Grand Squire of France
position
The Grand Écuyer de France or Grand Squire of France or Grand Equerry of France was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France and a member of the Maison du Roi ("King's Household") during the Ancien Régime. The name "écuyer", the French word for squire, is the origin for the French word "écurie" (stable) and the English word equerry. The position was roughly equivalent to the United Kingdom positions of Master of the Horse and the Crown Equerry.
The position of Grand Écuyer was made an Officer of the Crown by Henri III for the benefit of his favorite Roger de Saint-Lary de Bellegarde.
The Grand Écuyer was commonly referred to as "Monsieur le Grand". He was in charge of the royal stables, the transport of the king and his ceremonial entourage (heralds, men of arms, musicians, etc.). As well as the superintendence of the royal stables, he had that of the retinue of the sovereign, also the charge of the funds set aside for the religious functions of the court, coronations, etc. On the death of a sovereign he had the right to all the horses and their equipment in the royal stables. He oversaw personally the "Great Stable" ("grande écurie"). The authority of the Grand Écuyer also extended across the realm, as he oversaw horse breeding and provincial military academies created to educate young nobles.
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This entry incorporates text from “Grand Squire of France” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.