared the distinct class of economically well-off, politically active network of families that hold both national and local influences to an upper or middle class in Casaterra, and thus applied the contemporary term "gentry" to them as well.
Antiquity
Medieval period
Modern period
During the civil war of the late 1500s, the despotic rule and excessive lifestyle of Emperor R′jit caused widespread discontent, and a rival claimant to the throne quickly acquired broad support from the landed classes. In order to restrict the power of landowners, R′jit forcibly moved many families to less fertile areas and distributed their lands to tenants. In 1589, he ordered that families that did not serve in his court may own no more than 100 kw′rjang′ of land (about 5.2 km²), and anything more was subject to mandatory purchase at a rate the landowners considered unacceptable. Through this measure, he sought to enrich his supporters and to dissolve the financial basis of his opponents. These drastic policies enraged most of the landowners in Themiclesia, who rose up in arms and deposed him in 1599.
After a brief civil war, the royal court commanded that the gentry registry be revised in each prefecture, removing those who perennially lived in other places. Due to the lack of a functional bureaucracy, the immediate fiscal needs of the state were defrayed by the gentry of each prefecture amongst themselves. While this originated as a contingency, the simplified administration appealed to both the monarch and the gentry. On the one hand, large landowners functioned like tax collectors, as they collected rents from peasants and the government then taxed their income based on the proportion of productive land they owned in the prefecture. On the other hand, it alleviated the need to appoint and pay for thousands of taxmen; this economy was applied to improving pay for officials and reducing taxes. As the tax quota in each prefecture was fixed, landowners were supposed to seek out each other, so that the tax quota was distributed over a larger base.
This is the usually considered the final reform that gave rise to the modern gentry system, which Casaterran ethnographies described as the "noble, high-ranking men in each prefecture" (homines in praefecturis nobiles et superi). Starting from the reign of Emperor Gwidh-mjen in 1680, there was a greater emphasis on participation in administration as a characteristic of the gentry, though it was not a requisite factor as in the medieval period. In 1703, Gwidh-mjen ordered the sons of the gentry either join his army or the administration and imposed a fine on those who refused to do both.