butlerage
(ˈbʌtlərɪdʒ)
Forms: 5 botelarage, 6 butlarage, 7 butlaridge, buttleradge, 8 butleridge.
[f. as prec. + -age.]
† 1. A duty formerly payable to the king's butler on every cargo of wine imported (? by merchant-strangers); called also prisage. Obs. exc. Hist.
| 1491 in Arnolde Chron. (1811) 112 For all maner other dutees, botelarage, costis and chargis..concernyng the said wynes. 1509 Act 1 Hen. VIII, v. §6 Any other being free of Prisage or Butlarage of Wines. 1654 in Sir J. Picton L'pool Munic. Rec. (1883) I. 180, 22 tunnes of Wyne..to pay for y⊇ butlerage the somme of tenn pounds. 1768 Blackstone Comm. I. 315 Prisage was a right of taking two tons of wine from every ship importing into England twenty tons or more; which by Edward I was exchanged into a duty of 2s. for every ton imported by merchant-strangers, and called butlerage, because paid to the king's butler. |
† 2. The office or dignity of king's butler; the department over which he had charge. Obs.
| 1615 MS. of Dk. Northumbld. in 3rd Rep. Commiss. Hist. MSS. (1872) 62/1 Officers of the mint, of the works, of the great wardrobe, of the butlaridge. 1736 Carte Ormonde II. 219 A perquisite or appendage of the butlerage of Ireland. |
3. That part of the household management and expenses which pertains to the butler or the butlery.
| 1815 Misc. in Ann. Reg. 554/1 For providing..things in the Butlerage department. 1853 Fraser's Mag. XLVII. 414 An exact account of the cost of washing, lighting, firing, of kitchen, of butlerage, of cellarage. |