What is a Chamberlain?

CHAMBERLAIN Etymology

Old French; chamberlain, chamberlenc, and Modern French; chambellan,

Old High German; Chamarling, Chamarlinc

Latin; cambellanus, camerlingus, camerlengus

Italian; camerlingo

Spanish; camerlengo

Compounded of Old High German Chamara, Kamara [Lat. camera, ” chamber”], and the German suffix -ling), etymologically, and also to a large extent historically, an officer charged with the superintendence of domestic affairs.

CHAMBERLAIN as a Religious Title

The title is used in religious settings of the chamberlains of monasteries or cathedrals, who had charge of the finances, gave notice of chapter meetings, and provided the materials necessary for the various services. In these cases, as in that of the apostolic chamberlain of the Roman see, the title was borrowed from the usage of the courts of the western secular princes.

CHAMBERLAIN as a Royal Title

A royal chamberlain is a court official whose function is, in general, to attend to the person of the sovereign and to regulate the etiquette of the palace. He is the representative of the medieval cambellanus, cambellanus, or cubicularius, whose office was modeled on that of the praefectus sacri cubiculi or cubicularius of the Roman emperors.

CHAMBERLAIN as an administrative Title for an Official

There was another class of chamberlains, the camerarii, i.e. high officials charged with the administration of the royal treasury (camera).

Origins of CHAMBERLAINS

The “camerarius” of the Carolingian (Frankish noble family named after Charlemagne) emperors was the equivalent of the hordere or thesaurarius (treasurer) of the Anglo-Saxon kings in England.

The term “hordere” is from Middle English horder, or hordere (“a keeper of a store of goods”), from Old English hordere (“a treasurer, steward, chamberlain”). In the Church, the hordere developed into the Erzkammerer (archicamerarius) of the Holy Roman Empire, an office held by the margraves of Brandenburg, and the grand chambrier of France, who held his chamberie as a fief.

Anglo Saxon & Norman CHAMBERLAINS

In England after the Norman Conquest, the Old English designation of “hordere” became the French designation of “Chamberlain”.

This office was of great importance. Before the Conquest, he had been, with the marshal, the principal officer of the king’s court, and under the Norman sovereigns, his functions were manifold. The chamberlain had charge of the administration of the royal household. His office was of financial importance, for a portion of the royal revenue was paid not into the exchequer but in “camera regis.”

In the course of time under the Normans, the English office became hereditary and titular, but the complexities of the duties necessitated a division of the work, and the office was split up into three types based on duties:

• The Lord Great Chamberlain – the hereditary and sinecure office (a position requiring little or no work but giving the holder status or financial benefit) of magister camerarius.
• The Lord Chamberlain – the more important domestic office of camerarius regis, the king’s chamberlain.
• The Chamberlains (camerarius or camerarii) of the exchequer, who were representatives of the Lord Chamberlain at the exchequer, and afterward, in conjunction with the treasurer, presided over that department.

French CHAMBERLAINS

In France, the office of grand chambrier was early overshadowed by the chamberlains (cubicularii, cambellani, but sometimes also camerarii), officials in close personal attendance for the king, men at first of low rank, but of great and ever-increasing influence.

As the office of Grand Chambrier, held by great feudal nobles who were seldom at court, became more and more honorary, the chamberlains grew in power, in numbers, and in rank, until, in the 13th century, one of them emerged as a great officer of the state, the “chambellan” de France or “grand chambellan” (also “magister cambellanorum” or “mestre chamberlenc”), who at times shares with the grand chambrier the revenues derived from certain trades in the city of Paris (see Regestum Memoralium Camerae computorum, quoted in du Cange, s. Camerarius).

The honorary office of grand chambrier survived till the time of Henry II., who was himself the last to hold it before his accession; that of grand chambellan, which in its turn soon became purely honorary, survived till the Revolution. Among the prerogatives of the grand chambellan, which survived to the last, not the least valued, was the right to hand the king his shirt at the ceremonial levee.

The offices of grand chambellan, premier chambellan, and chambellan were revived by Napoleon, continued under the Restoration, abolished by Louis Philippe, and again restored by Napoleon III.

Roman Catholic CHAMBERLAINS

In the papal Curia, the apostolic chamberlain (Lat. camerarius, Ital. camerlingo) occupies a very important position. He is at the head of the treasury (camera thesauraria) and, in the days of the temporal power, not only administered the papal finances but possessed extensive civil and criminal jurisdiction.

During a vacancy of the Holy See, he is at the head of the administration of the Roman Church.

