Obtained by what one did. In this house dignity is explicitly NOT earned — the word marks the boundary between what must be worked for and what must not.
Old English earnian (to earn, to deserve), from a Germanic root related to labour and its reward.
Its root ties reward to labour directly, the wage a body was owed for work already done. What can be earned in this house is exactly what labour can buy, nothing more, and dignity was never for sale to begin with.