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Butler
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and Housekeeper (domestic worker), housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male, and in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is usually a woman, and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants (such as footmen) were better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can also sometimes function as a chauffeur. In older houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles such as ''majordomo'', ''butler administrator'', ''house manager'', ''manservant'', ''staff manager'', ''chief of staff'', ''staff captain'', ''estate manager'', and ''head o ...
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Butler 1922
A butler is a person who works in a house serving and is a domestic worker in a large household. In great houses, the household is sometimes divided into departments with the butler in charge of the dining room, wine cellar, and pantries, pantry. Some also have charge of the entire parlour floor, and Housekeeper (domestic worker), housekeepers caring for the entire house and its appearance. A butler is usually male, and in charge of male servants, while a housekeeper is usually a woman, and in charge of female servants. Traditionally, male servants (such as footmen) were better paid and of higher status than female servants. The butler, as the senior male servant, has the highest servant status. He can also sometimes function as a chauffeur. In older houses where the butler is the most senior worker, titles such as ''majordomo'', ''butler administrator'', ''house manager'', ''manservant'', ''staff manager'', ''chief of staff'', ''staff captain'', ''estate manager'', and ''head o ...
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Pantries
A pantry is a room or cupboard where beverages, food, and sometimes dishes, household cleaning products, linens or provisions are stored within a home or office. Food and beverage pantries serve in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. Etymology The word "pantry" derives from the same source as the Old French term ; that is from , the French form of the Latin , "bread". History in Europe and United States Late Middle Ages In a late medieval hall, there were separate rooms for the various service functions and food storage. The pantry was where bread was kept and food preparation was done. The head of the office responsible for this room was referred to as a pantler. There were similar rooms for storage of bacon and other meats ( larder), alcoholic beverages ( buttery, known for the "buts" of barrels stored there), and cooking ( kitchen). Colonial era In the United States, pantries evolved from early Colonial American " butteries", built in a cold north corner of a Colon ...
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Domestic Worker
A domestic worker or domestic servant is a person who works within the scope of a residence. The term "domestic service" applies to the equivalent occupational category. In traditional English contexts, such a person was said to be "in service". Domestic workers perform a variety of household services for an individual, from providing cleaning and household maintenance, or cooking, laundry and ironing, or care for children and elderly dependents, and other household errands. Some domestic workers live within their employer's household. In some cases, the contribution and skill of servants whose work encompassed complex management tasks in large households have been highly valued. However, for the most part, domestic work tends to be demanding and is commonly considered to be undervalued, despite often being necessary. Although legislation protecting domestic workers is in place in many countries, it is often not extensively enforced. In many jurisdictions, domestic work is ...
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Footman
A footman is a male domestic worker employed mainly to wait at table or attend a coach or carriage. Etymology Originally in the 14th century a footman denoted a soldier or any pedestrian, later it indicated a foot servant. A running footman delivered messages.The Concise Oxford Dictionary, He might run beside or behind the carriages of aristocrats, running alongside the coach to make sure it was not overturned by such obstacles as ditches or tree roots. A footman might also run ahead to the destination to prepare for his lord's arrival. Roles The name was applied to a household servant who waited at table and attended, rode on, his employer's coach or carriage in case of untoward incidents. The ''first footman'' was the designation given to the highest-ranking servant of this class in a given household. The first footman would serve as deputy butler and act as butler in the latter's absence, although some larger houses also had an under-butler above the first footman. In a la ...
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Cup-bearer
A cup-bearer was historically an officer of high rank in royal courts, whose duty was to pour and serve the drinks at the royal table. On account of the constant fear of plots and intrigues (such as poisoning), a person must have been regarded as thoroughly trustworthy to hold the position. He would guard against poison in the king's cup, and was sometimes required to swallow some of the drink before serving it. His confidential relations with the king often gave him a position of great influence. The position of cup-bearer has been greatly valued and given only to a select few throughout history. The cup-bearer as an honorific role, for example as the Egyptian hieroglyph for "cup-bearer," was used as late as 196 BC in the Rosetta Stone for the Kanephoros cup-bearer Areia, daughter of Diogenes; each Ptolemaic Decree starting with the Decree of Canopus honored a cup-bearer. A much older role was the appointment of Sargon of Akkad as cup-bearer in the 23rd century BC. Cup-beare ...
