Estate Manaoreme^it. 195 



i> 



smaller estates and resident landlords, instead of great pro- 

 vinces managed by paid service, was largely beneficial to the 

 subordinate classes of the landed interest. 



This alteration relegated the legal portion of a seneschal's 

 duties to the family attorney (a profession which soon after 

 became very crowded), and the more practical duties of estate 

 business to the bailiff, who grew to be regarded as the land 

 steward, while the hajrward vanished only to reappear as 

 bailiff. 



Before we take leave of the seneschal it would be interesting 

 to inquire how these experts were trained. One is left to 

 wonder whether the ofHce, like that of baihff, was hereditary, 

 or whether the occupation of the modern " mud pupil " can 

 boast of a Norman origin. It must be borne in mind that the 

 seneschal was more like a nineteenth-century Scotch factor 

 than an EngHsh estate agent, for he combined the three pro- 

 fessions of lawyer, banker, and steward in his single calling, 

 subjects which require a life-long study in order to insure 

 satisfactory results. He was probably a polished and courteous, 

 if somewhat stiff official, reflecting much of the chivalry and 

 exclusiveness characteristic of that exalted class which called 

 for his services, and as apt to catch the tricks of manner, and 

 idiosyncratic touches peculiar to his particular employer, as 

 is any my lord's " gentleman " now-a-days. Let the reader, 

 however, bear in mind that, save in this one trait, there can 

 be no comparison between the real gentleman who performed 

 all the dignified duties of a proconsulship over his baronial 

 master's lands, and the serving man who nowadays answers 

 his master's bedroom bell and blacks his master's hunting 

 boots. In Canon Bridgeman's History of Wigcin^^ he gives 

 a list of highborn persons who held the coveted office^, of 

 bailiff and seneschal over the parson's manor ; and in 1551 

 Sir Thomas Langton, the Lord of Newton, acted as chief 

 steward, with three or four heads of good county families 

 officiating as deputy stewards under him. Though in this 



1 G. T. 0. Bridgeman, History of Church and Manor of W/'gan, p. 127 

 (note). 



