What was the role/duties of a "Constable of the Castle" in 1600?
Upvote:1
Wardens, Sheriffs, and Constables are all offices, usually with specific responsibilities for, or over, a certain property or geographic space. It was certainly possible to possess more than one at a time, and on occasion might have been doubled up ex officio as noted here where the offices of Mayor of Conwy (village) and Constable of Conwy (castle) were specifically designated as the same official - possibly to the detriment of the latter.
Specifically:
Sheriff derives from Shire Reeve:
The modern word “Sheriff”, which means keeper or chief of the County, is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words “Shire-Reeve”. The Shire-Reeve, in the days of King Alfred the Great of England, in 871, was responsible for collecting taxes and enforcing the Kings Orders. The duties and the role of the Sheriff were better defined in 1215 when King John signed the Magna Carta.
Warden derives from "one who guards":
c. 1200, "one who guards," from Old North French wardein, from Frankish *warding- (which became Old French guardenc), from Proto-Germanic *wardon "to watch, guard," from PIE *war-o-, suffixed form of root *wer- (3) "perceive, watch out for." Meaning "governor of a prison" is recorded from c. 1300.
Constable derives ... from late Latin comes stabuli ‘count (head officer) of the stable’
The office of the constable was introduced in England following the Norman Conquest of 1066 and was responsible for the keeping and maintenance of the king's armaments and those of the villages as a measure of protecting individual settlements throughout the country.[29] Some authorities place the origins of constables in England earlier, attributing the creation of the office to during the reign of King Alfred (871 A.D.).
Prior to the breakout of the English Civil war, upon which the military responsibilities would have again become predominant, I expect that most of these minor offices across England were used as sinecures for young sons, as a means of keeping them out of trouble and invested in the stability of the realm.
A regards the specific case of Ruthin Castle, its state of disrepair upon breakout of the Civil War suggests that the office might have been, whether de facto or de jure, vacant at the time until repairs were authorized.
In Volume 2 of his Memoirs of the Civil War in Wales and the Marches, 1642-1648, John Roland Philips includes two documents concerning the 1646 acquisition of Ruthin Castle:
"A Letter to the Speaker of the House of Commons, concwerning the surrender of Ruthin Castle to Thomas Mytton, Major General, ..."
The surrender terms of Ruthin Castle agreed to by both parties on *th APril, 1646.
More post
- 📝 Why and when did Catholic rules change to dissuade Catholics from marrying protestants?
- 📝 Why did Roman Army rarely field large Roman cavalry units and rely on foreign auxiliaries?
- 📝 What was the ancestor of VAT called?
- 📝 Did Napoleon plan to invade India?
- 📝 California land cases to the US Supreme Court
- 📝 What in Confucianism reduced the importance of the clan structure and made these societies more secular?
- 📝 Did any European/American settlements in the Ohio Country survive the French and Indian War?
- 📝 What populations have been denied the ability to leave a territory, so that its goverment could kill them?
- 📝 Study of causal structures and dynamics in history?
- 📝 What is the best book to learn about medicine in medieval times? (research for a novel)
- 📝 How was Takeda defeated at the Battle of Nagashino?
- 📝 Are there historical instances of settlers who were largely uncontacted and undisturbed after settling?
- 📝 How (and why) did Hitler create "the world's largest traffic jam?"
- 📝 What was the main food source in old California?
- 📝 Is the historical consensus that Galileo did not drop balls from the Leaning Tower of Pisa?
- 📝 Are there any accounts of German junior enlisted soldiers surviving the siege of Stalingrad and subsequent captivity?
- 📝 When and how did the USA and the UK become allies?
- 📝 When did commercial entertainment begin?
- 📝 Were there cases where an ethnic newspaper had the highest circulation in a country?
- 📝 How many people were killed by Protestant Inquisition style tribunals? Asking for references/estimates
- 📝 Pre-1900s advertising methods targeting a sub-population stratified by demography/social classification
- 📝 What is this Canadian Half Dollar? Cannot find it anywhere
- 📝 What was Libya's form of direct democracy (Jamahiria) like in practice?
- 📝 Was respiratory rate used as time measurement?
- 📝 How is history studied?
- 📝 Was the British Empire bigger than the combined empires of the Iberian Union in terms of claimed land area?
- 📝 What was the relationship between the Catholic Church and the Carolingian emperors?
- 📝 What was the other 99% that PARC didn't show to Apple?
- 📝 Revolutions of communication
- 📝 Did the University of California and University of Geneva award honorary degrees to Inazo Nitobe?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What was the role of a 'Tidy Man' and what might their duties have been?
- 📝 What was the role of the Soviet Navy during WWII?
- 📝 What was the role of Indian princes and aristocratic landowners under British colonial rule?
- 📝 What was the Soviet role in Syria during the Cold-War?
- 📝 What was the role of the Russian Orthodox church in Soviet Russia?
- 📝 What was President Jimmy Carter's role in the Iranian Revolution?
- 📝 What was Finland's role in the siege of Leningrad?
- 📝 What was the social and cultural role of a "country squire" in Victorian/Edwardian England?
- 📝 What was the role of Nikita Khrushchev during the battle of Stalingrad?
- 📝 What was the Orthodox Church's role in Russian expansion?
- 📝 What was Asir's role in the Arab Revolt?
- 📝 What was the role of Konstantin Rokossovsky during WW1?
- 📝 What was the role of the Catholic church with regard to the Holocaust?
- 📝 What was the role of Nigeria in Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
- 📝 What was the role of the college of consuls in Ancient Rome?
- 📝 What was the role of the mountain ranges surrounding India in developing India's civilization?
- 📝 What was the natural population growth of Scotland between 1600 and 1900?
- 📝 What was the role of Scotland during the Hundred Years War?
- 📝 What was the role of state sacrifices and music in Ming China?
- 📝 What was the role of Theon at the Library of Alexandria?
- 📝 What was the role of U.S. involvement in World War II?
- 📝 What was the role of Egypt in Soviet-Afghan war?
- 📝 What was the main role of alcoholic drinks in ancient to medieval times?
- 📝 What was the role of Midnapore town in present day West Bengal of India in the armed struggle for freedom in Bengal province of British India?
- 📝 What was regicide conspiracy and what was the role of Djordje Gencic in it?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 What was the historical context of the 2nd amendment to the US Constitution?
- 📝 During the breakup of the Soviet Union, on what basis was citizenship granted or withheld for each of the fifteen new republics?
- 📝 What was the typical peasant's diet like in Europe during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 What led some people to (correctly) believe that there was no land under the ice cap at the North Pole?