GENTILI

gentili, alberico (1552-1608), italian jurist, who has great claims to be considered the founder of the science of international law, second son of matteo gentili, a physician of noble family and scientific eminence, was born on the 14th of january 1552 at sanginesio, a small town of the march of ancona which looks down from the slopes of the apennines upon the distant adriatic. after taking the degree of doctor of civil law at the university of perugia, and holding a judicial office at ascoli, he returned to his native city, and was entrusted with the task of recasting its statutes, but, sharing the protestant opinions of his father, shared also, together with a brother, scipio, afterwards a famous professor at altdorf, his flight to carniola, where in 1579 matteo was appointed physician to the duchy. the inquisition condemned the fugitives as contumacious, and they soon received orders to quit the dominions of austria. alberico set out for england, travelling by way of tubingen and heidelberg, and everywhere meeting with the reception to which his already high reputation entitled him. he arrived at oxford in the autumn of 1580, with a commendatory letter from the earl of leicester, at that time chancellor of the university, and was shortly afterwards qualified to teach by being admitted to the same degree which he had taken at perugia. his lectures on roman law soon became famous, and the dialogues, disputations and commentaries, which he published henceforth in rapid succession, established his position as an accomplished civilian, of the older and severer type, and secured his appointment in 1587 to the regius professorship of civil law. it was, however, rather by an application of the old learning to the new questions suggested by the modern relations of states that his labours have produced their most lasting result. in 1584 he was consulted by government as to the proper course to be pursued with mendoza, the spanish ambassador, who had been detected in plotting against elizabeth. he chose the topic to which his attention had thus been directed as a subject for a disputation when leicester and sir philip sidney visited the schools at oxford in the same year; and this was six months later expanded into a book, the _de legationibus libri tres_. in 1588 alberico selected the law of war as the subject of the law disputations at the annual "act" which took place in july; and in the autumn published in london the _de jure belli commentatio prima_. a second and a third _commentatio_ followed, and the whole matter, with large additions and improvements, appeared at hanau, in 1598, as the _de jure belli libri tres_. it was doubtless in consequence of the reputation gained by these works that gentili became henceforth more and more engaged in forensic practice, and resided chiefly in london, leaving his oxford work to be partly discharged by a deputy. in 1600 he was admitted to be a member of gray's inn, and in 1605 was appointed standing counsel to the king of spain. he died on the 19th of june 1608, and was buried, by the side of dr matteo gentili, who had followed his son to england, in the churchyard of st helen's, bishopsgate. by his wife, hester de peigni, he left two sons, robert and matthew, and a daughter, anna, who married sir john colt. his notes of the cases in which he was engaged for the spaniards were posthumously published in 1613 at hanau, as _hispanicae advocationis libri duo_. this was in accordance with his last wishes; but his direction that the remainder of his mss. should be burnt was not complied with, since fifteen volumes of them found their way, at the beginning of the 19th century, from amsterdam to the bodleian library. the true history of gentili and of his principal writings has only been ascertained in recent years, in consequence of a revived appreciation of the services which he rendered to international law. the movement to do him honour originated in 1875 in england, as the result of the inaugural lecture of prof. t.e. holland, and was warmly taken up in italy. in spreading through europe it encountered two curious cross-currents of opinion,--one the ultra-catholic, which three centuries before had ordered his name to be erased from all public documents and placed his works in the _index_; another the narrowly-dutch, which is, it seems, needlessly careful of the supremacy of grotius. these two currents resulted respectively in a bust of garcia moreno being placed in the vatican, and in the unveiling in 1886, with much international oratory, of a fine statue of grotius at delft. the english committee, under the honorary presidency of prince leopold, in 1877 erected a monument to the memory of gentili in st helen's church, and saw to the publication of a new edition of the _de jure belli_. the italian committee, of which prince (afterwards king) humbert was honorary president, was