"Seneschal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... mouth to mouth, each one taking a whiff, which is equivalent to the inviolable pledge of faith, of taking salt together among the ancient Britons. The chief then made a sign to the old pipe-bearer, who seemed to fill, likewise, the station of herald, seneschal, and public crier, for he ascended to the top of the lodge to make proclamation. Here he took his post beside the aperture for the emission of smoke and the admission of light; the chief dictated from within what he was ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... model of his father's, and having a lord chamberlain, and a high steward and several gentlemen in attendance; while the young queen appointed her own ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour. He likewise set up a mint to coin money, and chose a seneschal as head of the five policemen who kept order in the capital and punished the boys who were caught in the act of throwing ...
— The Olive Fairy Book • Various
... Sir Ector, 'I crave a boon of you, that while you live, your foster-brother, Sir Kay, shall be high seneschal ...
— King Arthur's Knights - The Tales Re-told for Boys & Girls • Henry Gilbert
... closed, and instead of a bugle horn hanging at the gate I found only the handle and fragments of an old birch-broom, which base utensil I presently applied to the purpose of a horn, viz. sounding an alarm, and knocked and knocked—but no hoary-headed seneschal nor armed warder appeared at my summons. After a moment's hesitation, I gave the door a push with all my strength: it yielded, creaking on its hinges, and I stepped over the raised threshold. I found myself in a low dark vaulted hall which appeared at first to have ...
— The Diary of an Ennuyee • Anna Brownell Jameson
... smiled On his peerless child, "Sweet bird! bid Hugh our seneschal Send to saint Leonard's, ere even-fall, A fat fed beeve, and a two-shear sheep, With a firkin of ale that a monk in his sleep May hear to hum, when it feels the broach, And wake up and swig, without reproach!— And the nuns of the Fosse—for wassail-bread— ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... the Nihilists, and was whirled through miles of park and up an avenue lighted by electricity. We reached the baronial gateway of the Towers, a vast Gothic pile in the later manner of Inigo Jones, and a seneschal stood at the foot of a magnificent staircase to receive me. I had never seen a seneschal before, but I recognized him by the peeled white wand he carried, by his great silver chain, and his black velvet coat ...
— In the Wrong Paradise • Andrew Lang
... Council(1335) to the effect that, considering that the borough of Southwark had never formed part of the City of London, the charter of Edward VI notwithstanding, and that the holding of wardmotes in the borough would materially interfere with the duties of an ancient officer known as a seneschal or steward of Southwark, the petition could not be complied with, except by application to the legislature, and that such a course would neither be expedient or advisable. Another petition to the same effect has quite recently been presented ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume I • Reginald R. Sharpe
... had been made, the leader wound his horn, and, before the echoes had died away among the hills, Hatto, acting as seneschal, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his war-horse, and called on Rogier, whom they call De Mongomeri. 'I rely much upon you,' said he: 'lead your men thitherward, and attack them from that side. William, the son of Osber the seneschal, a right good vassal, shall go with you and help in the attack, and you shall have the men of Boulogne and Poix, and all my soldiers. Alain Fergert and Ameri shall attack on the other side; they shall lead the Poitevins and the Bretons, and all the Barons of Maine; and I, with my own great ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... The seneschal called for lights, for the workmanship of these heirlooms was too fine to be appreciated in the gloom which pervaded the far inner court; two or three iron lanterns were brought and hung up, and link-boys flashed flaring torches upon the ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... to ride to Warwick, without drawing rein; to wake the porter at the gate, and the seneschal within, no matter at what hour he arrived. If the Knight were still at the Castle, the letter must be placed in his hands so soon as he left his chamber in the morning. But had he already gone from Warwick, the messenger, ...
