Steward (office)

A steward is an official who is appointed by the legal ruling monarch to represent them in a country and who may have a mandate to govern it in their name; in the latter case, it is synonymous with the position of regent, vicegerent, viceroy, king's lieutenant (for Romance languages), governor, or deputy (the Roman rector, praefectus, or vicarius).

Its first element is most probably stiȝ- "house, hall" (attested only in composition; its cognate stiȝu is the ancestor of Modern English sty).

In the Netherlands, it developed into a rare type of de facto hereditary head of state of the thus crowned Dutch Republic.

In the Low Countries (which included present-day Netherlands, Belgium, and Luxembourg), from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, this was originally an essentially honorary title awarded by the Spanish Habsburg kings to major noblemen in each province, but its nature changed drastically.

Since Norway was a separate kingdom with its own laws and institutions, it was arguably the most influential office in both Denmark-Norway and in the Swedish-Norwegian realm second to that of the king.

The term Statholder (from German Statthalter) means "place holder" (i.e., the one governing on behalf of the king).

Although there were such legendary posadniks as Gostomysl (9th century), the term first appeared in the Primary Chronicle in the year of 997 to denote the most senior official of an Eastern Slavic town.

The earliest posadniks of the city of Novgorod (Holmgard) include a dynasty composed of Dobrynya, his son Konstantin Dobrynich, and Ostromir.