less successful. it was only in 1908, the tercentenary of the death of alberico, that the statue of the great heretic was at length unveiled in his native city by the minister of public instruction, in the presence of numerous deputations from italian cities and universities. preceding writers had dealt with various international questions, but they dealt with them singly, and with a servile submission to the decisions of the church. it was left to gentili to grasp as a whole the relations of states one to another, to distinguish international questions from questions with which they are more or less intimately connected, and to attempt their solution by principles entirely independent of the authority of rome. he uses the reasonings of the civil and even the canon law, but he proclaims as his real guide the _jus naturae_, the highest common sense of mankind, by which historical precedents are to be criticized and, if necessary, set aside. his faults are not few. his style is prolix, obscure, and to the modern reader pedantic enough; but a comparison of his greatest work with what had been written upon the same subject by, for instance, belli, or soto, or even ayala, will show that he greatly improved upon his predecessors, not only by the fulness with which he has worked out points of detail, but also by clearly separating the law of war from martial law, and by placing the subject once for all upon a non-theological basis. if, on the other hand, the same work be compared with the _de jure belli et pacis_ of grotius, it is at once evident that the later writer is indebted to the earlier, not only for a large portion of his illustrative erudition, but also for all that is commendable in the method and arrangement of the treatise. the following is probably a complete list of the writings of gentili, with the places and dates of their first publication: _de juris interpretibus dialogi sex_ (london, 1582); _lectionum et epist. quae ad jus civile pertinent libri tres_ (london, 1583-1584); _de legationibus libri tres_ (london, 1585); _legal. comitiorum oxon. actio_ (london, 1585-1586); _de divers. temp. appellationibus_ (hanau, 1586); _de nascendi tempore disputatio_ (witteb., 1586); _disputationum decas prima_ (london, 1587); _conditionum liber singularis_ (london, 1587); _de jure belli comm. prima_ (london, 1588); _secunda, ib._ (1588-1589); _tertia_ (1589); _de injustitia bellica romanorum_ (oxon, 1590); _ad tit. de malef, et math, de prof. et med._ (hanau, 1593); _de jure belli libri tres_ (hanau, 1598); _de armis romanis, &c._ (hanau, 1599); _de actoribus et de abusu mendacii_ (hanau, 1599); _de ludis scenicis epist. duae_ (middleburg, 1600); _ad i. maccabaeorum et de linguarum mistura disp._ (frankfurt, 1600); _lectiones virgilianae_ (hanau, 1600); _de nuptiis libri septem_ (1601); _in tit. si quis principi, et ad leg. jul. maiest._ (hanau, 1604); _de latin, vet. bibl._ (hanau, 1604); _de libro pyano_ (oxon, 1604); _laudes acad. perus. et oxon._ (hanau, 1605); _de unione angliae et scotiae_ (london, 1605); _disputationes tres, de libris jur. can., de libris jur. civ., de latinitate vet. vers._ (hanau, 1605); _regales disput. tres, de pot. regis absoluta, de unione regnorum, de vi civium_ (london, 1605); _hispanicae advocationis libri duo_ (hanau, 1613); _in tit. de verb. signif._ (hanau, 1614); _de legatis in test._ (amsterdam, 1661). an edition of the _opera omnia_, commenced at naples in 1770, was cut short by the death of the publisher, gravier, after the second volume. of his numerous unpublished writings, gentili complained that four volumes were lost "pessimo pontificiorum facinore," meaning probably that they were left behind in his flight to carniola. authorities.--several tracts by the abate benigni in colucci, _antichita picene_ (1790); a dissertation by w. reiger annexed to the _program of the groningen gymnasium_ for 1867; an inaugural lecture delivered in 1874 by t.e. holland, translated into italian, with additions by the author, by a. saffi (1884); the preface to a new edition of the _de jure belli_ (1877) and _studies in international law_ (1898) (which see, for details as to the family and mss. of gentili), by the same; works by valdarnini and foglietti (1875), speranza and de giorgi (1876), fiorini (a translation of the _de jure belli_, with essay, 1877), a. saffi (1878), l. marson (1885), m. thamm (1896), b. brugi (1898), t.a. walker (an analysis of the principal works of gentili) in his _history of the law of nations_, vol. i.