— The White Ladies of Worcester - A Romance of the Twelfth Century • Florence L. Barclay
... dispensing justice and bestowing rewards, and generally arranging the future, for the survivors of the outcome of stories which more intimately concern themselves with Anavalt and Coth and Holden, and with Kerin and Ninzian and Gonfal and Donander, and with Miramon (in his role of Manuel's seneschal), or even with Sclaug and Thragnar, than with the liege-lord of Poictesme. Except in the old sixteenth-century chapbook (unknown to you, I believe, and never reprinted since 1822, and not ever modernized into any cognizable spelling), there seems ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... has almost succeeded in mounting, unperceived by those whose office it is to watch such aspirants, to a high place among historians. He has taken a seat on the dais without being challenged by a single seneschal. To oppose the progress of his fame is now almost a hopeless enterprise. Had he been reviewed with candid severity, when he had published only his first volume, his work would either have deserved its reputation, or would never have obtained it. "Then," as Indra says of Kehama, ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Saxon bride, albeit an unwilling one, as his reward. With this fair, unwilling Saxon bride and her long plait of yellow hair goes a very pretty, pathetic story, which I may tell you at some future time if you take kindly to this. A Caskoden was seneschal to William Rufus, and sat at the rich, half barbaric banquets in the first Great Hall. Still another was one of the doughty barons who wrested from John the Great Charter, England's declaration of independence; another was high in the councils of Henry V. I ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... when in 1433 he joined with Yolande, queen of Sicily, the constable Richmond and others, in chasing from power Charles VII.'s minister La Tremoille. He was knighted by Charles of Anjou in 1434, and presently entered the royal council. In 1437 he became seneschal of Anjou, and in 1440 of Poitou. During the Praguerie he rendered great service to the royal cause against the dauphin Louis and the revolted nobles, a service which was remembered against him after Louis's ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... by a short line. It belongs to the heroic period of French epic, containing some passages of great beauty, notably the episode of the slaying of the children, and maintains a high level of poetry throughout. Amis has married Lubras and become count of Blaives (Blaye), while Amiles has become seneschal at the court of Charlemagne, and is seduced by the emperor's daughter, Bellisant. The lovers are betrayed, and Amiles is unable to find the necessary supporters to enable him to clear himself by the ordeal of single combat, and fears, moreover, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... with the troop, the younger sons of the tenants will be called in to form a garrison here. We have five-and-thirty names down, and there are twenty men capable of bearing arms among the household, many of whom have seen service. Jacques Parold, our seneschal, has been a valiant soldier in his time, and would make the best of them; and my mother would assuredly keep our flag flying ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... dictator. board &c. (council) 696. secretary, secretary of state; Reis Effendi; vicar &c. (deputy) 759; steward, factor; agent &c. 758; bailiff, middleman; foreman, clerk of works; landreeve[obs3]; factotum, major-domo[obs3], seneschal, housekeeper, shepherd, croupier; proctor, procurator. Adv. ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... down from a lofty throne, Seeking that peace the sceptre cannot call; And leaving courtier, page, and seneschal, Goes down the lane of ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Nicaeus, "that my friend Justinian will scarcely have returned, but we are old comrades, and he desired me to act as his Seneschal. For your sake I am sorry, Iduna, for I feel convinced that he would ...
— The Rise of Iskander • Benjamin Disraeli
... the Palatinate Liberty of Wexford in the early part of Henry VIII.'s reign. That Palatinate was then governed by a seneschal or "senscal." The justice would seem to have been a gallant and sensual man, and the song may have been a little satirical. Among the notes of the "Manners" of the Irish, ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 192, July 2, 1853 • Various
... Urbane And Valmond, Emperor of Allemaine, Despoiled of his magnificent attire, Bareheaded, breathless, and besprent with mire, With sense of wrong and outrage desperate, Strode on and thundered at the palace gate; Rushed through the courtyard, thrusting in his rage To right and left each seneschal and page, And hurried up the broad and sounding stair, His white face ghastly in the torches' glare. From hall to hall he passed with breathless speed; Voices and cries he heard, but did not heed, Until at last he reached the banquet-room, ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... they are worthy of high praise and commendation. An example of such work is the Monastery of the Certosa of Florence, erected at the cost of the noble family of the Acciaiuoli, and particularly of M. Niccola, Grand Seneschal of the King of Naples, containing Niccola's tomb with his effigy in stone, and those of his father and a sister, both of whose portraits in the marble were made from life in the year 1366. There also and by the same hand may be seen the tomb of M. Lorenzo, Niccola's ...
— The Lives of the Painters, Sculptors & Architects, Volume 1 (of 8) • Giorgio Vasari
... said to them: "I insist that the castle be surrendered to me at once, for I know that you have the power to command it, otherwise you will lose your heads." They saw that he was in earnest, and one, who was the seneschal, sent orders to his nephew and ...
