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. VII., 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 ye 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 that 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.