(1899); h. nezarel, in pillet's _fondateurs de droit international_ (1904); e. agabiti (1908). see also e. comba, in the _rivista christiana_ (1876-1877); sir t. twiss, in the _law review_ (1878); articles in the _revue de droit international_ (1875-1878, 1883, 1886, 1908); o. scalvanti, in the _annali dell' univ. di perugia_, n.s., vol. viii. (1898). (t. e. h.) gentle (through the fr. _gentil_, from lat. _gentilis_, belonging to the same _gens_, or family), properly an epithet of one born of a "good family"; the latin _generosus_, "well born" (see gentleman), contrasted with "noble" on the one side and "simple" on the other. the word followed the wider application of the word "gentleman"; implying the manners, character and breeding proper to one to whom that name could be applied, courteous, polite; hence, with no reference to its original meaning, free from violence or roughness, mild, soft, kind or tender. with a physical meaning of soft to the touch, the word is used substantively of the maggot of the bluebottle fly, used as a bait by fishermen. at the end of the 16th century the french _gentil_ was again adapted into english in the form "gentile," later changed to "genteel." the word was common in the 17th and 18th centuries as applied to behaviour, manner of living, dress, &c., suitable or proper to persons living in a position in society above the ordinary, hence polite, elegant. from the early part of the 19th century it has also been used in an ironical sense, and applied chiefly to those who pay an excessive and absurd importance to the outward marks of respectability as evidence of being in a higher rank in society than that to which they properly belong. gentleman (from lat. _gentilis_, "belonging to a race or _gens_," and "man"; fr. _gentilhomme_, span, _gentil hombre_, ital. _gentil huomo_), in its original and strict signification, a term denoting a man of good family, the lat. _generosus_ (its invariable translation in english-latin documents). in this sense it is the equivalent of the fr. _gentilhomme_, "nobleman," which latter term has in great britain been long confined to the peerage (see nobility); and the term "gentry" ("gentrice" from o. fr. _genterise_ for _gentelise_) has much of the significance of the fr. _noblesse_ or the ger. _adel_. this was what was meant by the rebels under john ball in the 14th century when they repeated: "when adam delved and eve span, who was then the gentleman?" selden (_titles of honor_, 1672), discussing the title "gentleman," speaks of "our english use of it" as "convertible with _nobilis_," and describes in connexion with it the forms of ennobling in various european countries. william harrison, writing a century earlier, says "gentlemen be those whom their race and blood, or at the least their virtues, do make noble and known." but for the complete gentleman the possession of a coat of arms was in his time considered necessary; and harrison gives the following account of how gentlemen were made in shakespeare's day: "... gentlemen whose ancestors are not known to come in with william duke of normandy (for of the saxon races yet remaining we now make none accompt, much less of the british issue) do take their beginning in england after this manner in our times. who soever studieth the laws of the realm, who so abideth in the university, giving his mind to his book, or professeth physic and the liberal sciences, or beside his service in the room of a captain in the wars, or good counsel given at home, whereby his commonwealth is benefited, can live without manual labour, and thereto is able and will bear the port, charge and countenance of a gentleman, he shall for money have a coat and arms bestowed upon him by heralds (who in the charter of the same do of custom pretend antiquity and service, and many gay things) and thereunto being made so good cheap be called master, which is the title that men give to esquires and gentlemen, and reputed for a gentleman ever after. which is so much the less to be disallowed of, for that the prince doth lose nothing by it, the gentleman being so much subject to taxes and public payments as is the yeoman or husbandman, which he likewise doth bear the gladlier for the saving of his reputation. being called also to the wars (for with the government of the commonwealth he medleth little) what soever it cost him, he will both array and arm himself accordingly, and show the more manly courage, and all the tokens of the person which he representeth. no man hath hurt by it but himself, who peradventure will go in wider buskins than his legs will bear, or as our proverb saith, now and then bear a bigger sail than his boat is able to sustain."