Butler

Basic Information

A butler is a senior male domestic servant - typically head of the household staff (replacing the earlier position of steward) and reporting directly to the master of the house (and/or the mistress depending on domestic arrangements). The title majordomo is considered roughly equivalent but, when used in English, typically applies to someone holding the position in a more public building such as a gentlemen's club as opposed to a private home.

As implied, the butler is responsible for day to day management of the household staff (often in concert with the housekeeper, who in many cases may actually be his wife), presiding over formal dinner service and receiving high status visitors in the absence of the family (or attending when the mistress receives unaccompanied male visitors in the master's absence). Another important role is control of the household's wine cellar (and other high value domestic stores¹) - indeed the title of butler derives from control of the buttery where wine (originally stored in butts) was kept. The butler will also typically carry a full set of keys to the household - in many cases, he will be the only person who does. As previously implied, in earlier periods when a steward managed the household, the butler's primary responsibility was confined to the buttery and its wine, ale and other potables.

Note that the butler's authority is generally confined to the house and its immediate curtilage - the grounds are the purview of the head gardener (who may well not report to the butler) and any land beyond that of the estate manager (who may well outrank the butler socially). Other approximate peers may include a stable master, master of hounds and similar things. Also, any employee of the household who typically dines with the family - such as a governess², private secretary or lady-in-waiting - is typically outside his authority. A valet or ladies maid occupies an ambiguous position, nominally subordinate to the butler but typically not under his direct control due to their immediate attendance on their charge.

The butler may have got to where he was by promotion from a footman, possibly by way of the office of under butler, but it was also common for the master's valet to be promoted to the role, especially as one generation of householder replaced another.

As noted above, the office of butler was exclusively male - only in the very recent present would any woman claim the title. In the instances where the head of a household staff was a woman, the title of chatelaine might be applied (the office, indeed, giving its name to an accoutrement allowing a lady to carry a bunch of household keys on a belt whilst wearing a dress).

Sources

Bibliography

1. full source reference

Game and Story Use

• Any PC dealing with a stately home - theirs or someone else's - until very recent times, will need to interact with a butler.
• The management notes given above are typical, but could vary from household to household - the establishment at a royal residence or the seat of a peer of the realm would likely be larger and more complicated than that of a suburban gentleman (who might not employ any other adult male servants).
• The butler doing something unfortunate to the employer is an allegedly common trope, though parodies of it probably vastly outnumber straight examples.
  • A butler as an actual culprit has free run of the employer's house, the authority to arrange for there to be no witnesses (or possibly even distribute actions between the staff so no one individual knows they were involved), and - supposedly the origins of the trope - low enough status to be beneath notice.
  • A butler as prime suspect might be due to a combination of the trope and (especially in period fiction) classist prejudice against an "upjumped" member of the "lower orders."
  • What the butler saw may be as important as what he did…
• The butler is likely to be a key tripwire for any funny goings on in the household and will have to be circumvented
• Despite the "no female butlers until the immediate present" note, it is possible that an extremely bohemian high household belonging to a high status lesbian or similar person might employ such a character, but that sort of arrangement would have a strong air of Wiemar Berlin about it, would have been highly transgressive for its time and more remarkable than modern players might realise.

Footnotes

1. the silverware and the gunroom were typically in his charge.

2. A nanny or domestic nurse may share the same status, or be a direct report of the housekeeper. Also, the "family" they dine with are generally young children and may keep a separate table and hours.