The religious office dates from the 11th century when it superseded that of Archdeacon of the Roman Church, and the close personal relations of the camerarius with the pope, together with the fact that he is the official guardian of the ceremonial vestments and treasures, point to the fact that he is also the representative of the former vestararius and vice-dominus, whose functions were merged in the new office, of which the idea and title were probably borrowed from the usage of the secular courts of the West (Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, i. 405, &c.).

There are also attached to the papal household (famiglia pontificia) a large number of chamberlains whose functions are more or less ornamental. These are divided into several categories: privy chamberlains (camerieri segreti), chamberlains, assistant chamberlains, and honorary chamberlains.

These were gentlemen of rank and belonged to the highest class of the household (famiglia mobile).

Modern Day CHAMBERLAINS

In England, the modern representatives of the cubicularii are the gentlemen and grooms of the bed-chamber. In Germany the Kammerherr (Kammerer, from camerarius, in Bavaria and Austria) and Kammerjunker. The insignia of their office is a gold key attached to their coats.

Today, many corporations appoint a chamberlain. The most important in England is the chamberlain of the corporation of the city of London, who is treasurer of the corporation, admits persons entitled to the freedom of the city, and, in the chamberlain’s court, of which he and the vice-chamberlain are judges, exercises concurrent jurisdiction with the police court in determining disputes between masters and apprentices. Formerly nominated by the crown since 1688, he has been elected annually by the liverymen. He has a salary of 2000 pounds a year. Similarly, in Germany, the administration of the finances of a city is called the Kammerei, and the official in charge of it is the Kammerer.

See also State, Great Officers Of; Household, Royal; Du Cange, Glossarium, s. “Camerarius” and “Cambellanus”; Pere Anselme (Pierre de Guibours), Hist. genealogique et chronologique de la maison royale de France, eec. (9 vols., 3rd ed., 1726-1733); A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions francaises (Paris, 1892); W. R. Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution (Oxford, 1896); Hinschius, Kirchenrecht, i. 405 (Berlin, 1869).

camerarius or Chamberlain recorded in Domesday

In 1086, 2,468 persons or ecclesiastical communities have been identified as landholders in England. Of this total, 361 are eccfesiastics and 99 are women, 76 of them laywomen; 599 are English and 4 Welsh. Among the 361 ecdesiastics are 135 ecclesiastical communities, 87 of which were founded in pre-Conquest England.

On the question of ‘surnames,’ one can add to the figures already cited above (Chapter 2) from a smaller sample of 2,172 identifiable persons occurring as landholders in the Domesday Book.

Of these 629 can be known only by a forename, 186 by a patronym, 27 by other relationship terms, such as pater, and 515 use a toponymic surname (of which less than twenty relate to English places and were borne by non-Englishmen).

Forty-six were known by household occupational descriptors such as camerarius, dapifer, pincerna or dispemator, and 252 bore ecclesiastical titles such as presbiter, episcopus.

Adelold Camerarius Chamberlain of Odo bishop of Bayeux, occurs Domesday Kent. He occurs as a despoiler of Sainte-Trinitb de Caen under Robert Curthose, taking land at Englesqueville-la-PercCe and Grandchamp-les-Bains, Cdvados (Walmsley, pp. 126,127). He occurs in a Bayeux charter of 1087-96, CDF, 1436. The three-knight fee of ‘Aeloudi Camerarii’ is mentioned in the Bayeux Inquest (RBE, 645). i, fol. 007d; i, fol. 009d; i, fol. 01 1d; i, fol. 01 1b; i,fol. 007d

Aiulf Camerarius Domesday tenant-in-chief in the southwest. Sheriff of Dorset from c.1086 to the early years of Henry 1’s reign, sheriff of Wiltshire 1086, probably until 1091, and sheriff of Somerset from 1091; cf. Green, Sheriffs, 37, 85, 73. Brother of Humphrey Camerarius (VCH Somerset i, 416). He was dead by c. 1121, as revealed by Henry 1’s confirmation charter for Shaffesbury Abbey, to which Aiulf had made a grant for the soul of his wife. (RRAN ii, 346-7). i, fol. 120c; i, fol. 78b; i, fol. 78d; i, fol. 84c; i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 83a; 1, fol. 83a; i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 82d; i, for. 83a; i, fol. 52a; i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 82d; i, fol. 83%i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 83a; i,fol. 82d; i, fol. 83a; i, fol. 82d; i, fol. 82d; Pipe Roll 31 Henry I, 014-ds;

AIberic Camerarius Regine Norman, occurs in Domesday Book. To be distinguished &om Aubrey de Vere, a chamberlain to Henry I (cf. Comp. Peer. x, App. J, I 10). This Aubrey is probably to be identified with the Albericus cameratius regine who gave land at Le Tourp to the abbey of Montebourg. The grant was confirmed in I 107 by Henry I; in a copy of the charter in the cartulary of the piory of Loders (Dorset) the witnesses include