[1] in this way shakespeare himself was turned, by the grant of his coat of arms, from a "vagabond" into a gentleman. the fundamental idea of "gentry," symbolized in this grant of coat-armour, had come to be that of the essential superiority of the fighting man; and, as selden points out (p. 707), the fiction was usually maintained in the granting of arms "to an ennobled person though of the long robe wherein he hath little use of them as they mean a shield." at the last the wearing of a sword on all occasions was the outward and visible sign of a "gentleman"; and the custom survives in the sword worn with "court dress." this idea that a gentleman must have a coat of arms, and that no one is a "gentleman" without one is, however, of comparatively late growth, the outcome of the natural desire of the heralds to magnify their office and collect fees for registering coats; and the same is true of the conception of "gentlemen" as a separate class. that a distinct order of "gentry" existed in england very early has, indeed, been often assumed, and is supported by weighty authorities. thus, the late professor freeman (_ency. brit._ xvii. p. 540 b, 9th ed.) said: "early in the 11th century the order of 'gentlemen' as a separate class seems to be forming as something new. by the time of the conquest of england the distinction seems to have been fully established." stubbs (_const. hist._, ed. 1878, iii. 544, 548) takes the same view. sir george sitwell, however, has conclusively proved that this opinion is based on a wrong conception of the conditions of medieval society, and that it is wholly opposed to the documentary evidence. the fundamental social cleavage in the middle ages was between the _nobiles_, i.e. the tenants in chivalry, whether earls, barons, knights, esquires or franklins, and the _ignobiles_, i.e. the villeins, citizens and burgesses;[2] and between the most powerful noble and the humblest franklin there was, until the 15th century, no "separate class of gentlemen." even so late as 1400 the word "gentleman" still only had the sense of _generosus_, and could not be used as a personal description denoting rank or quality, or as the title of a class. yet after 1413 we find it increasingly so used; and the list of landowners in 1431, printed in _feudal aids_, contains, besides knights, esquires, yeomen and husbandmen (i.e. householders), a fair number who are classed as "gentilman." sir george sitwell gives a lucid explanation of this development, the incidents of which are instructive and occasionally amusing. the immediate cause was the statute i henry v. cap. v. of 1413, which laid down that in all original writs of action, personal appeals and indictments, in which process of outlawry lies, the "estate degree or mystery" of the defendant must be stated, as well as his present or former domicile. now the black death (1349) had put the traditional social organization out of gear. before that the younger sons of the _nobiles_ had received their share of the farm stock, bought or hired land, and settled down as agriculturists in their native villages. under the new conditions this became increasingly impossible, and they were forced to seek their fortunes abroad in the french wars, or at home as hangers-on of the great nobles. these men, under the old system, had no definite status; but they were _generosi_, men of birth, and, being now forced to describe themselves, they disdained to be classed with franklins (now sinking in the social scale), still more with yeomen or husbandmen; they chose, therefore, to be described as "gentlemen." on the character of these earliest "gentlemen" the records throw a lurid light. according to sir george sitwell (p. 76), "the premier gentleman of england, as the matter now stands, is 'robert erdeswyke of stafford, gentilman,'" who had served among the men-at-arms of lord talbot at agincourt (ib. note). he is typical of his class. "fortunately--for the gentle reader will no doubt be anxious to follow in his footsteps--some particulars of his life may be gleaned from the public records. he was charged at the staffordshire assizes with housebreaking, wounding with intent to kill, and procuring the murder of one thomas page, who was cut to pieces while on his knees begging for his life." if any earlier claimant to the title of "gentleman" be discovered, sir george sitwell predicts that it will be within the same year (1414) and in connexion with some similar disreputable proceedings.[3] from these unpromising beginnings the separate order of "gentlemen" was very slowly evolved. the first "gentleman" commemorated on an existing monument was john daundelyon of margate (d. c. 1445); the first gentleman to enter the house of commons, hitherto composed mainly of "valets," was "william weston, gentylman"; but even in the latter half of the 15th century the order was not clearly established. as to the connexion of "gentilesse" with the official grant or recognition of coat-armour, that is a profitable fiction invented and upheld by the heralds; for coat-armour was but the badge assumed by gentlemen to distinguish them in battle, and many gentlemen of long descent never had occasion to assume it, and never did. this fiction, however, had its effect; and by the 16th century, as has been already pointed out, the official view had become clearly established that "gentlemen" constituted a distinct order, and that the badge of this distinction