Fantasy Guide To Employment: Household Of A Castle

Fantasy Guide to Employment: Household of a Castle

The castle does not run itself. The castle would remain a pile of stones without servants to keep it running. The guide below focuses on the private household of the lord himself, anybody who worked inside the main keep of the castle. I will be expanding outside the walls in a future post.

The Steward/Seneschal

This person was the head of the household staff. They would have the task of running things on the Lord's estate. They are the managers, so it is up to them to keep the staff in line. The steward would keep the castle accounts and keep the lord informed of all of the goings on of the lands and tenants. They would have to be educated needing to do accounts and write letters. Though the castle's Lady would be expected to do all these things, the steward served as a backup and assistant in all the tasks even representing the lord and lady when they were unavailable.

The Chamberlain

The chamberlain is the servant employed to look after the Lord's bedchamber. He would look after the Lord's clothes as well and keep track of the other servants' liveries, the official uniforms of the guards, pages and squires. This was not always the case, some larger households had a separate office but most medium seized manors and castles lumped them together. The chamberlain's main task was ensuring the lord was kept happy. He would even be the last servant a lord would see at night before he went to bed at night. They would be educated.

The Marshal

A Marshal was in charge of the stables as well as the military presence in the castle. They would oversee the household's horses, carts, wagons, and containers. He oversaw blacksmiths, horse grooms and stableboys. He also oversaw the transporting of goods. The Marshal was sometimes in charge of disciplining servants. They would likely come from a middle class background as well as having military experience and education.

The Page

A page was a young noble boy about seven years old who would be sent to serve a Lord. He would be in charge of tidying up after the lord, carrying messages to other servants and occupants of the castle and serving him at meals. Unlike others on the list, the page would not be paid. His experience was his payment as he would learn the running of a castle and manners of a lord.

The Lady's Maid

The lady's maid is be the female body attendant of the castle's noble women. She would be in charge of caring for the lady's chamber and her things. She would dress the lady and attend her wherever she would. (The lady's maid would basically do all the work a chamberlain would but you know the wage gap...)

Maidservant

A housemaid/maidservant works to clean the castle. She would be among the first to awaken every morning. Her first task would be sweeping the floors. The thing with mediaeval floors a that they were often covered with a thin layer of rushes, a kind of grass. Weekly if not daily, a maidservant would be expected to change out the rushes and scatter new ones. If it really needed it, she would scrub the stone floors which would be done with a soap called lye, made from ashes and lard. The maidservant would also be expected to go into the bedchambers when the occupants awoke. She would empty the chamberpots if need be. She would get rid of the ashes from the fire and ready the fire for later. She would make up the bed or strip it for the laundresses. She would wash anything that needed washing including furniture and ornaments.

Laundress

The laundress was responsible for the cleaning of anything made of fabric in the household. The laundress would have to fetch their own water either from the castle well or from a nearby river. They would heat the water in large vats and add lye soap (the most popular of the cleaning agents). The constant exposure to soap and hot water was physically tough on the hands of the laundresses and their backs. When the detergents were added to the water, the laundress would dump them into the vat and stir that shit like soup. To dry it they would pin it out on lines or beat the water from it. The laundress might make money by selling secrets. Since they are handling unmentionables, they knew what happened behind closed bedchamber doors or what didn't.

Nursemaid

The nursemaid was in charge of the castle's children. They would ensure the child was fed, washed and generally kept alive while the parents would either be away at court or busy with the lands. The nursemaid would be a common woman from the surrounding lands who would come in to care for a noble child in the stead of the mother who would be expected to get on with other jobs. The nursemaid would be an underlying of the noble governess, a sort of hands-off nanny.

Cook

The cook was one of the most important servants in the castle. They would have the task of overseeing the running of the kitchens and keeping supplies in order. They would likely be on call at all times. Henry VIII's cook was often woken in the night because his royal master wanted a midnight snack. The cook was a valued member of the household and would have been highly sought after if they were a very skilled cook. Cooks would have been paid a handsome wage.

Scullion

The scullion was the lowest member of staff. They would be responsible for scrubbing and cleaning the servants quarters and the kitchens. They would scrub floors with lye, scour pots with sand, sweep put the fireplace and clean up after the other servants. They were the first to rise in a castle and tasked to light all the fires in the kitchens.

Payment & Lifestyle

Within the mediaeval household, payment came from the hand of the steward. As the Lord's manager of accounts, he was in charge of paying staff.