Alwoid Camerarius Occurs Domesday Bedahire. i, fol. 63d Alwy Filius Alsi De Ferendone Son of Alfsi of Faringdon, Berkshire. He held a house in Domesday Wallingford, which was still held in the late twelfth century by his grandson Robert of Astrop. Cf. VCH Oxfordshire i 388. i, fol. 161b; i,fol. 161a; i, fol. 56b

Bernard Camerarius Occurs Domesday Hampshire. i, fol. 51c Bernard De AIeneun Hewe Bituricensis’s Domesday tenant Bernard de Alencun was doubtless the same person as Robert Malet’s tenant Bernard Lundonie.

Girard Camerarius Norman, occurs Domesday Gloucestershire. i, fol. 163d; i, fol. 163c; i, fol. 162b; i, fol. 162b; i, fol. 166b; i, fol. 166b; i, fol. 163d; i, fol. 1634 i, fol. 166b; i, fol. l66b; i, fof. 166b Girard Dapifer Dapifer of Walter de Douai as appears in the Bath Cartulary (p. 39, bis) in a document belonging to the date of Walter’s death c. 1107. In the 1090s Uluric (q.v.) was dapifer. The Bath document was also attested by a Girardus capellanus. i, fol. 91d; i, fol. 95a; i, fol. I 11d; i, fol. I 1 ld; i, fol. 11Id; Hunt, Bath Chartulary, Sam. Rec. Soc. 7 (1893), No. 35 Girard Fossarius Royal servant, occurs Domesday Somerset; identified as ‘fossarius’ (ditcher) in Exon. i, fol. 98d; i, fol. 93d; i, fol. 90b; i, fol. 90b Girard Lotaringus Domesday tenant of Count Alan in Cambridgeshire. His byname, provided in the Inquisitio Coxnitatus Cantabrigiensis, identifies him as a Lorrainer. I, fol. 194a; I, fol. 194a; i, fol. 194a; Hamilton, Inquisitio Cornitatus Cantabrigiensis, pp. 1-93; IIamilton, Inqulsitio Eliensis (1 876), pp. 97-1 00 Girard [I Held two manors in chief in Devon in Tiverton Hundred; the holdings of a Gerard in Tiverton Hundred of Ralph PayneI were probably of the same man. i, fol. I 136 i, fol. 1 13d; i, fol. 117a; i, fol. 117a Girard I]

Goisfrid Camerarius Probably tsther of Geoffrey I de Clinton and ancestor of the de Clinton family; from Saint-Pierre-de-SemiIly, Manche, arr. Saint-La, cant. Saint-Clair (Loyd, 30). See J.H. Round in Ancestor, xi, 156. Occurs in Domesday as chamberlain to the king’s daughter Natilda. Founder of the Holy Trinity Priory, Wallingford, a cell of St Albans. i, fol. 49b; i, fol. 39b; i,fol. 49b Goisfrid Clericus De Blinca Norman, from Blanques, Seine-Maritime, comm. cant. FauvilIe, par. Alvimare, held one of the prebends of Hastings c.1086 as a tenant of the count of Eu (Sussex Rec. Soc. xliv, p. 299). Cf. M. Gardiner, ‘Some lost Anglo-Saxon charters and the endowment of Hastings College’, Sussex Arch. Coll. 127 (1989), 46. i, fol. 18b.

Gonduin Camerarius Occurs Domesday Suffolk. Perhaps the same as Gundwin Granetarius of Wiltshire. ii, fol. 097b; ii, fol. 097b; ii, fog. 436b; ii, fol. 436b.

Gunduin Granetarius Occurs Domesday Wiltshire. Perhaps the same as the Gundwin camerarius of Suffok and Essex. i, foi. 72d; i, foi. 74d.

