Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/409

 relation to the highest in rank of his superiors, or whether the intermediate authority, which while superior to the subordinate is also inferior to the highest in rank, separates the subordinate in question from the supreme authority, and thus de facto alone represents the superior elements over against that particular subordinate. Feudalism furnished cases of the first sort, since he who was subject to a superior at the same time remained subject to the highest ruling house. A very distinct picture of this is furnished by English feudalism at the time of William the Conqueror. Stubbs describes it as follows:

All men continued to be primarily the king’s men, and the public peace to be his peace. Their lords might demand their service to fulfill their own obligations, but the king could call them to the fyrd, summon them to his courts, and tax them without the intervention of their lords; and to the king they could look for protection against all foes.

Thus the lot of an inferior with reference to a superior is a favorable one, if this superior in turn is inferior to a higher authority to whom the lowest in rank has recourse. This is also the peculiar natural consequence of the sociological configuration here under discussion. Since as a rule some sort of rivalry and conflict of authority arises between contiguous elements in the scale of superiority, the intermediate is often in conflict with the higher as well as with the lower in rank. Common opposition is however a strong bond of union—one of the most typical of formal rules, which applies in all existing departments of social life. Through this relation a coalition is established between the highest element of this series and the lowest, and this connection affords to the latter a strong security against his immediate superior. Thus we see, times without number, that the struggles of the lower classes against the aristocracy have had the assistance of the monarch.

If however this direct connection is interrupted, if the intermediate stratum has inserted itself so extensively and powerfully between the higher and the lower strata that all initiative of the highest in favor of the lowest can be mediated only through the middle stratum, there result conversely very unfavorable