was the heralds' recognition of the right to bear arms. it is unfortunate that this view, which is quite unhistorical and contradicted by the present practice of many undoubtedly "gentle" families of long descent, has of late years been given a wide currency in popular manuals of heraldry. in this narrow sense, however, the word "gentleman" has long since become obsolete. the idea of "gentry" in the continental sense of _noblesse_ is extinct in england, and is likely to remain so, in spite of the efforts of certain enthusiasts to revive it (see a.c. fox-davies, _armorial families_, edinburgh, 1895). that it once existed has been sufficiently shown; but the whole spirit and tendency of english constitutional and social development tended to its early destruction. the comparative good order of england was not favourable to the continuance of a class, developed during the foreign and civil wars of the 14th and 15th centuries, for whom fighting was the sole honourable occupation. the younger sons of noble families became apprentices in the cities, and there grew up a new aristocracy of trade. merchants are still "citizens" to william harrison; but he adds "they often change estate with gentlemen, as gentlemen do with them, by a mutual conversion of the one into the other." a frontier line between classes so indefinite could not be maintained, especially as in england there was never a "nobiliary prefix" to stamp a person as a gentleman by his surname, as in france or germany.[4] the process was hastened, moreover, by the corruption of the heralds' college and by the ease with which coats of arms could be assumed without a shadow of claim; which tended to bring the "science of armory" into contempt. the word "gentleman" as an index of rank had already become of doubtful value before the great political and social changes of the 19th century gave to it a wider and essentially higher significance. the change is well illustrated in the definitions given in the successive editions of the _encyclopaedia britannica_. in the 5th edition (1815) "a gentleman is one, who without any title, bears a coat of arms, or whose ancestors have been freemen." in the 7th edition (1845) it still implies a definite social status: "all above the rank of yeomen." in the 8th edition (1856) this is still its "most extended sense"; "in a more limited sense" it is defined in the same words as those quoted above from the 5th edition; but the writer adds, "by courtesy this title is generally accorded to all persons above the rank of common tradesmen when their manners are indicative of a certain amount of refinement and intelligence." the reform bill of 1832 has done its work; the "middle classes" have come into their own; and the word "gentleman" has come in common use to signify not a distinction of blood, but a distinction of position, education and manners. the test is no longer good birth, or the right to bear arms, but the capacity to mingle on equal terms in good society. in its best use, moreover, "gentleman" involves a certain superior standard of conduct, due, to quote the 8th edition once more, to "that self-respect and intellectual refinement which manifest themselves in unrestrained yet delicate manners." the word "gentle," originally implying a certain social status, had very early come to be associated with the standard of manners expected from that status. thus by a sort of punning process the "gentleman" becomes a "gentle-man." chaucer in the _meliboeus_ (c. 1386) says: "certes he sholde not be called a gentil man, that ... ne dooth his diligence and bisynesse, to kepen his good name"; and in the _wife of bath's tale_: "loke who that is most vertuous alway prive and apert, and most entendeth ay to do the gentil dedes that he can and take him for the gretest gentilman," and in the _romance of the rose_ (c. 1400) we find "he is gentil bycause he doth as longeth to a gentilman." this use develops through the centuries, until in 1714 we have steele, in the _tatler_ (no. 207), laying down that "the appellation of gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his behaviour in them," a limitation over-narrow even for the present day. in this connexion, too, may be quoted the old story, told by some--very improbably--of james ii., of the monarch who replied to a lady petitioning him to make her son a gentleman, "i could make him a nobleman, but god almighty could not make him a gentleman." selden, however, in referring to similar stories "that no charter can make a gentleman, which is cited as out of the mouth of some great princes that have said it," adds that "they without question understood gentleman for _generosus_ in the antient sense, or as if it came from _gentilis_ in that sense, as _gentilis_ denotes one of a noble family, or indeed for a gentleman by birth." for "no creation could make a man of another blood than he