Master and man

Summary

who ought we to trust to but our children and our stewards, and if they will be unfaithful, the lord reward them according to their merit.

Lord Fitzwilliam of Milton, 1705

Lord Fitzwilliam's observation reflects the curious position of the seventeenth-century estate steward in his relationship with his master. It was a relationship quite different from that of the late-eighteenth-century steward who was evolving into the salaried land agent so characteristic of the nineteenth century. Stewards were salaried servants but they were also members of the lord's household, his family, a contemporary usage which still retained deep significance. A familial relationship existed between masters and servants in noble and gentry households throughout the seventeenth century, a persistent late-mediaeval survival that was to perish during the eighteenth century. In this familial situation masters and servants were surrogate kin, which helps to explain how servants were treated both when they were treated badly and when they were treated well. It also helps to explain how servants, including stewards, perceived their masters, how they reacted to them and their expectations from them. This status of surrogate kin applied both to servants who were simples and servants who were gentles. The latter embraced such senior household servants as chaplains, secretaries, receivers, and particularly the stewards, for the latter, although often living distant from their lord's household, were very much part of it.