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Buttery (room)
A buttery was originally a large cellar room under a monastery, in which food and drink were stored for the provisioning of strangers and passing guests. Nathan Bailey's ''An Universal Etymological English Dictionary'' gives "CELLARIST – one who keeps a Cella, or Buttery; the Butler in a religious House or Monastery." As the definition in John Stevens's ''The History of the Antient Abbeys'' shows, its initial function was to feed and water the guests rather than monks: "The Buttery; the Lodging for Guests". In a monastery a buttery was thus the place from which travellers would seek 'doles' of bread and weak ale, given at the exterior buttery door (and often via a small serving-hatch in the door, to prevent invasion of the stores by a crowd or by rough beggars). The task of doling out this free food and drink would be the role of the butterer. At larger monasteries there would also be a basic hostelry, where travellers could sleep for free. Later the term buttery was also ap ...
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Housekeeper (domestic Worker)
A housekeeper (also called necessary woman) is an individual responsible for the supervision of a house's cleaning staff. The housekeeper may also perform the cleaning duties themself. History In the great houses of the eighteenth, nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the housekeeper could be a woman of considerable power in the domestic arena. The housekeeper of times past had her room (or rooms) cleaned by junior staff, her meals prepared and laundry taken care of, and with the butler presided over dinner in the Servants' Hall. Unlike most other servants, she was addressed as Mrs regardless of her marital status. Today's head of household staff in a great house lives in much the same manner, although fewer households can afford large retinues of servants with an elaborate hierarchy. In some countries this is due to the minimum wage. The housekeeper is generally hired by and reports to the lady of the house. The extent to which the housekeeper supervises other staff va ...
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Great House
A great house is a large house or mansion with luxurious appointments and great retinues of indoor and outdoor staff. The term is used mainly historically, especially of properties at the turn of the 20th century, i.e., the late Victorian or Edwardian era in the United Kingdom and the Gilded Age in the United States. Definition There is no precise definition of "great house", and the understanding of varies between countries. In England, while most villages would have a manor house since time immemorial, originally home of the lord of the manor and sometimes referred to as "the big house", not all would have anything as lavish as a traditional English country house, one of the traditional markers of an established "county" family that derived at least a part of its income from landed property. Stately homes, even rarer and more expensive, were associated with the peerage, not the gentry. Many mansions were demolished in the 20th century; families that had previously split ...
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Majordomo
A majordomo is a person who speaks, makes arrangements, or takes charge for another. Typically, this is the highest (''major'') person of a household (''domūs'' or ''domicile'') staff, a head servant who acts on behalf of the owner of a large or significant residence. A majordomo may also, more informally, be someone who oversees the day-to-day responsibilities of a business enterprise. Historically, many institutions and governments – monasteries, cathedrals, and cities – as well as noble and royal houses also had the post of majordomo, who usually was in charge of finances. Additionally, the Hispanos of New Mexico use the related term ''mayordomo'' to refer to the manager of an ''acequia'' system for a town or valley. Etymology The origin is from (), and it was borrowed into English from Spanish or obsolete Italian . Also, it is found as French , modern Italian , Portuguese and Galician language, Galician , and Romanian language, Romanian and Catalan language, Catal ...
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Household Silver
Household silver or silverware (the silver, the plate, or silver service) includes tableware, cutlery, and other household items made of sterling silver, silver gilt, Britannia silver, or Sheffield plate silver. Silver is sometimes bought in sets or combined to form sets, such as a set of silver candlesticks or a silver tea set. Historically, silverware was divided into table silver, for eating, and dressing silver for bedrooms and dressing rooms. The grandest form of the latter was the toilet service, typically of 10-30 pieces, often silver-gilt, which was especially a feature of the period from 1650 to about 1780. History Elites in most ancient cultures preferred to eat off precious metals ("plate") at the table; China and Japan were two major exceptions, using lacquerware and later fine pottery, especially porcelain. In Europe the elites dined off metal, usually silver for the rich and pewter or latten for the middling classes, from the ancient Greeks and Romans until the ...
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Chauffeur
A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine. Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to specialist chauffeur service companies or individual drivers that provide both driver and vehicle for hire. Some service companies merely provide the driver. History The term ''chauffeur'' comes from the French term for stoker because the earliest automobiles, like their railroad and sea vessel counterparts, were steam-powered and required the driver to stoke the engine. Early petrol/gasoline-powered motor cars, before the advent of electric ignition, were ignited by 'hot tubes' in the cylinder head which had to be pre-heated before the engine would start. Hence the term ''chauffeur'' which, in this context, means something like "heater-upper". The chauffeur would prime the hot tubes at the start of a journey, after which the natural compressi ...
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English Language
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic (Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8 ...
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