A courtier is a person who attends the court of a monarch or other powerful person. In Political science and Constitutional law, the executive is the branch of government responsible for the day-to-day management of the State. 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. For the government of parliamentary systems see Executive (government. An official residence is the residence at which Heads of state, Heads of government, gubernatorial or other senior figures officially 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. Nobility is a government-privileged title which may be either hereditary (see Hereditary titles) or for a lifetime Clergy is the generic term used to describe the formal religious leadership within a given Religion. A soldier is a general English term that refers to a member of a land component of National Armed forces. Clerk, the vocational title commonly refers to a White-collar worker who conducts general office or in some instances sales tasks A secretary is either an administrative assistant in business office administration, or a certain type of mid- or high-level governmental position such as a 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. Alexandre Bontemps (1626 &ndash 1701 was the valet of King Louis XIV and a powerful figure at the court of Versailles, respected and feared for his exceptional access Valet de chambre, or varlet de chambre, was a court appointment introduced in the late Middle Ages, common from the 14th century onwards Early years Birth and ancestry Louis XIV was born in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye on September 5 1638 and bore the Heir apparent 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. The Palace of Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal Château in Versailles, in France 's Île-de-France region The Forbidden City was the Chinese imperial Palace from the mid- Ming Dynasty to the end of the Qing Dynasty. 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. Delhi (दिल्ली ਦਿੱਲੀ دلی d̪ɪlːiː sometimes referred to as Dilli) is the second largest metropolis of India, with a population The Topkapı Palace (Topkapı Sarayı or in Ottoman: طوبكابي بالاذيis a palace in Istanbul, Turkey, which was the official and Istanbul (historically Byzantium and later Constantinople; see the other Names of Istanbul) is the largest city of Turkey Ancient Rome was a Civilization that grew out of a small agricultural community founded on the Italian Peninsula as early as the 10th century BC This article is about the city See also Byzantine Empire. Byzantium ( Greek: Βυζάντιον Latin: la BYZANTIVM The Caliph is the Head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah Baghdad (بغداد) is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous Cairo () which means "the Vanquisher" or "the Triumphant" is the capital and largest city of Egypt. 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. In historical writings when used in reference to a person favourite ( British English and the English of Commonwealth Countries or favorite ( American

Examples of famous courtiers

• Anne Boleyn
• The princesse de Lamballe
• The duc de Luynes
• The marquis de Cinq-Mars
• The duc de Saint-Simon
• Madame de Pompadour

See also

• The Book of the Courtier, by Baldassare Castiglione
• Favourite
• Royal mistress
• Sycophant

External links

• Brokerage at the Court of Louis XIV, by Sharon Kettering; The Historical Journal, Vol. 36, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 69-87; JSTOR

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