Herbert Camerarius Domesday tenant-inchief in Hampshire. He was dead by the time of his appearance in PR 3 1 Henry I, which @. 37) reveals that his wife was a sister of Osbert father of Gervaise, that his son and heu was Herbert and that he had a daughter married to Robert de Venoiz, and another daughter (ibid. 125)married to William Croc. Remembered as a predator of the abbey of Abingdon, to which he finally made amends; Chron. Abing. ii, 134 calls him ‘regis cubicularius atque thesaurarius’. These offices were held c.1 I25 by Geofiey de Clinton, who may have purchased them from Henry I (RRAN ii, 1428); they certainly did not pass to Herbert’s son, i, fol. 48c; i, fol. 48c; i,fol. 4 k , i, fol. 48d; Mason, Westminster Abbey Charters (1988), No. 488; i, fol. 43c,d; i, fol. 4%; i, foI. 48d; i, fol. 48d

Herbert Camerarius Rogeri Bigot Chamberlain of Roger Bigod, occurs Domesday Norfolk. Possibly Herbert de Cravencum who occurs as an early benefactor of Thetford Priory (MOILAng. iv, 148). The toponym may refer to Notre-Dame de Gravenchon, Seine-Maritime,an: Le Havre, cant. Lillebonne. ii, fol. 278b; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, n! pp. 150-51, No. VIII; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, IV,pp. 148-49, No. 11; Regesta Regum Anglo Normannorum 11, App. no. cxxvii

Herbert Filius Alberici Domesday tenant of the archbishop of York; identifiable from Lindsey Survey 16.4. Father of Herbert camerarius (regis Scotiae) and William, archbishop of York (q.v.), EYC i, no. 25. i, fol. 3396; I, fol. 339c; i, fol. 339c; Lindsey Survey, BL ms Cotton Claudius C v, f01~19-27

Hunger Filius Odini Son of Odin camerarius fq.v.1. i, foI, 49d; i, fol. 43d; i, fol. 81ctd; i, fol. 85% i, fol. 85a Hunnit [] English thegn who continued to hold land in Shropshire, in association with his brother Wulfgeat, after 1066. In 1086 they were tenants of Turold de Verly. His land passed thereafter to another Englishman Thorth, ancestor of the fitzTorets; see Williams, The English, 90. i, fol. 258%i, fol. 258% i, fol. 258% i, fol. 258a Iagelin I] Domesday tenant of Theobald fitz Bemer and Godbald arbdaster. His personal name is a diminiutive of a Celtic form Jagu, and also occurs as a diminutive of Latin ‘Jacob’. i, fol. 11%; i, fol. 117b

Johannes Camerarius Norman, occurs Domesday Gloucestershire. i, fol. 163d; i, fol. 163d; i, fol. 163d Johannes Fiius Ernuciun Norman, Domesday tenant of John fitz Waleran de Veim. His successor in 1129 was Hugh fitz Ernucion (PR 31 Henry I, 5 9 , and perhaps also Robert fitz Ernucion fibid., 148). ii, fol. 084a Johannes Fiius Waleranni Noman, son of Waleran fitz Ranulf the moneyer of Veim, Manche, Domesday tenant-in-chief as one of the heirs of his father.

Mainard Camerarius Occurs Domesday Norfolk as a man of the abbot of Hohn. He was apparently one of several men to s w i v e the disgrace in 1075 of their former lord, the Breton Ralph de Gael. Xn 1086he occurs in Domesday as a tenant of Count Alan in Sibton and elsewhere. According to Sibton abbey traditions, he was the count’s chamberlain and had married Orwen, a former wet-nurse of the count who had followed him from Brittany after 1066 and been given the manor of Sibton. The couple had two daughters, of whom one, Gemma, was the ancestress of a family surnamed of Sibton.

Odin Camerarius Odin, or Audoen. occurs Domesday Wiltshire, and in Hampshire as Odin of Windsor. Father of Hunger (q.v.), a king’s thegn in Domesday Dorset. Both personal names are old Frankish, being found in the Vexin and the Beauvaisis from the ninth century, as well as in eleventh century Normandy (cf. Fauroux, 95,186, 193). Possibly an Englishman; so Williams, The English, 80. i, fol. 74d; i, fol. 74d; i, fol. 41c

Odo Camerarius Chamberlain of Comt Alan, occurs Domesday Book. Succeeded before 1130 by his son Robert.

Radulf Camerarius Domesday tenant and chamberlain of Archbishop L a n h c . i, fol. 00%; Ballard, Inquisition of St Augustine’s (1920), fols 20r-23v; i, fol. 0034 i, fol. 003b

William camerarius son of Roger de Candos (Walmsley, p. 126). ii, fol. 407a; i, fol. 013b; ii, fol. 406b; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, 111, pp. 447-48, No. II; Regesta regum Anglo-Normannonun HI, No. 373; ii, fol. 406a; ii, fol. 406a; ii, fol. 410a; ii, fol. 41 0a; ii, fol. 406a; ii, fol. 4IOa; ii, fol. 409b; ii, fol. 409b; ii, fol. 405b; Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, 111, p. 448, No. 111

