Time to dust off this forum and put it back into service again. In another thread (cross cultural movement), this thought came up -

"...I can see that Robert wouldn't want to be a servant...."

Which brings up an interesting part of Medieval life that should be an integral part of every good impression of a Late Medieval Person, the concept of service. It is an alien thought to those of us on the cusp of the 21st century, especially in the U.S. that service to a person would be desireable in any way. We view personal service as an oenerous burden, but the populace of Medieval Europe did not - it was the natural and proper order of things, the way the world worked, and the way a man (or woman for that matter) increased their "Worship", or esteem in which they were held by their peers and society in general.

The first thing to understand is that everyone 1. has a 'lord', and 2. is in service to someone - unless they are an outcast from society entirely. This includes everyone from the humblest serf to the mightiest lord in Christendom (even the Holy Roman Emperor had to bow to the Pope to be annointed and crowned.)

The nature of service is intricatley bound to the fact that politics, power, and governance were all extremely personal in nature, bound up in the authority of the lord, or servant of the lord who was excersising the power. Since power and governance were personal, so service by the nature of how things worked was personal as well. At every layer of society, the bonds of personal service passed in both directions.

How it all worked

The Medieval ideal of how a society worked and was governed was "Good Lordship". At the top layer, the Sovereign acted as "The good lord of good lords, and at the local level, these lords would be appealed to for "good lordship". Good lordship was self-interested in natue, because of the personal bond between a lord and his servant. To excersise good lordship, the lord in question would put his influence behind his servants interests, and the servant would be bound perform service in return for such "favour".

The attractions of personal service to a lord are twofold, first, one serves in the hopes of advancement, preferment, and the lords acting on ones behalf to influence matters in the servants favor when the servant comes into difficulties. Note that this is in hopes of, not a guaranteed action specifically contracted for from the lord.

To be a good lord one had to be openhanded - to quote a carving on Henry II's painted chamber at Westminster "He who does not give what he holds does not recieve what he wishes". A lords "Worship" (respect for his position in society is how best I can describe this) and power and influence was based directly on the number and quality of people in service to him. A miser would gain no service, and as a result have no "worship".

So what is in it for the servant? As stated above, the hope for advancement, but there is more to it than that. Service was seen as honourable for men of station, and the reason for this is that in serving a lord, one excersised power in his name. Serving a great lord could gain one worship. As I have said before, service was personal in nature and not strictly defined as a job.

I will give you an example of this diversity of service from "Richard III, A Study in Service" Rosemary Horrox - "...The service performed by Thomas Fowler, a Yorkist esquire of the body, was centered on Buckinghamshire. Here he served on royal commissions, including that of the peace, acted as escheator, and in 1478 and 1483 was picked as sheriff for Buckinghamshire and the associated county of Bedfordshire. He was also active in the administration of the royal estates in the two counties. Edward IV made him feodary of the duchy of Lancaster lands there and his responsibilities grew under Richard III. After the rebellion of 1483, Fowler was put in sole charge of seizing the lands and goods of the traitors in the two counties and shortly afterwards was made steward of the forfeited Stafford estates in the region, including Buckingham itself. as usual, the minutia of these reponsibilities are barely visible, but in August of 1483 Fowler appears selling wood to fund repairs to the manor of Creslow (Bucks.) and was involved in further wood sales later in the reign. He also took on ad hoc tasks in the region, including raising loans for the crown and searching for treasure reputedly buried in or near Sudbury in Eaton Socon (Beds.)."

An example a little further down the scale (not too far) is Christopher Coleyns, a citizen and Draper of London, who had mercantile connections with the Yorkist court. He was employed on business of a maritime nature, such as attacking pirtes and victualling the king's ships. He was also called upon to be constaable of Queensborough castle - an unrelated task.

