Feudatory

“ While he thus, on the one hand, was the national English sovereign, on the other he was the supreme landowner and feudal lord. Under this double influence, the tenure of land, following the universal tendency of Europe, became wholly feudal and military. But the other side of feudalism—with its isolation, the virtual independence of the feudatories (among whom the king was but the first among his peers) , and the suppression of national jurisdiction, which were the chief characteristics of French feudalism—was kept in careful restraint. ”

“ Though feudalism as a form of government is no longer fashionable, it still survives in spirit. Thousands of men are employed in Europe in different ways by their governments or by their monarchs, and they are in honor bound to fight for these kings and princes. In times of danger, these men are employed on railroads belonging to the government, working in palaces or on royal estates, or in the army. There are many old towns in Europe where you see feudal palaces perched on high hills or overhanging crags. ”

“ His duty was to aid his lord against enemies, yield him counsel and assistance in the judgment of causes, and pay money to ransom him from captivity, knight his eldest son, or portion his daughter. The ramifications of these feudal tenures and obligations extended, with all manner of complications, from king and duke down to such as held the meagre fief that barely kept man and war-horse from degrading labour. All these made up the feudal class whose members might expect to become knights on reaching manhood. ”

“ It was a fitting symbol for the siècle de fer, that century of moral and material disorder and disaster in which the country was now involved.
For France was now falling into the iron grip of feudalism. It is the age of castles. As the power of the central authority weakens, the power of the great vassals, dukes, counts, bishops and abbots becomes established as absolute in their fiefs. But during the period of disorder, from which the feudal régime emerged triumphant, the serf had waged with his{52} master the same struggle that the vassal was waging with his lords and the lord with the King. ”

“ In England the feudal system had been brought to great perfection—a powerful king, a state organised for common action, with a great military force, a highly organised treasury, a powerful nobility, and a dependent people. ”

“ Out of danger at home, many of the nobles kept watch like birds of prey on the surrounding country, and were always ready to fall, not only upon their enemies, but also on their neighbours, in the hope either of robbing them when off their guard, or of obtaining a ransom for any unwary traveller who might fall into their hands. Everywhere society was in ambuscade, and waged civil war--individual against individual--without peace or mercy. Such was the reign of feudalism. ”

“ Some of the kings behaved very ill in this, in making the heirs pay a great deal more than was just; and, if a baron died, and left a daughter only, she was obliged to marry any one the king chose, or he would not let her have her inheritance at all.
17. The feudal laws were therefore very bad, because they gave men the power of being tyrants to each other; for the nobles had the same power of oppressing their vassals that the king had of oppressing them. ”

“ The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries were as fatal to feudalism as to world-empire and world-church. A series of wars occurring at this time were especially remarkable for the wholesale slaughter of the feudal nobility, whether on the field or under the headsman's axe. This was a conspicuous feature of the feuds of the Trastamare in Spain, of the English invasions of France, followed by the quarrel between Burgundians and Armagnacs, and of the great war of the Roses in England. ”

“ The lord lived in his castle, and the peasantry worked his land and supported him, fighting his battles if the need arose. This condition of society was known as feudalism, and the feudal relations of lord and vassal came to be the prevailing governmental organization of the period. ”

“ But now feudalism, very generally established, and papal absolutism, rapidly culminating, are to meet in angry collision. Shall the kings of the earth prevail, assisted by feudal armies and outward grandeur, and sustained by such powerful sentiments as loyalty and chivalry; or shall a priest, speaking in the name of God Almighty, and appealing to the future fears of men? ”

“ As the aristocracy of feudalism was founded, not on wealth or money, but on land tenure, one of the most stable titles to prestige and authority found in history, there was in the underlying concept of society in those days a feeling of stability and permanency, which for a time made feudalism, in spite of its flaws, a bulwark of order. ”

“ For nearly four centuries the mail-clad feudal horseman was invincible in battle, and the stone-built feudal castle, ever becoming more complex and elaborate in structure, was impregnable except to famine. The better side of feudal social ideals—chivalry, knighthood, honour, and courtesy—did something to temper the brutality and pride of the average baron, and found powerful expression in the vernacular literatures, written to amuse nobles and gentry. ”

“ THE KINGS As a system of local government, feudalism tended to pass away when the rulers in England, France, and Spain, and later in Germany and Italy, became powerful enough to put down private warfare, execute justice, and maintain order everywhere in their dominions. The kings were always anti- feudal. ”

“ The effect of this diluted organization of feudalism in England was to make the monarchy so strong, from the beginning, that both aristocracy and commons were naturally put on their defence against it, and acquired a feeling of association, a sense of common interest, a habit of alliance, which became very important influences in the political history of the nation. ”

“ All this time the power of the nobles had been increasing, for, whereas, at first they had been only the officers of the king, and were appointed to or removed from their posts at the royal pleasure, they contrived at length to make their positions hereditary and to establish certain rights and privileges. This was the foundation of the feudal system, and such a growth was sure to strike deep root. Every officer could hope to become a ruler in a small way, and to endow his family with whatever gains and holdings he had managed to make his own. ”

“ To bow to a superior was their first political principle; and on that principle feudalism was one day to find its base.
Servitude was in fact to be found in all conditions and ranks, equally in the palace of the sovereign as in the dwellings of his subjects. The vassal who was waited on at his own table by a varlet, himself served at the table of his lord; the nobles treated each other likewise, according to their rank ”

