What Did the Warden of the Keys Do?

Q: What Did the Warden of the Keys Do?

ANSWER: Fantasywind asked “what about the office Warden of the Keys” in a comment on the April 2017 article Who Ruled Minas Tirith When Aragorn Became King?. My article looked at proposed feudalistic principles for how Gondor and Arnor were governed, but not every type of government office to come down out of ancient and medieval times is connected to feudalism. In the strictest sense, a feudal relationship exists between a lord and a vassal who provides military service in exchange for land (a fief). Ancient and medieval rulers often appointed officials who were compensated in other ways.

At the time Fantasywind asked about Hurin the Tall, I wrote:

So far as I know, “Warden of the Keys” is a title that Tolkien made up entirely. The etymology of the word “warden” doesn’t seem to help, as it is a middle English word that just means “someone who guards [something]”. It sounds like he was fulfilling the same original role as a non-Franco Seneschal or medieval Concierge (“Keeper of Keys [of the palace]”).

Well, I know a little bit better now. You can thank J.K. Rowling for nudging me in the right direction. Hagrid, of course, is the Keeper of Keys and Grounds at Hogwarts when he first introduces himself to 11-year-old Harry Potter. I always thought that was an interesting job title but never really looked it up.

While pondering the wisdom of Fantasywind’s question, I remembered dear Hagrid and his keys. On the one hand, it makes sense that someone should be responsible for all the keys in a great fortress or castle. Hogwarts may have been a school in Harry’s day but it still had its secrets. A single person responsible for maintaining all the gates and locks makes sense. Whether someone like Hagrid, who had supposedly lost his wand privileges, should have been responsible is a wonderful digression that I shall explore no further here.

In a couple of past discussions I vaguely recall, a few people have presumed that Rowling got it all from Tolkien. I never quite understood that assumption as she makes great use of folklore and legends that Tolkien barely acknowledged at any time in his career. She clearly did a lot of research for her myths, legends, and historical professions. Now, one could ask her where she got the title from but that misses the point: the question is where did Tolkien get the title from?

It turns out, “Keeper of Keys” and “Warden of Keys” both have historical use. They are not quite the same things, and I found that “warden of keys” has more (easily discovered) history than “keeper of keys”. You might think, “Oh, well, the keeper of keys is the guy leading the guards in front of the gate of the prince’s palace in The Princess Bride.” Okay, that’s probably what he does, but there is more to an office like this than meets the modern assumption.

To really understand what Tolkien might have been implying, you need to look at the etymology of “key”, which is not so easy to do. It turns out there are several words spelled “key” and Tolkien may have employed one of his etymological puns in devising Hurin the Tall’s title.

Most of us recognize a “key” as a small metal object used to turn the tumblers in a locking mechanism. The key opens the door. Hurin’s responsibility as “Warden of the Keys” seems to have been to manage all of the keys of the city of Minas Tirith, right? Well, that doesn’t make sense in the context of the story. For example, there is a special warden (the unnamed porter stationed outside Rath Dinen) who keeps the keys to the Houses of the Dead (well, the key to the gate).

The porter may have been commanded by Hurin. There’s no need to debate whether he was. Hurin clearly had broad authority within Minas Tirith because he was left in command of the city’s defense when Aragorn led the Army of the West against Mordor.

There is another old meaning for “key”. It was originally spelled “kye” and it meant a “cow”. In fact, the word is related to “kine”, which should be familiar to Tolkien’s English-language readers. The Kine of Araw were a type of bovine species hunted by Orome (Araw) in eastern Middle-earth. The Horn of Voronwe (which Boromir carried) was made from the horn of a kine.

Historically, a “Warden of Keys” was appointed to oversee the cattle owned by a great lord or a city. He had a great responsibility to ensure that no one stole the cattle and that they remained in good health.

But there is another historical role for the title “Warden of Keys”. In coastal and river cities the “Warden of Keys” (or “Key-Warden”) managed the docks or quays (pronounced “kees”). The Warden of Keys in fact collected fees for use of the harbor facilities. Hence, this type of role had a fiscal responsibility.

Some organizations also have “Key Wardens” whose responsibilities may be fiscal or clerical, and they main exercise some organizational authority.

We can easily conclude that Hurin the Tall’s responsibilities are so vaguely defined as to possibly include all of these roles. In fact, when I scanned the Tolkien texts for “warden” I found numerous uses scattered across the story. There are wardens for towers, borders, gates, rivers, and more. These are specially appointed officers who may or may not have had formal titles other than “Warden of Such-and-Such Place”. Tolkien despite his reputation for dragging in minutiae at every step doesn’t provide any real details about these legions of wardens. They are simply everywhere and he uses the word both informally and formally.

My rule of thumb with Tolkien’s words and phrases is simple: if he consistently capitalizes a word it’s a title. If he doesn’t capitalize it, it’s just a generic noun used to describe a class of things or people.

So Hurin’s Wardenship is important but it’s only one of many wardenships scattered across Gondor. People occasionally wonder what the government of Gondor is supposed to be like. Well, I can say that Tolkien did mention a lot of people appointed to various tasks, calling them (usually) “wardens”.

A warden does more than just guard a gate (as the porter of Rath Dinen did). A warden decides who can be admitted through the gate, as Ingold did when he admitted Gandalf to the Pelennor Fields. But a warden may also levy fees, enforce laws, arrest criminals, and otherwise fulfill the duties and exercise the powers of government.

Although we don’t know if Hurin’s title was hereditary there is no reason for it to have been hereditary. He could have been the Chief Bureaucrat of Gondor, although we need not assume that Gondor had a bureaucracy like imperial China. There were bureaucrats in Gondor and whether they all reported to Hurin or someone else really doesn’t matter.

What we can reasonably infer from the story is that Hurin was no simple, ordinary warden. He was a royal officer with authority to command soldiers. He did not command the Guard of the White Tower, as that seems to have been Boromir’s task (and later Faramir’s). We don’t know if Hurin always commanded Minas Tirith’s garrison but he was clearly available to do so. I suspect that Tolkien meant for “Warden of the Keys” to have broad authority within Gondor’s command structure.

Maybe that included collecting fees from ships and merchants. Maybe not. The reader is free to imagine what Hurin’s role would be at other times than during the events of the story. But I think it’s clear that Tolkien meant for the title to mean something. And I seriously doubt Hurin was stationed at the city gate. He probably commanded a substantial force of soldiers and/or wardens; otherwise, I don’t think Tolkien would have included him among Gondor’s highest captains and leaders. We never learn the name of the Warden of the Houses of Healing, for example.

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