Continuing my research into the larger households retained by the highest nobility, I want to focus on the complements of the kitchen and the stable, two extremely important and valued establishments in medieval times. First, I focus on the kitchen. I leaned heavily on the Labarge and Woolgar books (full details mentioned in an earlier entry) for my initial draft, but in a lot of places, I made some guesses about the numbers of officials, assistants, and boys. Or I made decisions based on my story’s imperatives.

The larger the household, the more specialization among the officials, and many important officials had at least one apprentice or boy assistant. The subdivisions of a large kitchen establishment would include at least the pantry, larder, buttery, cellar, and spicery.

My focus was on creating the kitchen staff for a governing or main residence household, as opposed to the traveling household I created and shared in an earlier entry. I’ll undoubtedly tinker with the composition after I read more relevant monographs and articles because I suspect I’m missing a few offices.

According to my sources, for most of the medieval period, men or boys held almost all household offices. The laundress might be a woman, but males held the other positions.

Regarding the kitchen, my duke’s steward allowed this roster of fifty-six people:

Kitchen
Byron, master cook, head of the kitchen and related departments
Enzo, cook, married to Chiara
Chiara, cook, married to Enzo
Sergio, cook, apprentice
Kitchen boys (x3; Nolan, Sean, Declan)
Hugo, master baker
Albert, baker’s assistant
Benedict, baker’s assistant
Ryan, baker’s assistant
Bakery boys (x3; Finn, Brian, Conor)
Ernest, saucer
Basil, saucer’s assistant
Harris, pastry cook and confectioner
Alton, pastry cook’s assistant
Jasper, fruiterer

Pantry (bread, cheese, and napery)
Stanley, pantler
Arnold, clerk of the pantry
Lewis, clerk apprentice (also handles buttery)

Paul, clerk and keeper of the plate
Barton, candle-maker
Thomas, candle-maker’s assistant
Winston, cutler
Oscar, butler, or cup bearer (serves the duke and duchess their cups)
Kevin, butler’s assistant (handles cups for the rest of the high table)
Serving valets (x8; Hugh, John, Lewis, Matthew, Ralph, Richard, Stephen, Walter)
Sam, porter

Larder
Herbert, larderer
Patrick, butcherer
James, butcherer’s assistant
Daniel, poulterer
William, poulterer’s assistant
Simon, the huntsman
Conor, huntsman’s assistant
Donald, the fisherman

Buttery (ale and beer)
Alton, butterer
Digby, butterer’s assistant

Cellar (the wines)
Hugo, cellarer
George, porter

Spicery
Francis, spicer

Scullery
Timothy, senior scullion
Scullions (x5; Alan, Eric, Jimmy, Peter, Robert)

The senior cook and other kitchen officials would coordinate regularly with other household officials, especially the steward, the treasurer, the chief buyer, and the clerk assigned to work with the kitchen.

Finding and retaining a master cook, or at least an extremely good cook, often was challenging.

The baker and at least one assistant often would join the traveling household if the duke was traveling far or with a large compliment.

One final complications is that kings and queens apparently often staffed separate households.

Note (1/29/25: Added clerk/keeper of the plate, candle-maker, candle-maker’s assistant, and cutler