The upper-class contingent in a castle was not necessarily limited to just the lord and his corps of knights plus the châtelaine and her small group of companions. The retinue of even a minor baron could be quite sizable; a household of only twenty to twenty-five was considered small. Many lords, in fact, kept more servants than they really needed, in order to demonstrate how affluent they were.

A great lord's wealth and rank were measured, too, by the number of members of his household who were not commoners but fellow nobles of lesser rank. Some of these lesser nobles held offices of considerable responsibility. The most important was the steward, or seneschal, who was, to quote historian Kate Mertes, "in charge of discipline and order in the household, seeing that all runs smoothly— a kind of general manager...