— Bayard: The Good Knight Without Fear And Without Reproach • Christopher Hare
... higher officers of state by the Council. It was probably a sense of the danger of leaving at home such a centre of all efforts after reform that brought Henry to send him in the autumn of 1248 as Seneschal of Gascony to save for the Crown the last ...
— History of the English People, Volume II (of 8) - The Charter, 1216-1307; The Parliament, 1307-1400 • John Richard Green
... in reverence for the feudal system. One of his tenants died and his bailiffs seized the best thing he had, to wit, an ox, as heriot due to the lord. The poor widow in tears begged and prayed for her ox back again, as the beast was breadwinner for her young children. The seneschal of the place chimed in, "But, my lord, if you remit these and similar legal dues, you will be absolutely unable to hold the land at all." The bishop heard him and leapt from his horse to the ground, which was very muddy. He dug both hands into ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... lady named Mildred de Hameldun; and she still received occasional visits from Mildred's daughter, whose name was Aliz or Elise de Norton. Next to the Countess of Oxford and her two daughters, Aliz de Norton was the chief lady in the city. Her father, Sir Robert de Hameldun, had been Seneschal of the Castle, and her husband, Sir Ording de Norton, was now filling a similar position. Yet the lofty title of Lady was barely accorded to Aliz de Norton. At that time it was of extreme rarity; less used than in Saxon days, far less than at a subsequent date under the later Plantagenets. ...
— One Snowy Night - Long ago at Oxford • Emily Sarah Holt
... cocks coarse fourteen dozen and eight at threepence the piece, pullets, the best, twopence halfpenny, other pullets twopence, pigeons thirty-seven dozen at tenpence the dozen, swans fourteen dozen, larks three hundred and forty dozen at fivepence the dozen, &c. Edward Nevill was seneschal or steward, Thomas Ratcliffe, comptroller, Thomas Wildon, clerk of the Kitchen" (Thomas's edit. ...
— Holborn and Bloomsbury - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... the mail-clad face above him, the blue eyes aflame, the pale lips tight-drawn, Sir Gui, Seneschal of Belsaye, spake soft-voiced ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... manner had no evil subaudition in it at the first; nor did it ever obtain such during the time that it survived in English; thus in Sir Gawayne and the Green Knight, the peerless Gawayne is himself on more than one a 'schalk' (424, 1776). The word survives in the last syllable of 'seneschal,' and indeed of 'marshal' as well.] 'To carp' is in Chaucer's language no more than to converse; 'to mouth' in Piers Plowman is simply to speak; 'to garble' was once to sift and pick out the best; it is now to select and put forward as ...
— On the Study of Words • Richard C Trench
... of about a hundred persons, who reside in some twenty-five or thirty houses built along the river, as each found most convenient. In the principal house resides the patron's agent; the minister has his apart, in which service is performed. There is also a kind of bailiff here, whom they call the seneschal,(1) who administers justice. All their houses are merely of boards and thatched, with no mason work except the chimneys. The forest furnishing many large pines, they make boards by means of their mills, which they have here for ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • Various
... advertisement which I seem to see, and what you will actually find will be a sort of concentrated hamlet where modern improvements are mixed with ancient grandeur and the white-haired seneschal is kept on to operate ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, July 21, 1920 • Various
... closely as he could, but blindly in the crowd in the strange house, until he found himself in a long gallery, shut out, among various others of both sexes. "Come, my masters and mistresses all," said the voice of the seneschal, "you had best to your chambers, there is naught for you ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... seen; But—it might be with twenty years between, Or haply less—at unfixed interval There would a semblance be of festival. A Seneschal and usher would appear, And troops of servants many baskets bear. Then were, in mystery, preparations made, And they departed—for till night none stayed. But 'twixt the branches gazers could descry The ...