The grander jobs in the castle such as the marshal, the chamberlain, nursemaid and lady's maid would pay better. They would have certain privileges including better bedchambers.

A nursemaid who was breastfeeding the Lord's children would be a valued member of staff. She would be fed better than the other servants.

The page would sleep in a chamber off the lord's bedchamber or sometimes at the foot of the bed. A page would wear the Lord's livery so he would be dressed on the Lord's coin.

The chamberlain would have rooms close to the lord and lady, just in case they were needed by the master in any kind of emergency.

The cook would sleep near the kitchens so they were close enough just in case they are needed in the night.

The other household servants would all sleep in chambers together. The women would sleep in one and the men would sleep in another. Nightly dalliances were frowned upon massively.

Most servants came from the surrounding lands of the castle. When the lord and his family were away at court or somewhere else, there would be a drop in employment. Everything would be cut down ex. Instead of three laundry maids, only one might stay on after the lord goes. The steward, the marshal, the chamberlain, the page, the cook, the nursemaid and the lady's maid were all important staff so their job would be permanent.

because the fandom focuses so much on Rhaenyra's threesome with Daemon and Laena, when at that time Rhaenyra had her secret relationship with Harwin. Literally here they are invalidating both relationships.

And no, I've never seen them include Harwin so don't come out with "it's a polyamorous foursome", because of course Daemon x Laena are not as interesting without Rhaenyra, and how is Rhaenyra going to have pure love with someone who doesn't know Daemon?🙄

#Justice for Harwin and Rhaewin

I know a lot of people aren’t gonna love this but i got to say it:

Laena/Rhaenyra wasn’t sacrificed for Rhaenicent. It was sacrificed for the same reason Harwin/Rhaenyra and Laena/Daemon were sacrificed.

Daemyra

Day 03 Martell Week: Favorite Moment

Elia found it all exciting. She was of that age, and her delicate health had never permitted her much travel. I preferred to amuse myself by mocking my sister's suitors.

This challenge is more late than anything else, but I will finish what I promised. A nice moment of a happy Elia receiving the attention they deserve, the boys who court her are from the Chester and Grimm house. Elia's clothes are a combination of Westerosi and Dornish fashion at the time, due to her journey and her mother who was a friend of the queen.

Oberyn and her nose presenting the delayed week

Las páginas de Jon en su mayoría chupan las bolas de Rhaegar.

but why don't you ever complain about stark stans? because i don't think they're as annoying next question.

listening to an analysis of sansa - by a CHILD THERAPIST i think this is a great angle, recced by @transdimensional-void - and he said something about Sansa seeming a bit lonely, which made me think about how like, for both Theon and Sansa, there’s an enddate to what they feel is a sort of misery (tho wildly different sorts of miseries) - one day she’ll be married and a proper lady surrounded by other proper ladies and not in the drab, dull north, and one day Balon will die and Theon will be Lord of Pyke and not under constant threat of death meant to be loyal to a family who cannot conceive of the stress he’s under. Contrast to Arya & Jon, who don’t have that “end date” to look forward to - Arya will never be free to live the way she wants, at some point her tomboyishness will stop being cute to the men around her and start being a sign that she’s too wild, and Jon will never be free from the taint of bastardry so long as he lives, this confusing underclass of man where he is noble by birth and yet also lowborn and unworthy is a fate he can never truly escape.

I think it explains both why Theon & Sansa romanticize the terrible things around them, with the repeated focus on beauty, on songs and stories, because they want to live up to the expectations by being the Perfect Lady and Perfect Wife, by being the Perfect Hostage and Perfect Lord, because this freedom they’ve built up in their minds has to be worth it. Theon was taken away from home for this, Lady died for this, it HAS to be worth the cost. BUT ALSO, whereas, because Jon and Arya feel there’s no reprieve coming, there’s nothing good in their future, there’s an emphasis for them on the idea that who they are now isn’t wrong, or dirty but instead a strength. They don’t deserve the bad that happens to them, but their identity as outsiders makes them suited to survive it, and their suffering has ~meaning.

But for all four of them, what ultimately matters is identity - whether they are hoping for the day when they’ll stop being who they are or dreading it, or outrunning it, all four have to grapple with a changing identity and come to terms with the idea that there is nothing wrong with who they are, but there IS something wrong in how they were all raised to believe they must change to accepted.

female protagonists will literally go through 30 life altering traumas at the age of 16 and you ppl still have the audacity to call them annoying bc they cry about it and act like teenage girls