Jean le Carpentier in his description of the Lords of Gouy rendered them as
"les anciens & illustres Signeurs de Gouy". This was translated by Sellers
as "ancient and illustrious", which was a unsatisfactory rendering. The
original French "illustres" was a term with great nuance for French
genealogy. This I realized when reading Warlop's THE FLEMISH NOBILITY BEFORE
1300. The two principle Latin terms, according to Warlop, used to designate
old Carolingian period families in Latin abbey charters, were "nobiles" and
"illustres". The terms were basically synonomous. The sense of
"illustres"
or even the English "illustrious" as signifying 'of noble lineage'
survives
in secondary and tertiary definitions of the word, but can be still found in
large multi-volume dictionaries. Jean le Carpentier was basically telling us
that the Lords of Gouy were of ancient Carolingian period descent.
Bruce Carpenter