As a faithful confidant of Philip Drugeth, he served as vice-ispán of Szepes County and castellan of its namesake stronghold (present-day Spiš, Slovakia) from 1315 to 1327.

According to family traditions, the ancestor Richter Frank von Meißen originated from Meissen, Duchy of Saxony, who arrived to the Kingdom of Hungary during the reign of Béla IV and settled to Szepes County as one of the Zipser Germans.

[3] As a young knight from the lower nobility, Thomas entered the service of Philip Drugeth, the most important confidant of King Charles I of Hungary.

It is plausible that he held these offices until the death of Philip Drugeth in the summer of 1327 (in contemporary records he is last referred to as vice-ispán and castellan in September and November 1326, respectively).

Thereafter, the village, which lays in the valley along the river Ida in the neighborhood of Pány (Paňovce), became the eponymous seat of Thomas' descendants.

It was a break in prosperity when King Charles I confiscated the lands of the Verpeléti family from the Aba clan and donated those, along with Semse and Újfalu to Chenyk (Csenik), a Bohemian knight in 1331.

In accordance with the document, Thomas bequeathed Szalók to his daughter Catherine, while the infant Demetrius inherited Semse and the vineyards in Buda.

[12] Majority of scholars and art historians consider the fresco of in St Martin's Cathedral in the Chapter of Szepes, which depicts the 1310 coronation of Charles, also represents Thomas Semsei with a sword, kneeling behind the monarch under the inscription "flos iuventutis camerarius, castellanus Fran…de…", along with the king, Archbishop Thomas of Esztergom and Henry, Bishop of Veszprém.

[13] However, according to Attila Zsoldos, based on the social status of Thomas Semsei, it is highly questionable whether he would have played such an important role.

[14] Serbian historian Đura Hardi argues the kneeling figure actually depicts Thomas' dominus, Philip Drugeth.

The palaeographic results of the 2005 restoration of the fresco revealed the inscriptions are historicizing modern ones, which were falsified in neo-Gothic style in the second half of the 19th century.