Royal court

Lower ranking servants and bodyguards were not properly called courtiers, though they might be included as part of the court or royal household in the broadest definition.

A regent or viceroy may hold court during the minority or absence of the hereditary ruler, and even an elected head of state may develop a court-like entourage of unofficial, personally-chosen advisers and "companions".

The French word compagnon and its English derivation "companion" literally mean a "sharer of the bread" at table, and a court is an extension of the great individual's household.

A group of individuals dependent on the patronage of a great man, classically in ancient Rome, forms part of the system of "clientage" that is discussed under vassal.

Accordingly, some founded elaborate courts based on new palaces, only to have their successors retreat to remote castles or to practical administrative centers.

[3] Two of the earliest titles referring to the concept of a courtier were likely the ša rēsi and mazzāz pāni of the Neo-Assyrian Empire.

During the Heian period, Japanese emperors and their families developed an exquisitely refined court that played an important role in their culture.

In Western Europe, consolidation of power of local magnates and of kings in fixed administrative centres from the mid-13th century led to the creation of a distinct court culture that was the centre of intellectual and artistic patronage rivaling the abbots and bishops, in addition to its role as the apex of a rudimentary political bureaucracy that rivaled the courts of counts and dukes.

Local courts proliferated in the splintered polities of medieval Europe and remained in early modern times in Germany and in Italy.

Traces of royal court practices remain in present-day institutions like privy councils and governmental cabinets.

In the same time period several kingdoms with their own royal courts flourished in the nearby Nubia region, with at least one of them, that of the so-called A-Group culture, apparently influencing the customs of Egypt itself.

In the Horn of Africa, the Kingdom of Aksum and later the Zagwe dynasty, Ethiopian Empire (1270–1974), and Aussa Sultanate all had royal courts.

This is especially true in the West African sahel, where royal courts have been in existence since at least the era of the 9th century Takrur and Ghana empires.

The ruler of the 13th century Mali empire, Mansa Musa, brought a large number of his courtiers with him on the Islamic Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.

Today, the courts of the Ashanti nanas in modern Ghana, the Mande members of the Tunkalemmu caste in Mali, the Bamum sultans of Cameroon, the Kanem shaykhs of Chad, the Hausa emirs of northern Nigeria, the inkosis of the Southern African Zulus and Xhosas, and the obas and baales of Yorubaland, amongst others, continue the pageantry and court lifestyle traditions once common to the continent.

These styles generally dated back to the days when a noble household had practical and mundane concerns as well as high politics and culture.

This drew talented people from all walks of life—such as musicians, singers, poets and scientists—to seek employment under the patronage of elite bureaucrats, emirs and Sultans at court.

The other Caliphate was the Ottoman, which employed its court's culture to stabilize an empire inhabited by huge non-Islamic populations spanning three continents.