To bring this topic to the continent, even menial service to a great lord was considered to bring worship to an individual. The Duke of Burgundies household had several menial posts - ecuyers of the pantry and bottlery for example. These were considered honourable positions, and were used by the dukes to bind their minor aristocracy to them - so much so that each post had 25 people employed - each quarter, on a rotating basis, so the honor and rewards could be doled out to four times the number of recipiants. The more menial positions directly in contact with the person of the Duke himself were held to be great honors. To carve for the Duke of Burgundy, or to pour his wine was a task fit for the greatest nobility of the Burgundian 'state', and to be his valet de chambre was a post of great trust, and close personal contact. To have close contact was to potentialy have the ear of the lord served. Needless to say, full time menial servants of little or no standing scoured the pots and pans, prepared the meals, and performed the real drudgery.

How do we bring this aspect of Medieval life down to our level? As an example, I will use Anne Marie's persona. AM as I understand is portraying the role of a manager of servants of Antoinne Bastard of Burgundys household. This is the role of a middle class person, involving supeervising the menials - no glory role here. Regardless, Anne Marie would have standing in the community in serving so exhalted a lord. She would be seen as a potential door into the household, and so would be seen as excersising authority and potentially the means of gaining meaningful service to a person just a little outside of her social standing. Not only this, but I am sure she would have some say on the day to day victualling of the household - no customer to sneeze at. so power descends, from Antoinne or his Lady, through the household steward, and on down.

Needless to say, no persona is complete without considering this aspect of life. Sorry for being long winded, but it is a complicated subject. I highly reccommend anybody developing a persona to at least read the introduction to "Richard III, A Study in Service" ISBN 0 521 40726 5 to get a clear picture of the concepts involved.

Remember, everybody WAS somebody's servant to some degree.

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Originally posted by chef de chambre:
Hello to all,

(much snippage)
How do we bring this aspect of Medieval life down to our level? As an example, I will use Anne Marie's persona. AM as I understand is portraying the role of a manager of servants of Antoinne Bastard of Burgundys household. This is the role of a middle class person, involving supeervising the menials - no glory role here. Regardless, Anne Marie would have standing in the community in serving so exhalted a lord. She would be seen as a potential door into the household, and so would be seen as excersising authority and potentially the means of gaining meaningful service to a person just a little outside of her social standing. Not only this, but I am sure she would have some say on the day to day victualling of the household - no customer to sneeze at. so power descends, from Antoinne or his Lady, through the household steward, and on down.

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yep.
besides which, by being middle class, it suddenly puts the kit and gear in the affordable range .
I like to think of myself as a bourgois poser with delusions of grandeur .

The point is, its lots more fun to be a princess than a cook, but its lots more expensive, and if you're into HISTORICAL re-enactment, the chances that a princess would be schlepping her own crap to and from the car, or have to cook her own meals, etc are very small.

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Originally posted by Anne-Marie:

The point is, its lots more fun to be a princess than a cook,.....far more likely (and fun) to be a regular gal doing medievally regular things (I think)
--Anne-Marie[/B]

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I have to disagree (slightly ) with AM here!

I have never had the 'good fortune' to be anything but one of the "muckin' proletariat" and don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. One of the things that always made me the most uncomfortable in the SCA was the pretense of 'plain ole me' being a member of the nobility .

I'm a middle class woman who is responsible for the well-being of the people in my camp. Having lived through sleet, snow freezing rain, floods and other catastrophies of nature with a family wich included either a 8 1/2 month pregnant woman (floods) and a family which included a 5 month old baby, and a 4 and a 6 year old (freezing rain, sleet), I'd say that was plenty of responsibility for me.

Can you say "Pass the hot bricks and soup please?"

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Originally posted by Crispin:
I have to disagree (slightly ) with AM here!

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I should have said instead that MOST people seem to find it more fun to be a princess than a peon. Me, lolling about doing needlework and waiting for your man to come home from the wars holds little romance for me.

I'd much rather be with Gwen in the sleet and snow and rain and wind, making campmates happy with warm tasty food.

to each their own, eh?

Jenn who remembers quite clearly the sleet and freezing rain of her first real living history event.

At one event I attended several years ago, three members of our camp were bonked on the head by frozen squirrels plummeting from the trees.