— Poems • Victor Hugo
... defend or evil to avert; the gates of the now hospitable castle stood always open also to receive and shelter every stranger; and old Rolf, who was almost grown young again at the sight of his lord's excellence, was established as seneschal. The winter of Sintram's life set in bright and glorious, and it was only at times that he would ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... not about the English king," said the man Jenkin. "What sort of English king is it who cannot lay his tongue to a word of English? You mind last year when he came down to Malwood, with his inner marshal and his outer marshal, his justiciar, his seneschal, and his four and twenty guardsmen. One noontide I was by Franklin Swinton's gate, when up he rides with a yeoman pricker at his heels. 'Ouvre,' he cried, 'ouvre,' or some such word, making signs for me to open the gate; and then 'Merci,' as though he were adrad ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle
... time was made Lord High Constable and Keeper of the Pound. He was also Justiciary of North Wales, Seneschal of the Duchy of Lancaster, and Chief of Police on the ...
— Comic History of England • Bill Nye
... forget Red lips that trembled Eyes that were wet— Though love be weeping, Turn to your sleeping, Life has no giving That death need regret. Here at the end of all Hear the Beginning call, Life's but death's seneschal— Sleep and forget! ...
— Fires of Driftwood • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... "what has the surly groom to do with your ladyship's concerns?—no more, surely, than the ban-dog which watches his courtyard. If he is in aught distasteful to your ladyship, I have interest enough to have him exchanged for a seneschal that shall be more agreeable ...
— Kenilworth • Sir Walter Scott
... some importance in the house. Opposite to these were other gentlemen-at-arms and their sons, who were resident at Chad; and at the lower end of the table, below the great silver salt cellars, sat the seneschal, the lowlier retainers, and certain trusted servants who held responsible positions at Chad. The cooks and scullions and underlings dined in the great kitchen immediately after their masters' ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... is lonely for her in her hall. The children, and the grey-hair'd seneschal, Her women, and Sir Tristram's aged hound, Are there the sole companions to be found. But these she loves; and noisier life than this She would find ill to bear, weak as she is. She has her children, too, and night and day Is with them; and ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... king Henry II, when only 18; and, who, though near 60 at the death of that prince, had never ceased to preserve the same empire over his heart. At the age of fourteen, she was married to Louis de Breze, grand seneschal of Normandy, and died in April 1506, ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... of her godfather and buying back the treasures, so that Tito might keep his ill-gotten gain and her father's last wish still be fulfilled; but he convinced her that all interference was too late, for the things had been purchased by the Count di San Severino and the Seneschal de Beaucaire, who were already on their way with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Shurland were astounded, or, as the Seneschal Hugh better expressed it, "perfectly conglomerated," by this event. What! murder a monk in the odor of sanctity—and on consecrated ground too! They trembled for the health of the Baron's soul. To the unsophisticated many, it seemed that matters could not ...
— Half-Hours with Great Story-Tellers • Various
... the father of Sir Peter Arderne,[494] also in royal service. In 18 Henry VI. he was deputy of William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk, chief seneschal of the Duchy of Lancaster. He took the coif February 14, 1443, and was made King's Serjeant and Chief Baron of the Exchequer May 2, 1448. Dugdale does not mention him as a Judge of Common Pleas, but he received his patent July ...
— Shakespeare's Family • Mrs. C. C. Stopes
... Sir Kay, the seneschal, and cried, 'A boon, Sir King! even that thou grant her none, This railer, that hath mocked thee in full hall— None; or the wholesome boon of gyve ...
— Idylls of the King • Alfred, Lord Tennyson
... Either supposition, as implying something of human infirmity, seemed incompatible with supernatural faculties. Partly upon this consideration, and partly, perhaps, because he suddenly recollected that the road taken by The Masque would lead him directly past the apartments of the old seneschal, where assistance might be summoned, the Landgrave found his spirits at this moment revive. The consciousness of rank and birth also came to his aid, and that sort of disdain of the aggressor, which possesses every man, brave or cowardly alike, within ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... old-world times returned by magic? had a crazed serving-man revived the vanished duties of his warlike predecessor? was the wraith of seneschal or man-at-arms conjuring up a ghostly beacon to stream into the soft air? was an evil spirit about to bewilder and mislead a fated ship to meet its doom on the jagged rocks beneath the dead calm of that glassy sea? So dense was ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler
... residence in the palace of Alberto d'Este, Ercole's illegitimate brother. Here she was received by Lucretia Bentivigolio, natural daughter of Ercole, and numerous ladies of her court. The duke's seneschal brought to her Madonna Teodora and twelve young women who were to serve her as ladies-in-waiting. Five beautiful carriages, each drawn by four horses, a present from her father-in-law, were placed at her disposal. In this ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... forms a part. The present governor is the duc d'Aumout. The town of Boulogne is the see of a bishop suffragan of Rheims, whose revenue amounts to about four-and-twenty thousand livres, or one thousand pounds sterling. It is also the seat of a seneschal's court, from whence an appeal lies to the parliament of Paris; and thither all condemned criminals are sent, to have their sentence confirmed or reversed. Here is likewise a bailiwick, and a court of admiralty. The military jurisdiction of the city belongs to a ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... Nicapolis and Mansourah. So the proposition was accepted, and a secret alliance was signed, with Count Charles di Belgiojasa and the Count of Cajazza acting for Ludovica Sforza, and the Bishop of St. Malo and Seneschal de Beaucaire far Charles VIII. By ...