is." the word "gentleman," used in the wide sense with which birth and circumstances have nothing to do, is necessarily incapable of strict definition. for "to behave like a gentleman" may mean little or much, according to the person by whom the phrase is used; "to spend money like a gentleman" may even be no great praise; but "to conduct a business like a gentleman" implies a standard at least as high as that involved in the phrase "noblesse oblige." in this sense of a person of culture, character and good manners the word "gentleman" has supplied a gap in more than one foreign language. the evolution of this meaning of "gentleman" reflects very accurately that of english society; and there are not wanting signs that the process of evolution, in the one as in the other, is not complete. the indefinableness of the word mirrors the indefinite character of "society" in england; and the use by "the masses" of "gentleman" as a mere synonym for "man" has spread _pari passu_ with the growth of democracy. it is a protest against implied inferiority, and is cherished as the modern french _bourgeois_ cherishes his right of duelling with swords, under the _ancien regime_ a prerogative of the _noblesse_. nor is there much justification for the denunciation by purists of the "vulgarization" and "abuse" of the "grand old name of gentleman." its strict meaning has now fallen completely obsolete. its current meaning varies with every class of society that uses it. but it always implies some sort of excellency of manners or morals. it may by courtesy be over-loosely applied by one common man to another; but the common man would understand the reproach conveyed in "you're no gentleman." authorities.--selden, _titles of honor_ (london, 1672); william harrison, _description of england_, ed. g.f.j. furnivall for the new shakspere soc. (london, 1877-1878); sir george sitwell, "the english gentleman," in the _ancestor_, no. 1 (westminster, april 1902); _peacham's compleat gentleman_ (1634), with an introduction by g.s. gordon (oxford, 1906); a. smythe-palmer, d.d., _the ideal of a gentleman, or a mirror for gentlefolk: a portrayal in literature from the earliest times_ (london, 1908), a very exhaustive collection of extracts from authors so wide apart as ptah-hotep (3300 b.c.) and william watson, arranged under headings: "the historical idea of a gentleman," "the herald's gentleman," "the poet's gentleman," &c. (w. a. p.) footnotes: [1] _description of england_, bk. ii. ch. v. p. 128. henry peacham, in his _compleat gentleman_ (1634), takes this matter more seriously. "neither must we honour or esteem," he writes, "those ennobled, or made gentle in blood, who by mechanic and base means have raked up a mass of wealth ... or have purchased an ill coat (of arms) at a good rate; no more than a player upon the stage, for wearing a lord's cast suit: since nobility hangeth not upon the airy esteem of vulgar opinion, but is indeed of itself essential and absolute" (reprint, p. 3). elsewhere (p. 161) he deplores the abuse of heraldry, which had even in his day produced "all the world over such a medley of coats" that, but for the commendable activity of the earls marshals, he feared that yeomen would soon be "as rare in _england_ as they are in _france_." see also an amusing instance from the time of henry viii., given in "the gentility of richard barker," by oswald barron, in the _ancestor_, vol. ii. (july 1902). [2] even this classification would seem to need modifying. for certain of the great patrician families of the cities were certainly _nobiles_. [3] the designation "gentilman" is, indeed, found some two centuries earlier. in the _inquisitio maneriorum ecclesiae s. pauli londin._ of a.d. 1222 (w.a. hale, _domesday of st paul's_, camden soc., 1858, p. 80) occurs the entry: _adam gentilma dim acra, p' iii. d._ this is probably the earliest record of the "grand old name of gentleman"; but adam, who held half an acre at a rent of three pence--less by half than that held by "ralph the bondsman" (rad' le bunde) in the same list--was certainly not a "gentleman." "gentilman" here was a nickname, perhaps suggested by adam's name, and thus in some sort anticipating the wit of the famous couplet repeated by john ball's rebels. [4] the prefix "de" attached to some english names is in no sense "nobiliary." in latin documents _de_ was the equivalent of the english "of," as _de la_ of "at" (so de la pole for atte poole, cf. such names as attwood, attwater). in english this "of" was in the 15th century dropped; e.g. the grandson of johannes de stoke (john of stoke) in a 14th-century document becomes john stoke. in modern times, under the influence of romanticism, the prefix "de" has been in some cases "revived" under a misconception, e.g. "de trafford," "de hoghton." very rarely it is correctly retained as derived from a foreign place-name, e.g. de grey.