Court dwarf

Some of the first dwarfs to have their histories recorded were sometimes employed as court dwarfs. They were owned and traded amongst people of the court, and delivered as gifts to fellow kings and queens.

Court dwarfs enjoyed specific placement right next to the king or queen in a royal court during public appearances and ceremonies, because they were so small, the king appeared much larger and visually enhanced his powerful position.

From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain dwarves as attendants.Ancient Egypt saw dwarfs as being people with significant sacred associations, so owning a dwarf gave a person high social stature.

Philetas of Cos, poet and grammarian (circa 330 BCE), tutor of Ptolemy Philadelphus, was alleged by his contemporaries to be so thin in his old age that he had to wear leaden shoes lest he should be blown away. The Romans practised artificial dwarfing, and the Latin nanus or pumilo were terms alternatively used to describe the natural and unnatural dwarf. Julia, the niece of Augustus, had a dwarf named Coropas 2 feet 4 inches (0.71 m) high, and a freed-maid Andromeda who measured the same.

British tradition has its earliest dwarf mentioned in the old ballad which begins "In Arthur’s court Tom Thumb did live"; and on this evidence the prototype of the modern Tom Thumb is alleged to have lived at the court of King Edgar. Of authentic English dwarfs the first appears to be John Jarvis 2 feet (0.61 m), who was page to Queen Mary I. Her brother King Edward VI had his dwarf called Xit.

The first English dwarf of whom there is anything like an authentic history is Jeffery Hudson (1619–1682). He was the son of a butcher at Oakham, Rutland, who kept and baited bulls for George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham. Neither of Jeffery’s parents were undersized, yet at nine years he measured scarcely 18 inches (0.46 m) though he was gracefully proportioned. At a dinner given by the Duke to Charles I and his queen he was brought in to table in a pie out of which he stepped, and was at once adopted by Queen Henrietta Maria. The little fellow followed the fortunes of the court in the English Civil War, and is said to have been a captain of horse, earning the nickname of "strenuous Jeffery" for his activity.

...
Wikipedia