SENESCHAL (senre-shal), a title equivalent to "steward." The seneschal began presumably as the major-domo of the Ger man princes who settled in the empire, and was predecessor of the mayors of the palace of the Merovingian kings. But the name seneschal became prominent in France under the Capetian dy nasty. The seneschal, called in mediaeval Latin the dapifer, was the chief of the five great officers of State of the French court between the 11th and the 13th centuries. His functions were de scribed by the term major regiae domus, and regni Franciae pro curator—major-domo of the royal household, and agent of the kingdom of France. The English equivalent was the lord high steward, but the office never attained the same importance in England as in France. Under the earlier Capetian sovereigns the seneschal was the second person in the kingdom. He inherited the position of the mayor of the palace—had a general right of super vision over the king's service, was commander-in-chief of the military forces, was steward of the household and presided in the king's court in the absence of the king. It was the vast possibilities of the office which must have tempted the counts of Anjou of the Plantagenet line to claim the hereditary dapifership of France, and to support their claim by forgeries. At the close of the 11th cen tury the seneschalship was in the hands of the family of Roche fort, and in the early part of the following century it passed from them to the family of Garlande. The power of the office was a
temptation to the vassal, and a cause of jealousy to the king. The Garlandes came to conflict with the king, and were suppressed by Louis VI. in 1127. After their fall the seneschalship was conferred only on great feudatories who were the king's kinsmen—on Raoul of Vermandois till 1152, and on Thibaut of Blois till 1191. From that time no seneschal was appointed except to act as steward at the coronation of the king. The name of the seneschal was added with those of the other great officers to the kings in charters, and when the office was not filled the words dapifero vacante were written instead. The great vassals had seneschals of their own, and when the great fiefs were regained by the Crown, the office was allowed to survive by the king. In the south of France, Perigord, Quercy, Toulouse, Agenais, Rouergue, Beaucaire and Carcassonne were royal senechaussees. In Languedoc the land lords' agent and judicial officer, known in the north of France as a bailli, was called senechal. The office and title existed till the Revolution.