— The Borgias - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with a stake in both countries, England and Scotland. On coming to the throne, David endowed these men with charters of lands in Scotland. With him came a cadet of the great Anglo-Breton House of FitzAlan, who obtained the hereditary office of Seneschal or Steward of Scotland. His patronymic, FitzAlan, merged in Stewart (later Stuart), and the family cognizance, the fesse chequy in azure and argent, represents the Board of Exchequer. The earliest Stewart ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang
... weep in her captivity over the miseries of her country, and tremble with all a mother's fears for the safety of her son. She had placed Arthur under the care of William Desroches, the seneschal of her palace, a man of mature age, of approved valor, and devotedly attached to her family. This faithful servant threw himself, with his young charge, into the fortress of Brest, where he for some time defied the ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... archway, which by day stood hospitably open, was at night only guarded by two large oaken doors, yielding to a slight push. Beneath the southern wall of the castle court were various flower-beds, the pride and delight of the old seneschal, Ralph Penrose, in his own estimation the most important personage of Lynwood Keep, manager of the servants, adviser of the Lady, and instructor of the young gentleman ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to Nerac, once, with a body of troops, and stayed three days, not being able to leave the agreeable company he found there. Marechal de Biron, who wished for nothing so much as such an opportunity, was apprised of it, and, under pretence of joining M. de Cornusson, the seneschal of Toulouse, who was expected with a reinforcement for his army, he began his march; but, instead of pursuing the road, according to the orders he had issued, he suddenly ordered his troops to file off towards Nerac, and, before nine in the morning, his ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... pray," replied Sir Ector, "that thou wilt make my son Sir Key, thy foster-brother, seneschal ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles
... illustrative of the fact, and of the character of the times:—In the year 1480, an infant was eaten up in its cradle, by a bestia porcina, within the precincts of the parish of St. Giles. The abbess' officers seized the delinquent, and instituted a process for its condemnation before the seneschal of the convent. During the time, however, that the question was pending, the king's attorney-general interfered. He summoned the abbess before the high-bailiff, and, maintaining that the crime had been committed within the cognizance of the bailiwick, he claimed the ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... the evening. While revelry was again held in the great hall; while the tables groaned, for the third time since morning, with good cheer, and the ruby wine, which seemed to gush from inexhaustible fountains, mantled in the silver flagons; while seneschal, sewer, and pantler, with the yeomen of the buttery and kitchen, were again actively engaged in their vocations; while of the three hundred guests more than half, as if insatiate, again vied with each other in prowess ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... northern and western provinces of France, having become dependent upon England, did not they, likewise, by their commerce, and residence in that country, introduce a considerable change into its language? The names of Seneschal, Justiciar, Viscount, Provost, Bailiff, Vassal, &c. which occur in these fables, both in the Latin text and French translation by Mary, ought naturally to have been found in the English version. Now these several terms were all, according to Madox, ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... nothing flash nor green— A Seneschal confessed; Most people deemed his reverend mien Some family bequest. And yet but three short, happy years Had seen him on our tack, And made us verge on VERE DE VERES— Oh, bring ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, August 20, 1892 • Various
... sealed and seisin delivered in the presence of Dom Galors, almoner of the Abbey, of Master Porges, seneschal of High March, and of one or two mesne lords of those parts. Then the Countess went to bed; and at this time Prosper le Gai was also lying in the fringes of Morgraunt, asleep on his shield with his red cloak over him, having learned from a hind whom he met on the hill that at Malbank Saint Thorn ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett |
