Talk:Yeomen Warders

THESE AREN'T BEEF EATERS

There is a widely accepted and recorded misconception of what a Beef eater is, because the change in the definition of Beef occurred before etymology was a study and modern dictionary considered a definitive of language.

But you really don't want to know what a Beef eater actually is, it would just make stupid to know and ruin the world for you. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.101.13.201 (talk) 20:49, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Wait.What? 75* 21:45, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Moved from Talk:Beefeater

Anyone have firm evidence either way on the "look a bit fat" vs "food taster" derivation? I thought the latter, but the page has been changed to the former. I find the former unlikely however that editor seems to know what they are doing. Any clues? Mat-C 21:40, 2 Jul 2004 (UTC)

According to Historic Royal Palaces, the organization that runs the Tower,

No one is exactly sure where the name 'Beefeater' came from. [1]

The most we can say is that there is lots of historical evidence for the 'well-fed' meaning, and none at all for the 'food-taster' meaning.

The OED2 says that the original sense was

An eater of beef; contemptuously, a well-fed menial.,

and that

the conjecture that sense 2 [i.e. Yeoman Warder] may have had some different origin, e.g. from buffet 'sideboard,' is historically baseless.

I think it is this folk etymology from buffet that leads to the food-tasting claim. Many people claim a link with the "French word" *buffetier, which the OED says does not exist. Brewer's Names (ISBN 0304340774) agrees with the OED, and there are plenty of historical quotes to illustrate the "beef-eater = servant" meaning.

Some writers (e.g. [2]) mention that the Yeomen were well fed by the Crown even when the Londoners around them were starving, which may have led to the nickname being used in less than good humour.

The quote from the Grand Duke of Tuscany that I mentioned was:

A very large ration of beef is given to them daily at court...that they might be called Beef-eaters. --Grand Duke of Tuscany, 1669.

I'm afraid I don't know the authority of the quote. It has just found its way on to the Web [3] from somewhere. The Duke didn't invent the word (the OED has earlier quotes), but his use may have legitimised what was previously only local slang.

-- Heron 13:36, 3 Jul 2004 (UTC)

eater/taster

I think that the beef-tester-for-the-king theory/idea is well known enough to be mentioned in the article, as an alternative explanation or at least as an urban myth? Mat-C 18:06, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

name

why are they called "Yeomen Warders"? Are there any relations between them and yeomen?--202.113.12.191 06:30, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

A response better late than never..? Yes, there is a definite relation between these chaps and yeomen; it's yeomen in the sense of low (but not the lowest) ranking servants in a royal household, not yeomen as in small freeholders. The original single corps was called the King's Body Guard of the Yeomen of the Guard as distinct from the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms, founded slightly afterwards by HVIII. The latter were to be specifically gentlemen whereas the former were "ordinary blokes". In modern times the distinction is maintained in that the Yeoman are all retired NCOs; the latter are all retired officers.Misha An interested observer of this and that 23:37, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

Photos

Is there a photo available of Beefeaters in dress uniform? The Beefeater Gin article links here, but the uniforms are clearly different from the bottle and the black EIIR ones here.

• • • In addition the photo labelled Yeoman of the Guard is in fact a Beefeater.

Ravens

I am changing the sentence about the ravens because it contains some inaccuracies. For more information please read the page on the tower of london itself (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tower_of_London) for citations; this is my first edit and I am not sure how to link to references yet. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Matthew Hawker (talk • contribs) 16:22, 4 January 2007 (UTC).

Full Title

The BBC website quotes their full title as being "Yeoman Warder of Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress the Tower of London, and Members of the Sovereign's Body Guard of the Yeoman Guard Extraordinary". Can anyone confirm this? Note, this would also suggest that Gilbert and Sullivan were in fact *not* wrong when naming their operetta... --The Thieving Gypsy 22:57, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

The web site of the Historic Royal Palaces includes the following statement regarding Yeoman Warders - "A detachment of the ‘Yeomen of the Guard’" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.107.58.27 (talk • contribs) 21:08, 1 December 2009

So,

the woman is listed,... good. Cnn says that the original[s] had been paid w/ beef (cow), veal, & lamb.

Should that be there?

[[ hopiakuta Please do sign your signature on your message. ~~ Thank You. -]] 16:25, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Should she be a beefeatress or a beefeatrix, then? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.163.0.41 (talk) 18:56, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

• • No, obviously not a beefeatrix - it isn't latin and the ending is wrong anyway - it would have to be Beefeator, the masculine form of the verb 'to eat beef', if any such verb existed... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.147.50.110 (talk) 22:39, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Police powers?

Did the Beefeaters ever have police powers-or is that just a myth? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.53.145.21 (talk) 13:42, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

They are a military unit - not police. Roger (talk) 15:43, 19 November 2009 (UTC)

Yes- they did have police powers. They were attested as Special Constables under the Special Constables Act 1923. This allows a relevant government department to attest constables to protec ordinance yards. Various constabularies were attested under this Act, which included the now defunct Atomic Energy Authority Constabulary (now the CNC Police) and the Ministry of Defence Police prior to 1987.

It remains unclear as to whether the powers were restricted to the Tower or a distance of 3 miles beyond the perimeter.

Various references are made to this in the National Archive and internet sources suggest that this happened between the mid 1940s and 1991.

http://archive.org/stream/toweroflondon00benhuoft/toweroflondon00benhuoft_djvu.txt http://www.ipa-uk.org/Write/Documents/police%20world%2032pp%20Edition%202%202010_pg11.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by Accenuater (talk • contribs) 21:20, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

It takes a french-canadian guy to explain an english concept

While everyone's looking for a deep meaning to the term "beefeater", there actually is a simpler explanation for it.

It's just humor.

The actual real term is "Jail Befitter", someone who's duty is to tend to prisoners and perform tasks related to proper jail administration. At a point in time they would be better treated than regular guards, having much better rations to eat. Jealousy helping, the guards started calling these men "Beef-eaters" in derogation of "Befitters". Simple as that.74.58.228.125 (talk) 15:14, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Very interesting, but useless for the article unless you can show use a believable source. - Adrian Pingstone (talk) 19:24, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

More likely origin of Beefeater

I suggest the barrier to understanding the origin of beefeater is the tendancy to jump to conclusions from the apparent word "beef". If instead we split the word as bee/feater we can find a perfectly acceptable explanation, "berfœttr" is old norse for bare legs such as in Magnús berfœttr (norse) or Magnus Barelegs and when pronounced would sound like beefeater. The Beefeater uniform originally had bare lower legs, now they wear stockings or trousers. As the tower of London dates from William the conqueror 1078 and the Danes were in control prior to his conquest (1066), there is adequate history to allow such and old English/Norse term which describes this uniform to enter the vernacular.

et al

Lev8 (talk) 10:06, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

So in plain English, you are claiming it comes from "bare-footer", but neither of the sources you provide make any such claim. Roger (talk) 11:58, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

No, I am suggesting it comes from Old Norse for "bare legs", use "bare legs" in google to translate English to Icelandic, which is another ancient Dane language. Once again you get a close proximity to beer feeter. And BTW Danes, Angles, Saxons and Normans all originate from the Jutland peninsular, so it is likely the term "beer feeter" was understood by most in Britain in 1066 and as you know William the Conqueror built the first parts of the Tower. There is unlikely to be a written record to support this theory in existence but it seems better founded than any other. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.233.94.29 (talk) 09:37, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

As with your similarly outrageous attempt at etymology for Scoti, we can thankfully ignore this one too as WP:OR. Akerbeltz (talk) 14:23, 29 July 2011 (UTC)

References

Trousers?

Surprised to see a Beefeater wearing modern trousers, as I recall in past decades they wore stockings and breeches. Some comment on this needed in the article. Wearing modern trousers is not good for tourism or historicity, as it makes the uniform seem like just a party costume coat they've put on over modern clothes. 92.15.8.13 (talk) 14:08, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Recentism

For something that's been in existence for centuries, this article is inordinately focused on the last decade or so. It doesn't even cover things like the grant of the modern undress uniform to them by Queen Victoria and such. Adam Cuerden ^(talk) 09:34, 24 December 2012 (UTC)

As discussed on the MILHIST talk page, I've created a proper history section to allow expansion in this area. As promised, I've written a paragraph on the Tudor period. Hopefully others will now fill in other parts of the history e.g. Victorian changes Monstrelet (talk) 09:29, 26 December 2012 (UTC)

File:Detroit Publishing Co. - A Yeoman of the Guard (N.B. actually a Yeoman Warder), full restoration.jpg to appear as POTD

Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Detroit Publishing Co. - A Yeoman of the Guard (N.B. actually a Yeoman Warder), full restoration.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on January 31, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-01-31. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 23:51, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Picture of the day

A Yeoman Warder in Tudor State Dress, photographed about 1890–1900, (coloured later). The Yeomen Warders, formed by Henry VII in 1485, are tasked with guarding the Tower of London and the crown jewels contained within. Today's Yeomen Warders must be retired non-commissioned officers from the armed forces of the Commonwealth realms who have at least 22 years of service.Photochrom: Detroit Publishing Company; restoration: Adam Cuerden

Uniform from the TUDOR ERA??!!

Hello, the page says the uniforms are from the Tudor era, though shoes have heels and and a special decoration which were both introduced in about 1610 (check out 1600-1650 in Western European fashion), at the time when James VI/I STUART was king, the same to the hat. Furthermore, since it bears the symbols of England and Ireland WITH the Scottish thistle. AND if you look at the uniforms th The Count of Zielin (talk) 17:51, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I tapped on the 'save' button too early. By the way, I meant the page 1600-50 in Western European fashion. What I wanted to say is that if you look at paintings from about the year 1600 (like 'Elizabeth carried at a ceremony') you can see that the uniform differed more than simply "slightly" as the page says The Count of Zielin (talk) 18:09, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

name of this article

In adherence to the Wikipedia principle that the title of an article ought to be the subject's ordinary name (not its correct name, or its formal name) as used in common speech and plain everyday usage, why is the name of this article not Beefeater? Nuttyskin (talk) 17:14, 18 December 2023 (UTC)