Talk:Squire

European versions?
What about squires on the continent? What did they call them in France? Germany? Italy? They had them there, didn't they -- or something like them? --69.245.192.52 20:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes: the apprentice of a knight would be called a Knappe in High German or schildknaap in Dutch - related to the English "knave"; the later use is equivalent to the (in)famous Junker (jonker in Dutch).

--MWAK 12:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Confusingly some German speakers - notable the Teutonic Order - appear to have used the term knecht for a similar job description. Given the etymology of the word 'knight' this makes sense, but it's damned confusing for an English speaker. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 16:46, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Sidecar
Shouldn't we make a seperate page for the vehicle? Or at least move it down? I feal that having this information in a page generaly dedicated to the title of squire to be lacking a valide reason for its appearence.Dryzen 15:25, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

A lot of over-lap with Esquire...
This article and the article on "Esquire" have an awful lot of over-lap. Should they be combined into one article, or should some of the information be more seperated out? As it currently stands, there's information here about the term "esquire" that isn't on the page for "Esquire," at all. The page for "Esquire" doesn't even mention "squire."


 * Nothing happened and this is true - both pages should be combined as one indeed. Blowup 09:24, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

Keep the Squire and Esquire pages separate!
I disagree with Blowup. I live in the UK and was initiated as an 'Entered Apprentice' Esquire in 1960 and became a 'Master' Esquire in 1970. And I was called Squire by a lawyer friend of mine many years ago, who has long since died, sometimes with a touch of irony that his legal qualification did not qualify him for it, whereas mine legitimised his calling me it.

Both he and I fully understood that Squire and Esquire can mean the same thing, etymologically, having come from the same root, 'Old French esquier, escuier , etc' ; but completely different things to the majority living in the UK at that time.

We also knew that, in the battle for supremacy in terms of being ancient and justified, Squire beats Esquire hands down. Comparison of the Oxford English Dictionary entries for Squire and Esquire conveniently reveals this. I have copied and pasted what it says about their pronunciation, etymology and forms below for simplicity as I have on-line access to it. Please note which version of the word it says appears the earliest in the literature it cites as examples of its use -

Squire


 * 1) Pronunciation:  /skwaɪə(r)/
 * Forms: α. ME–16 squier (ME squiare, ME -ere), ME–15 squyer (ME sqyer, squyȝer, ME sqvyȝer), ME squyere (ME squyeer), squyar; ME sqwyer (ME sqwier), sqwyar, (ME Sc. sqwhyare), ME–15 sqwyere; ME scwyer, scwier, scoyer, skwier, skuyer (ME skuyere), ME skyer; ME suier, ME–15 swyer, ME swier(e, swiar. β. ME squeyer, ME squeer; Sc.ME squear, sqwear, squere, 15 sqwere. γ. ME swyr, 15 swyre; ME squir, ME–15 squyre, 15– squire. δ. 16– 'squire.(Show Less)
 * Etymology: < Old French esquier, escuier , etc., whence also the later form esquire n
 * Etymology: < Old French esquier, escuier , etc., whence also the later form esquire n

.1

Esquire


 * Pronunciation: /ɪˈskwaɪə(r)/


 * Forms: ME–16 esquier, esquyer, (ME esqwyer, 15 esquior, esquyor, 15–16 escuir, escier), 15– esquire.(Show Less)
 * Etymology: < Old French esquier (modern French écuyer ), corresponding to Provençal escuier, escudier , escuder , Spanish escudero , Portuguese escudeiro , Italian scudiere , lit. ‘shield-bearer’ < Latin scūtārius , < scūtum shield. See also squire n., which in our quotations appears much earlier.
 * Etymology: < Old French esquier (modern French écuyer ), corresponding to Provençal escuier, escudier , escuder , Spanish escudero , Portuguese escudeiro , Italian scudiere , lit. ‘shield-bearer’ < Latin scūtārius , < scūtum shield. See also squire n., which in our quotations appears much earlier.