Rogo camerarius attested a grant by Nigel vicomte. In the portions printed by Delisle, Saint-Sauveur, Pi&cesjustificatives, Rogo occurs as the grantor of land in Omonville under vicomte Eudo (no. 45), and in 1081 the same vicomte granted land at Heauville, Manche, cant. Les Pieux, which ‘miles quidam Rogos’ holds of the inheritance of his wife Roges (i.e. Rohais) [ibid. no. 441. T h s Rogo was followed by William fitz Rogo, uncle of Simon fitz Rogo and William Monk, son of Richard de Ansgerivilla (lat. 17137, fols 3 9 ~ 4 089v, , 239, the latter being a grant of Simon fitz Rogo attested by Robert Arundel; cf. the Arundels of Somerset). William and Simon fitz Rogo were benefactor of Montacute priory (Somerset Rec. Soc. vol8, nos 11,138,140,156-7). Rogo also appears with his brother [Cladiou in PR 31 Henry I, 156, doubtless the same person as Baldwin’s Domesday tenant Cadio. i, fof. 107a; I, fol. 107a; i, fol. 1 07b; i, fol. 107c; i, fol. 108b; i, fol. 108c; i, fol. 1O8b; Pipe Roll 3 1 Henry I, 1 5 6 4 ~i,; fol. 93a; i, fol. 93a

Sirie Camerarius Occurs Domesday Hampshire. i, fol. 50a Siric [I Englishman, occurs Domesday Essex. ii, fol. 042a; ii, fol. 048a; ii, fol. 047b

Turstin Camerarius Norman, Domesday tenant-in-chief in Hampshire and Bedfordshire. Cf. VCH Beds, ii, 83-5.

Willelm Camerarius Norman, chamberlain to the king and tenant-in-chief in Damesday Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Gloucestershire. A late-eleventh or early twelfth-century record of the despoliation of estates of Sainte-TrinitCde Caen mentioned the tithe of Hhnouville, Seine-Maritime, cant. Duclair, usurped by William camerarius son of Roger de Candos (Walmsley, p. 126). A confirmation charter for Saint-Etienne de Caen by William I (106677) referred to the land of William camerarius at Cully, Calvados. cant. Creully (Actes caen. p. 64). If it was the latter William who attested an act of 1082 for Sainte-Trinitbde Caen as son of Ralph (ibid, p. 90), then he was was perhaps the same as William de Tancarville, and therefore not the English William.

 

Royal Thane Almer held Herlie / Erlei in Berkshire

AELMER [* MILK *].  see: https://opendomesday.org/name/aelmer-milk/

Aelmer, who held the Baynard manor of Tolleshunt before the Conquest, is identified as Aelmer Milk in an entry for Colchester which records a house attached to Tolleshunt6.

Tolleshunt was acquired by an exchange, probably with Ranulf Peverel, named in the following Colchester entry as acquiring five houses attached to Terling from an Aelmer, identified in the Terling entry as a royal thane7.

Ranulf inherited two other properties from an Aelmer, including his principle manor of Hatfield Peverel, a manor befitting a royal thane8, as was Thurrock acquired from an Aelmer by William Peverel along with Horndon, the whole of his fief in Essex.9. Ranulf and William were almost certainly related, though the nature of their relationship is unknown.
1 NFK 21,3
2 NFK 21,20
3 NFK 42,1
4 HUN 13,2. 15,1
5 WIL 67,68
6 ESS 33,23. B3r
7 ESS 34,6. B3q
8 ESS 34,4;14
9 ESS 48,1-2

The royal thane Aelmer also held the valuable manor of Easter, acquired by Count Eustace of Boulogne and granted to St Martin’s, London1. Count Eustace had another of Aelmer’s holdings in the vill of Tolleshunt, and granted a third to the church of St Martin-le-Grand.

These links suggest that the Aelmer from whom Engelric the priest, founder of St Martin-le-Grand, stole the manor of Elmdon may also be Aelmer Milk2. see: https://opendomesday.org/name/aelmer/

There are difficulties with some name-forms. At Tolleshunt and Elmdon, it is Almer, probably scribal errors in view of Aelmer’s second holding in Tolleshunt and the substantial scale of the manor at Elmdon. see: https://opendomesday.org/name/almer/

Probably, though less certainly, the Aethelmer (Agelmarus) at Langford3, another valuable manor acquired by Ralph Baynard, maybe another scribal error.

None of the four tenants-in-chief who acquired these manors had predecessors elsewhere named Aelmer or Aethelmer; and the only Almers between them being Almer of Bennington (q.v.) and a predecessor of William Peverel on a single holding in Nottinghamshire. A list of Aelmer’s manors is given by Clarke, English nobility, pp. 236-37, who ranks Aelmer fifty-ninth in wealth among untitled laymen.

NAME: ALMER