Castellan

To overcome this, they appointed castellans as their trusted vassals to manage a castle in exchange for obligations to the landlord, often a noble.

[5] This changed as kings grew in power and as the Holy Roman Emperors replaced recalcitrant vassals with rival ministerial appointments.

[6] A castellan could exercise the power of the "ban" – that is, to hear court cases and collect fines, taxes from residents, and muster local men for the defence of the area or the realm.

[9] A particular responsibility in western Europe concerned jurisdiction over the resident Jewish communities bordering the English Channel.

Vivian Lipman posits four reasons for this: the castles provided defence, they were centres of administration, their dungeons were used as prisons, and castellans could turn to the Jewish community to borrow money as usury was forbidden to Catholics.

[11] Castellanies appeared during the Middle Ages and in most current states are now replaced by a more modern type of county subdivision.

In France, castellans (known in French as châtelains) who governed castellanies without a resident count, acquired considerable powers such that the position became hereditary.

During the 19th and 20th centuries, châtelain was used to describe the owner of a castle or manor house, in many cases a figure of authority in his parish, akin to the English squire.

In Germany the castellan was known as a Burgmann, or sometimes Hauptmann ("captain"), who reported to the lord of the castle, or Burgherr, also often known as the burgrave (Burggraf).

Ministeriales replaced free nobles as castellans of Hohensalzburg under Conrad I of Abensberg’s tenure as Archbishop of Salzburg from 1106 to 1147, beginning with Henry of Seekirchen in the 1130s.

As the honorary holder of the office of alcaide did not often live near the castle, a delegate started to be appointed to effectively govern it in his place.