Much further up this thread, Chef De Chambre brought up the following:

Time to dust off this forum and put it back into service again. In another thread (cross cultural movement), this thought came up -

"...I can see that Robert wouldn't want to be a servant...."

That actually depends. In a 21st century (or, worse 19th century context)...probably not. But the idea of "service" in the Middle Ages didn't of necessity mean "servile", nor was it seen as demeaning. As I understand it, service had more in common with the U. S. Military's ideal of "Duty, Honor, Country". Service in context a squire to his knight, or of a knight to his liegelord, or that liegelord to his sovereign was a duty, and one I'd have no difficulty with.

Am I understanding Chef De Chambre correctly?

Service is honourable. Exteme menial service is not - mucking out gardrobes and stables, and scouring pots, but service to a Lord, even in small tasks - running messages for instance, is an honourable endevour. One automatically gains status from the connection - there is a case in the "Study in Service" book where a fellow dodges arrest by claiming to be the servant of an important lord and be on his business (the lord repudiated him when asked, but by then the fellow was long gone).

I think a good mark of type of service is if you are in a position to wield some authority (however small) derived from the service, then it is honourable service. Certainly the Knights squire, or even his valet is in such a position. to be close to the person of a lord - great or small, is to be in a position of trust, and would be considered honourable service.

A valet or a squire would help dress his lord in the morning (how more menial a task can you get?) but their closeness to him makes it honourable service. The valet may well be able to wield power by this closeness within the household itself, or outside of it by being the close servant of this lord.

The lowley valet would sleep in the lords chamber, would no doubt be privey to some of his secrets, and could be used in further positions of trust by relaying sensitive messages for the lord. The scullery lad on the other hand has an unglamorous job with no authority (or trust)to boot. The more a lord uses a servant, the more authority a servant wields, the more power the servant gains, and the more the lord uses him - in positions of more importance. It is a spiraling effect, and it is by this means PRECISELY that a person would climb up the social ladder through service itself.

Sorry for being long winded again.

And I did indeed mean "servant" as in servile, as in a muck slinging menial or lackey.

So let's play devil's advocate for a moment. What if Robert *did* want to play the muck slinging menial? How do you think the modern public would react?

One of the guys in the Yeoman Archers plays the body servant to one of the other guys, an arrogant young whippersnapper 15 years younger than him. "Hob" cleans up after his "lord", dresses him, cooks for him, etc., and is always cowtowing to the rest of us. He takes great delight in doing so, and the public loves the performance. How would the public react if Hob were black instead of a middle aged white guy?

I can see the breaking 6PM news now, and the headlines in the morning paper "Public Lynches Costumed Freaks!" and "Bizzare Racist Group Revealed!" Lights, camera, action for the made for TV movie, and interviews on the Jerry Springer show for the survivors....

I am certain that unless it was done in a comicly entertaining light, and the servant in question was portrayed as sort of a Baldric character (Black Adder 1st series), the public would not tolerate it. The humorous portrayal obviously only works if the "servant" was a European - were a Black American to portray such a character, all parties would be treated roughly - including him.

We are too close in time and space to the greatest of evils our nation ever permited - chattle slavery of fellow Human Beings, and aware as a society how the descendents of the victims of this evil have been treated by this society in large until recently - easily within living memory. The wounds are too deep and too fresh to make such a portrayal (assuming anybody would want to do such a portrayal) viable.

Only recently Black interpretors at some southern living history sites have taken on the role of slaves - I have no idea how the experiment is working. I think it is vitally import for such interpretors to exist, lest we as a nation forget the enormity of the evil, and question it's actual occurance, and how terrible it really was. I know I am uncomfortable with the very thought, and can't honestly say how I'd react if I suddenly saw such an interpretation.

I don't think it would go over very well. I know I would be uncomfortable with it.

That was the point I was originally trying to make. I'm just not very clear sometimes.

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Originally posted by hauptfrau:
[b]"Bizzare Racist Group Revealed!"

That was the point I was originally trying to make. I'm just not very clear sometimes.

Gwen[/B]

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(Jerry Springer) ...And now, for my final thought....