The gentry people in the middle ages were the wealthy planters, merchants, ministers and royal officers, they had to take educational tests to actually hold office, and only people with big fortunes or middle class could actually afford an education, this made it hard for people to actually be able to hold office since the amount of people that were educated was really low.
Yes, that was called the constituional convention. The original purpose was to revise the constitution but they ended up making a new one from scratch.
