Surely, many people thought about how to write “signor” or “senior”, and maybe “seigneur” correctly? And what is this word and where did it come from? How to spell "senior", the origin of the word and its meaning will be discussed in the article.
Word in dictionary
Before you know how to spell a given word, you need to find out its meaning. To do this, you need to refer to the explanatory dictionary, which says that the "senior" is a feudal lord in Medieval Western Europe, who owned a large amount of land. In this regard, the peasants, and often the townspeople, were dependent on him.
Also, "seigneur" is a large feudal lord, depending on which there were feudal lords who had less power (vassals). The latter carried a number of duties to the master, the main of which was military service. However, it should be noted that the vassals also had certain advantages, primarily the protection and patronage of the main feudal lord.
Origin and use
This term comes from the Latin word "senior", which translatesas "senior". After that, it immediately becomes clear why the supreme feudal lord was called "Senior", this immediately spoke of his high status.
Having de alt with the meaning of the term, it is necessary to find out how it is still written, through the letter "e" or "and". That is, which is correct, "signor" or "senior"? In fact, you can write like this, and like that. The thing is that in the first case it is an appeal to a man in Spain, Mexico or any other Spanish-speaking country, and in the second case it is an appeal to an Italian.
There is also such an appeal to a woman as “señora” (“senorina”) - this is the wife or daughter of a feudal lord in Spain, Portugal or in one of the colonies of these states. "Signora" ("signorita") - a similar treatment, but only in Italy. The difference in the suffixes of the words indicates whether the woman is married or not. It should be noted that at present such treatment also exists, despite the fact that the feudal lords are long gone.
Title
Continuing to consider the question of who this senior is, we should talk more about this title. Most often, this was a person who belonged to the nobility. However, the title could also be given to legal entities, mainly they were representatives of church organizations, for example, abbeys, or chapters of canons. It could also be received by military orders or representatives of cathedrals.
It should be noted that the senior carried out his activities mainly through representatives. the most seniorof them were the ballis. The supreme feudal lord had several seniors who were part of the royal domain. It should be said that the title could be recognized for those landowners who did not possess such, but this became possible only in New History. Such seniors were also called "master".
Senoria
In the Middle Ages in Western Europe, this was the name of a territorial entity, within which all management functions, both legal and economic, were assigned to the seigneur.
This is a set of land holdings within which the lord had the right to collect duties and receive other payments. For the nobility of the Middle Ages, it became the most priority way of emphasizing their significance and power. Thanks to this, they were able to fully ensure their political and economic superiority.
In turn, the exclusive rights of the lordship were limited by certain rules that contributed to the strengthening of the power of the king, which was especially pronounced at the end of the Medieval era, as well as during the period of New History. The number of seniors was quite large, for example, in France in the 18th century there were about 50 thousand of them.