“ But if we use the term, and often we do, in a very wide sense, if we describe several centuries as feudal, then feudalism will appear to us as a natural and even a necessary stage in our history: that is to say, if we would have the England of the sixteenth century arise out of the England of the eighth without passing through a period of feudalism, we must suppose many immense and fundamental changes in the nature of man and his surroundings. ”

“ A second evil of the institution was its exclusiveness. It was, in theory, only the person of noble birth that could become the holder of a fief. The feudal lords constituted a proud and oppressive aristocracy. It was only as the lower classes in the different countries gradually wrested from the feudal nobility their special and unfair privileges, that a better form of society arose, and civilization began to make more rapid progress. ”

“ The fact is, that during the period when feudalism was in full vigor, the king was merely a shadow; the people found their only consolation in religion, and their chief protectors in the monks, who mingled with them, saw their sufferings, and sympathized with them, consoled them, carried their cause to the castle before the feudal lord and lady, and did, thank God, do something to keep alive religious sentiments and convictions in the bosom of the feudal society itself. ”

“ In the darkness and chaos of that period the feudal system was the 243first important step toward the organization of modern nations. Powerful chiefs and barons intrenched themselves in castles, and in return for submission and service gave to their vassals rude protection and ruder laws. But as the feudal chiefs grew in power and wealth they became the oppressors of their people, taxed and robbed them at will, and finally in their arrogance, defied the kings and emperors of the mediæval states. ”

“ But to return to the feudal system strictly so called, we find the Lords and Barons were all-powerful within their dominions, and had the power of giving or taking away the life, liberty, and property of their retainers and vassals. They often made war upon each other, the consequences of which were frequently awful in the streams of blood which flowed, and the murder, rapine, and spoliation which ensued. Evidences of these internal wars are seen in the ruined castles and dismantled towers which cover our own country and the continent of Europe. ”

“ The Dark Ages were well over by the middle of the eleventh century, and after a century of anarchy, even feudalism had become a comparatively tolerable form of government. The stronger military states had absorbed their weaker neighbours, and, beyond the Alps at least, the disintegrating tendency of feudal doctrine had received a decided check, not only in the strong monarchy of the Germans, but even in the growth of vigorous feudal potentates such as the margraves of the eastern frontier of the Empire, the dukes of the Normans, and the counts of Flanders or of Toulouse. ”

“ The history of feudalism is a long and lurid one in many respects; but there is much of the domestic life of the times which points again and again to the fact that the overlord and his serfs were not in far different relations than the king and his vassals, or the landlord and tenant of to-day. ”

“ In these rich and prosperous cities the seignorial nobility and the Church reigned side by side, enjoying a nearly equal and parallel influence, and when feudalism attempted to absorb them by its inflexible despotism, the manufacturing and the commercial classes, selecting as their leaders a few more prominent of the artisans and some of the most respected of the clergy, allied themselves with the lesser rural nobles, and, with the assistance of the latter’s vassals, succeeded in repulsing its crushing yoke. ”

“ It matters nothing whether the Conqueror introduced the feudal system into England, or whether he found it there, or whether that system is almost entirely an imaginary creation, as most probably is the fact. ”

“ Your Majesty is aware that the strict interpretation of the feudal law is becoming obsolete even in the Empire, and that superior and vassal endeavour to mend their situation in regard to each other, as they have power and opportunity. ”

“ Feudalism was perishing, as human organisations often perish, from the very fact of its having attained its full development; feudal nobles had so long towered above the people that they were now almost completely severed from them; feudalism had pushed its principle so far that it was about to die, like the over-blown roses of Dunbar. ”

“ FEUDAL GOVERNMENT A SUBSTITUTE FOR ANARCHY It is clear that the feudal method of land tenure, coupled with the custom of vassalage, made in some degree for security and order. Each noble was attached to the lord above him by the bond of personal service and the oath of fidelity. ”

“ Such an institution as feudalism, for example, served its purpose as a division of labor between warriors and magistrates on the one hand, and tillers of the soil on the other. When the world grew more compact, when causes of war affected larger populations in common, when peaceful intercourse rather than perpetual feud was the obvious interest of great peoples, the feudal machinery became first cumbrous, then obstructive, then oppressive. ”

“ When this state of society became finally [72] organized as the feudal system, the king or emperor was the overlord, the counts swore allegiance to him, the petty nobles and knights were tenants in their turn. By the twelfth century, the counts and bishops were little kings in their own domains. They had gradually acquired all the rights of the crown. They coined money, established markets, acquired the rights of fishing, hunting, brewing and milling, and collected the tolls. They were vassals of the king in little more than name. ”

“ Habits and forms of the feudal arrangement remained troublesome in society, as they do in some measure to the present day; but feudalism as a system of social disorder and disintegration was by this time cleared away. We have noted in passing some of the undermining agencies by which it was destroyed: the crusading movements; the growth and enfranchisement of cities; the spread of commerce; the rise of a middle class; the study of Roman law; the consequent increase of royal authority in France,--all these were among the causes of its decline. ”

“ Enough has been said of the gradual and irregular growth of feudalism to make it clear that complete uniformity in feudal customs could hardly exist within the bounds of even a small kingdom, much less throughout the countries of western Europe. Yet there was a remarkable resemblance between the institutions of France, England, and Germany, so that a description of the chief features of feudalism in France, where it was highly developed, will serve as a key to the general situation in all the countries we are studying. ”