There was quite a bit of discussion in Class 3 of Le Morte d’Arthur (starting at 50:19) about how Sir Ector asked Arthur to make Sir Kay his seneschal when he became King. What is a seneschal, anyway? The dictionary defines the seneschal as the senior officer in charge of administering the King’s household. That’s kind of skeletal. Let’s flesh it out a bit, by a combination of imagination and the medieval adage sequi pecuniam.
Any reader of medieval romances who pictures life at court is probably imagining a feast. All great events seem to happen at feasts. In reality, this isn’t far off. Whenever some important affair of state was going to happen, the King would summon his knights and lords, and these people needed to be fed. In an echo of the most ancient origins of kingship, the King could bolster his power by making sure they were extravagantly well fed.[1] The Seneschal (via a huge staff of commoners, naturally) furnished the table. He was in charge of acquiring the meat, fish, bread, wine, beer, and maybe even an occasional vegetable. As Corey Olsen said, it’s not a great office of state.[2] It’s the maximum that a middling fief-holder like Sir Ector could ask, but it’s big enough that it’s what he most needed.
So much of the king’s “soft power” depended on the seneschal that a wise king gave him a free hand and a generous budget for acquiring stuff for the court. So if we imagine Sir Kay’s first day on the job, what’s he going to do? The butchers and bakers and brewers he knows best are peasants on Sir Ector’s estates. He’s going to buy from them first, he’s going to be a reliable repeat customer, and he’s going to pay top prices to get their best product. Ector’s estates are guaranteed prosperity for as long as Kay is seneschal and King Arthur wants to hold power. With a generation of guaranteed prosperity, those estates can become very comfortable indeed, and Ector’s family will be able to use the resulting wealth to raise its position in society.
It comes at a price, though. John Steinbeck’s version of the conversation between Lancelot and Kay is heartbreaking. Kay might be the character who translates most easily into 20th-century American understanding.
Why does Kay get such a bad rap in other versions of the story? I think the seneschal is the bellator equivalent of the miller when you’re telling stories: a natural bad-guy. Every time he makes a big purchase, some other supplier loses out on the contract. Even if Kay was perfectly honest and fair in his dealings, somebody out there was bound to resent him. Maybe those somebodies had real-world counterparts who were wealthy and bought books. I doubt Chrétien de Troyes was any different from modern authors, when it comes to considering market share as they’re plotting out a story.
Coda
When I type a Malory-word on this iOS device, autocorrect decides I must have meant to type the French word and tweaks the spelling accordingly. I’m enjoying that, so I’m leaving the title as it stands.
[1] Which is where we get things like fire-breathing swans on the dinner table. Countless political squabbles in the Middle Ages were averted because the would-be recréant knight, doing his benefit-cost calculation, had to account for losing his seat at the table and decided it wasn’t worth it.
[2] In England. The cognate French office was a really powerful position.
Joe
A blog post from the British Library about medieval feasting is at http://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2018/08/throwing-a-medieval-feast.html . Check it out for the images from the Luttrell Psalter.