I doubt that most people in the UK know they spring from the same source; but Squire has an older currency than Esquire. This is because the usage of these two versions of the Old French 'esquier' has diverged quite considerably in popular currency in the intervening years since the 'grande olde dayes of Medieval Europe. Nowadays, they regard Squire, said and written pre-nominally in the sense of 'Squire of the Manor', 'Squire of the Parish', 'Squire of the Hundred', 'Squire of the County', or Squire Trelawney (the character in the English school classics book, Robert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island). Esquire, on the other hand is virtually universally used as a title of courtesy, post-nominally.

There is an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary for the post-nominal abbreviation Esq.; but not for the pre-nominal abbreviation Sq.: so distant have the nuances of meaning departed from each other in the course of history.

So I consider that Squire and Esquire should have separate article pages in Wikipedia, otherwise Wikipedia may be accused of having an inappropriate ulterior motive for combining them.

Namaste - Aham Brahmasmi - Tat Tvam Asi - Sat Chit Ananda - San Kalpa - Moksha - Shiva Shakti - Ritam

DadrianT,EsqMCIHT (talk) 23:09, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Sexist claptrap
OK, the subject's my opinion.

Here's the opinion I removed: "The ridiculous affectation of female attorneys in the United States using the title merely displays the extent to which too many Americans are ignorant of its origins and is as absurd as using the title 'Lady' for a man. Lady attorneys must be content with 'Miss' or 'Mrs'. If they prefer the style 'Ms' (a title used to scorn the distinction of marriage) then they show that they are eschewing all formal titles anyway and thus need not be concerned with them at all." Rudely PoV, archaically phrased and somewhat jingoistic; it has no place in an encyclopedic article.

Corgi 20:34, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
 * It was all that you said and was rightly removed; still, I have to confess I secretly enjoyed it. --Jpbrenna 05:35, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
 * kinds of how I enjoy mention that at one time, only land-owning, white males could vote (increasing the value of my vote) tickles me even though I'm all for racial and gender equality in voting? That person displays the inability to accept that terms change.  Sure, esquire used to mean only men, but it also used to be only arms-bearers.  When it became used for lawyers, and women were allowed to practice law, it opened up the term for their use.  I doubt Ms. shows an eschew of all titles, just dependance on man/husbands. My 2 cents :)--Paddling bear (talk) 21:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

I've always wondered wondered why lawyers use 'esq.' after their names when squires were assistants to knights, but the part of the article on trail by combat explained it when it said that squires (in later years) would often resolve the dispute when they met to mediate the terms of a duel. Seems this led to resolving disputes by representatives which grew into lawyers. I wanted to find a way to link or mention that connection but not sure how or where. My dictionary says it's used for all gentlemen, similar to the text, "In the post-mediaeval world, the title of esquire came to belong to all men of the higher gentry; an esquire ranked socially above a gentleman but below a knight. In the modern world, where all men are assumed to be gentlemen, the term has correspondingly often been extended (albeit only in very formal writing) to all men without any higher title. It is used post-nominally, usually in abbreviated form: "Thomas Smith, Esq.", for example." But I've never seen it used except for lawyers.--Paddling bear (talk) 21:14, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

No Sources = Worthless Article
A general {unreferenced} tag for the whole article has been at the top of the page for over 3 years now, and no one has addressed the problem. I thought of just replacing the entire page with the one-paragraph definition of "squire" from the 1911 Britannica; but if I did, no doubt somebody, somewhere would suddenly develop a case of intense interest in the term, and revert me.

So, since it's not worth my time to go scrape up sources, I've contented myself with adding an "unreferenced" tag to each section as well, to help alert unsuspecting readers more fully that all of the information in this article is unverified, and therefore - crap.

Like so many thousands of other WP articles. Why do people spend time and effort writing up articles that lack all connection with reliable sources? Why not just make shit up off the top of your head?

