A ruler of some ilk. A master of servants.
"The lords of England, who since Brutus' days had never known the yoke of slavery, were now scorned, derided, and trodden under foot: they were compelled to shave their beards and clip their flowing locks in the Norman fashion: casting aside their horns and wonted drinking-vessels, their feasts and carousals, they were compelled to submit to new laws. Wherefore many of the English nobles refused the yoke of slavery and fled with all their households to live by plunder in the woods, so that scarce any man could go safely abroad in his own neighbourhood; the houses of all peaceful folk were armed like a besieged city with bows and arrows, bills and axes, clubs and daggers and iron forks; the doors were barred with locks and bolts. The master of the house would say prayers as if on a tempest-tossed bark; as doors or windows were closed, men said Benedicite, and Dominus echoed reverently in response; a custom which lasted even into our own days [probably about A.D. 1150]."
Thomas Walsingham, Gesta Abbatum S. Albani (1350)
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