Note 78 — LIFE OF BUSBECQ.
Reading edition
Ecuyer (escuier) trenchant. The first of these words supplies the derivations for two English titles (1) squire, (2) sewer; the first being the equivalent of écuyer, and the second of écuyer trenchant. The office of sewer (écuyer trenchant) is alluded to by Milton, Paradise Lost, ix., where the poet speaks of
Marshall’d feast Served up in hall by sewers and seneschals.
‘Here,’ says Todd in his note, ‘is an allusion to the magnificence of elder days; the marshal of the hall, the sewer and the seneschal having been officers of distinction in the houses of princes and great men. From Minshew’s Guide into Tongues it appears that the marshal placed the guests according to their rank, and saw they were properly arranged, the sewer marched in before the meats and arranged them on the table, and the seneschal was the household steward, a name of frequent occurrence in old law books, and so in French “le grand Seneschal de France,” synonymous with our “Lord High Steward of the King’s household.”’ Busbecq himself held the offices of sewer and seneschal. See Appendix, Sauvegarde &c., where Parma gives him the title of ‘Grand maistre d’hostel de la Royne Isabelle.’