Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/121

 I a7'id Senti?ne?2ts. loi tenure in different countries under different independent princes, but the leller holders of fub-fees obtained fuch tenures under more than one fuperior lord, and as thefe, when they quarrelled with one fuperior, made war upon him, and threw themfelves upon the prote6lion of another who felt bound to defend his feudatory, war became the normal flate of feudal fociety, and peace and tranquillity were the exceptions. One effed of feudalifm was to divide the population of the country into two diftind clalfes — the landholders, or fighting-men, who alone were free, and the agricultural population, who had no political rights whatever, and were little better than ilaves attached to the land. The towns alone, by their own innate force, preferved their independence, but in France the influence of feudalifm extended even over them, and the combined hoflility of the crown and the ariflocracy finally overthrew their municipal independence. Feudalifm was brought into England by the Normans, but it was never eflablilhed here fo completely or fo fully as on the continent. The towns here never loft their independence, but they fided fometimes with the ariflocracy, and fometimes with the crown, until finally they alhfted greatly in the overthrow of feudalifm itfelf. Yet the whole territory of England was now diftributed in great fees, and in fub-fees; amid which a few of the old Saxon gentry retained their pofition, and many of the Norman intruders married the Saxon heireffes, in order, as they thought, to ftrengthen the right of conqueft ; but the mats of the agricultural population were confounded under the one comprehenfive name of villains {villani), and reduced to a much more wretched condition than under the Anglo-Saxon conftitution. The light in which the villain was regarded in the twelfth century in England is well illuftrated in a flory told in the Engliih " Rule of Nuns," printed by the Camden Society. A knight, who had cruelly plundered his poor villains, was complimented by one of his flatterers, who faid, " Ah, fir ! truly thou dofl well. For men ought always to pluck and pillage the churl, who is like the willow — it fprouteth out the better for being often cropped." The power and wealth of the great Norman baron were immenfe, and before him, during a great part of the period of which we are now fpeaking,