What the Heck is a Seneschal?
Emil, one of my characters, is making another appearance in my work in progress. He’s one of my most versatile favorites, a one-eyed, pious, and hyper-loyal seneschal to the snobby Landgrave Reichert.
But what is a seneschal? They pop up all over the place in medieval accounts and fantasy tales, but what are they? What, exactly, is Emil?
Definition
This actually depends on the country and time that you are discussing. While it is always an administrative position, generally in a big manorial estate or fief, it’s not always managing the same thing.
Early Anglo-Saxons used the word disifer, or dish-bearer, for a noble who served at royal feasts, and this frequently gets translated as ‘seneschal,’ but the word comes from Old Dutch, siniscalc, which means ‘senior retainer.’ The German translation would be senescahl, so I guess that would be what Emil would call himself.
In many countries, the seneschal was the lord of a castle’s HR department, responsible for monitoring the labor force and the household’s daily work, and was the highest-ranking servant.
In France, it seemed to be more like an English bailiff or sheriff, someone who acted as an agent for the crown and was generally in charge of an area called a seneschalty.
Over time, the office changed. In some places it became more decorative, a distinction of birth, and other places it came to mean a power in the court, taking over for the king in his absence.
These days, a seneschal works in the church, which would please the pious Emil.
Actual Job Description
So, the title is all well and good, but what did you do if you were a seneschal? What would the help-wanted ad list?
According to the Seneschaucy, written in the mid-1200’s in England, his first job is to visit all the manors of the lord’s estate two or three times a year and find out how everyone is doing. Is the bailiff acting up? Are people stealing from the dovecotes? How much does the castle need, plough and foodwise, and is the haywright overcharging for the seeds for the field? Does anything need fixing, and is his lord being cheated?
He got special warrants from his lord to either free or buy villeins, sell marriage permits, sell wardship of minors, and give dowries to women. He could also sell a reversion to his lord or the state because the last owner died without heirs, which was called escheat. He could take homage or suit with permission. He could also complain if the bailiff was failing at his job, but he couldn’t remove him.
He levied fines on people who were bad at their jobs in the castle.
That’s a lot of work, you will notice, and potentially a lot of traveling if the seneschal’s boss had many lands. You will also note that this was an account of what someone thought a seneschal should do in England in the high Middle Ages. Obviously, this has nothing to do with the French court appointee or the church cannon.
It also had little to do with the Templar’s seneschal. Yes, that was a job- Seneschal for the Knights Templar. That involved a lot of the administrative work and acting as the second-in-command.
Conclusion
The seneschal was a busy bee, doing a bunch of inspections and managing people.
He’s also a classic example of an organization finding more and more ways to delegate work down the totem pole: he’s doing the people managing for the lord, who is presumably sucking up to the king at court. We would probably have had the feudal system a lot longer if the lord had done his own people-managing, but nobody has ever liked auditing other people’s work or supervising. That’s why you have a servant do it.
That’s what Emil is for.
Sources:
Seneschal — definition of seneschal by The Free Dictionary
Seneschal vs Steward: Which One Is The Correct One? (thecontentauthority.com)