Steward

Steward is the more common title given to a manager of a fief.

Position
The day-to-day concerns of a fief are rarely managed by the lord directly, but by his staff and pool of fieforial labor. The steward is the first and most important part of a lord’s staff. The steward oversees all of a lord’s fiefs, does the accounting, runs the lord’s main fief, greets visiting officials and gentry when the lord is unavailable, and selects a bailiff for each fief. The steward knows how much money and kind is spent entertaining a visiting knight and his entourage, what amount each manor should produce at harvest, how much wine to buy for the lord’s main manor, how much the lord and lady spend on clothing every year, and which bailiffs tend to skim off the top at collection time.

The steward is the lifeline between the lord and his fiefs. The steward travels from fief to fief throughout the year checking on each fief’s progress. The steward has attendants and clerks that travel with him. Stewards and their clerks usually visit a single fief a few times a year, each stay lasting only a day or two. Lords with vast holdings may employ multiple stewards, while lords who hold and reside on one fief may not need a steward at all. In general even lords with one fief employ stewards for the times he must leave the fief. A lord must leave to serve military service or counsel for his lord, to fight wars, or to visit other fiefs and lords for political or social reasons. Lords mostly employ stewards to avoid troubling themselves with the trifles of daily subsistence.