Up and Down Stairs - Jeremy Musson [21]
Luttrell was also notably the commissioning patron of the great Luttrell Psalter with its famous illuminations, now preserved in the British Library. Those illustrating psalms 113–14 show food being prepared in a kitchen, and then being carried by servants (including the loyal John of Colne) to be served to Sir Geoffrey and his household. The miniatures are considered so distinctive that some of the figures depicted at the table may be actual individuals.79
It is possible that some servants provided support and loyalty beyond expectations. A valued friendship between master and servant was later recorded by the 9th Earl of Northumberland: ‘And in this I must truly testify for servants out of experience, that in all my fortunes good and bade, I have found them more reasonable than either wyfe, brothers or friends.’80
Service in a great household in the late medieval and Tudor periods was looked upon by most of those employed as something of a privilege – and the complex hierarchies of staff would have reflected those of society at large. Even the yeoman servants (who had more everyday work) enjoyed a degree of security and patronage. They could also expect what was then a reasonable standard of living, certainly in terms of subsistence, food and drink, as well as lodging (all of which formed a substantial part of their wages). Not surprisingly, because of the degree of intimacy mentioned, servants might often be drawn from the same families, generation after generation. For instance, the surnames of servants in the accounts of John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk, in 1462, are largely the same as those for the 2nd Duke in 1525.81
Some servants, like our friend John Russell, might remain in noble service for their whole careers, enjoying impressive promotions. In the fourteenth century, William de Manton was wardrober to Elizabeth de Burgh; by 1340 he had become the clerk of her chamber. Later still he was her executor and after her death he transferred to the household of her son-in-law, the Duke of Clarence. In 1361–5 he had reached the post of keeper of the wardrobe to Edward III.82 Households would break up on the death of a nobleman, not least because by that time an adult son might well already have a full household of his own.
If, as the Northumberland Household Book makes clear, the household servants were mostly male, they were also predominantly young; indeed, a significant proportion of the young male servants were effectively attached to the house as part of their education, to learn etiquette, discipline and all manner of social polish, as well as to benefit from their proximity to powerful men. It is important that we see this process through medieval rather than modern eyes. For such service was not considered servile; rather it was an expected and necessary part of the life of a young aristocrat.
These young attendants, from noble and gentry backgrounds, would serve for a designated period as if at a finishing school. This weaned them from reliance on their own household servants and prepared them for the duties they would command of others when they were heads of their own establishments. It made them familiar too with protocol on great occasions and taught them personal conduct as well as domestic organisation. It was also intended to give them political connections that could lead to advantageous marriages or positions at court, and certainly to lifelong alliances.
Daniele Barbaro, the sophisticated Venetian ambassador to England