castellan

Etymology

From Middle English castelain, from Old French castelain (compare modern châtelain), from Latin castellanus (“pertaining to a castle, an occupant of a castle, or a governor of a castle”), from castellum castle, citadel, diminutive of castrum fortified place. See castle. Doublet of Castilian, castellano, castellanus, and chatelain and compare chatelaine.

noun

1. (obsolete) A feudal lord with a fortified manor.
2. (chiefly historical) The governor or caretaker entrusted to oversee a castle or keep for its lord.
   The inferior secular senators are ninety-two, containing the ten crown-officers, and eighty-two castellans. The latter are again divided into thirty-three great castellans, and forty-nine little castellans. 1851, Luther Calvin Saxton, Fall of Poland, volume 2, Charles Scribner, page 442
   Castellans, often exercising control over a few villages and half a dozen small lordships, transformed their banal lordships into quasi-sovereign mini-states, independent of royal or comital sanction or control. 2003, Benno Teschke, The Myth of 1648: Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations, Verso, page 86
   The wave of attacks on the castellans in 1511 followed faction-fighting in Udine, in which castellans and their families were massacred by supporters of the Savorgnan. 2015, Christine Shaw, Barons and Castellans: The Military Nobility of Renaissance Italy, Koninklijke Brill, page 47