Oops - I guess that is just what they do, huh. Silly me. Sorry to be so sarcastic, folks, but this kind of thing pisses me off big time. It's a total waste of my time to read a whole article that might be completely made up, or original research, or POV - and a waste of everybody else's time too. Textorus (talk) 09:28, 25 August 2010 (UTC)
 * Complete anon here, a quick googling found me The Book of the Order of Chivalry, which appears to have some references to squires in it. This page appears to have a copy of a few chapters from the book to show that it actually has relevant information. If anyone wants to add sources to this page, this book may be a good resource. 129.21.157.136 (talk) 17:18, 8 October 2014 (UTC)
 * 8 years later there are still a shocking amount of unsourced and uncited claims on this article, which is even more unusual because of how specific some of the unverified claims it makes are. Lurdiak (talk) 14:23, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Suggest Merge into Esquire
I have posted a "Suggest Merge" tag, and it seems the suggestion has some support previously expressed above. Squire is merely a modern abbreviation of Esquire, the latter being the term used in documents from the feudal era. There is much overlap between both articles. It might be preferable to form 2 separate articles: "Esquire (feudal)" and "Esquire (post-feudal)" both having redirects from "Squire" or its disambiguation page. I would prefer a single article, as an ever-lengthening pre-amble is likely to grow naturally out of "Esquire (post-feudal)" and we will be back to square 1.(Lobsterthermidor (talk) 17:35, 24 November 2010 (UTC))


 * Agree. 72.228.177.92 (talk) 13:04, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
 * Disagree. I suggest we keep the two articles separate, but focus "squire" on the medieval functionary and "esquire" on the more modern term of address with each article briefly referring to the linkage with the other. --Bermicourt (talk) 20:00, 27 December 2011 (UTC)
 * Disagree. My position is fairly close to Bermicourt. I would have thought that most users wanting to find out about apprentice knights would expect to find the information under Ssquire". The modern term of address should be under "Esquire". Probably the nineteenth century expression shoudl stay here. It is "Squire Trelawney" after all.--Peter cohen (talk) 21:48, 27 December 2011 (UTC)


 * I've removed the tag from the article - seems this discussion has run its course. Squiddy | (squirt ink?)  12:00, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

When did the purpose of a "squire" change?
All the article states is that in the 1600s they became the lords of the manor, and ceased being the servants of a knight. Does that mean that these later squires were from families who once were the assistants to military knights? I think this article to be better needs to examine the demise of the knighted classes and, by inference, the changing role of the squire.

At the moment there are two stand alone section with no link of how one begot the other. Initially they were armed retainers, then they were land lords and village leaders. Two completely different things, so what is the link? A section would be important in this juncture!109.145.118.197 (talk) 13:18, 18 April 2012 (UTC)


 * IIRC the role of the "village squire" was originally filled by a landed knight, but once it became harder to be made a knight (normally once dubbing became a royal prerogative rather than something any knight could do) and it became possible to hold that which was (effectively) a knight's fee without doing knight service for it or paying scutage it became increasingly normal for a man to finish his "apprenticeship" but never become a knight. Thus the landowning gentry increasingly became squires rather than knights.  Again, IIRC there were various laws passed in 15-16th century England specifically trying to force eligible men to become knights rather than remain squires.  They were not entirely sucessful.  Good luck finding citations for all that though - since I can't I'm not about to put it on the page myself only for some smartarse to slather it with tags. 62.196.17.197 (talk) 16:54, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

How long were squires squires? How common was 14 as the age of a squaire?
I came upon this article after finding evidence that some men were squires well into their 40s. We clearly need better sources and a more indepth discussion of the factors that kept people squires and the considerations that allowed them to advance to being knights.John Pack Lambert (talk) 18:08, 28 December 2021 (UTC)
 * (Your first version was more informative) I think what we are partly seeing here is differences over different periods, and perhaps countries. In the early period (11th century say) a man became a knight when there was a new horse available, probably captured from another group of roving ruffians.  By the end it was much harder to become a knight, and most esquires never did.  "Esquire" was what one put on the envelopes of letters adressed to any middle-class male, which only died out in recent decades.  See the previous section also, and the usage of "squire" for the gentry owner of a manor.  Johnbod (talk) 06:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)