How Did the Royals of the Middle Ages Treat Their Low-Level Servants?

[skip.knox]

When someone comes and asks a very general question like this one, they tend to get the range of responses on view here. That ranges from "do your research" to attempts to provide specifics. I'll make a stab at that myself, but here I want to offer some advice. It's advice I gave to my students while teaching, and the same advice I gave on the medievalist list (mediev-l) more than once.

Go ahead and ask your question, but do one additional step: say what you've done so far.

Tell us what books you've read, what sites you've visited, what video you've watched. It doesn't need to be comprehensive. You aren't trying to show off. But if we know where you've looked, we'll have a better idea of how to answer. Not only will you get better information, those who read these threads in the future will also benefit.

Everyone wins, and all it cost you was a little bit of additional effort.

 

[skip.knox]

OK, that advice out of the way, I'll take a stab at an answer. Some of this has already been addressed by others.

"Medieval" is a term that encompasses a thousand years and an entire continent. If you can't be more specific, that's fine. That information tells us something. Even saying medieval England or medieval Sweden <wink> helps focus the replies. Very, very generally, it helps to distinguish between early and late Middle Ages. In between is a stretch with awkward terms like Central Middle Ages. But early medieval is not much like late medieval. And medieval Scotland is miles away from medieval Sicily.

When dealing with socio-economic matters, there's still a lot of play. It helped to hear this is about servants to a king. A wealthy merchant could have servants. Rural knights might have a servant.

And the very term is slippery. This, too, has been mentioned. Servant roles like butler in a royal court actually went to people who were themselves noble. Often, the position was merely a title and a source of income. Best would be to hear what the OP was picturing that character doing. And that was provided: sweeping up, cleaning up, that sort of thing.

Now we're on to something. Such a servant wouldn't be treated by the king at all. Such a servant would mostly be invisible and expected to be so. Rather like modern janitors, right? Such a role might do well for a character who is actually a spy or a planted assassin. They could move around and be beneath the notice of most of the royal court. A personal servant, maybe a cook or two, these would be more likely to interact directly with the king. They might be treated well or badly, depending on the king and the moment.

So, back to the OP: how were you imagining this servant? What story plans do you have for him or her?