Everything about Courtier totally explained
A
courtier is a person who attends the
court of a
monarch or other
powerful person. Historically the court was the centre of
government as well as the
residence of the monarch, and social and political life were often completely mixed together. Monarchs very often expected the more important nobles to spend much of the year in attendance on them at court. Courtiers were not all
noble, as they included
clergy,
soldiers,
clerks,
secretaries, and agents and middlemen of all sorts with regular business at court. Promotion to important positions could be very rapid at court, and for the ambitious there was no better place to be. As social divisions became more rigid, a divide, barely present in Antiquity or the Middle Ages, opened between menial servants and other classes at court, although
Alexandre Bontemps, the head
valet de chambre of
Louis XIV was a late example of a "menial" who managed to establish his family in the nobility. The key commodities for a courtier were access and information, and a large court operated at many levels - many successful careers at court involved no direct contact with the monarch himself.
The largest and most famous European court was that of the
Chateau de Versailles in its heyday, although the
Forbidden City of
Beijing was even larger and more isolated from national life. Very similar features marked the courts of all very large monarchies, whether in
Delhi,
Topkapi Palace in
Istanbul,
Ancient Rome,
Byzantium, or the
Caliphs of
Baghdad or
Cairo. However the European nobility generally had independent power and was less controlled by the monarch until roughly the 18th century, which gave European court life a more complex flavour.
In modern literature, courtiers are often depicted as insincere, skilled at flattery and intrigue, ambitious and lacking regard for the national interest. More positive representations of the stereotype might include the role played by the court in the development of politeness and the arts.
In modern English, the term is often used metaphorically for contemporary political
favourites or hangers-on.
Examples of famous courtiers
Further Information
Get more info on 'Courtier'.
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