Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/297

 Age of Disorder : Feudalism. 213 the vassal, had agreed in receiving it. In -short, the fief came really to belong to the vassal, and only the shadow of ownership remained in the hands of the lord. 341. Sub vassals of the King not under his Control. Ob- viously the great vassals who held directly of the king became almost independent of him as soon as their fiefs were granted to them and their descendants. Their vassals, since they had not done homage to the king himself, often paid little attention to his commands. From the ninth to the thirteenth century the king of France or the king of Germany did not rule over a great realm occupied by subjects who owed him obedience as their lawful sovereign, paid him taxes, and were bound to fight under his banner as the head of the State. As a feudal landlord himself the king had a right to demand fidelity and certain services from those who were his vassals. But the great mass of the people over whom he nominally ruled, whether they belonged to the nobility or not, owed little to the king directly, because they lived upon the lands of other feudal lords more or less independent of him. 342. War the Law of the Feudal World. One has only to read a chronicle of the time to discover that brute force ruled everywhere outside of the Church. The feudal obligations were not fulfilled except when the lord was sufficiently powerful to enforce them. The oath of fidelity was constantly broken, and faith was violated by both vassal and lord. We may say that war, in all its forms, was the law of the feudal world. War formed the chief occupation of the restless nobles who held the land and were supposed to govern it. The feudal bonds, instead of offering a guarantee of peace and con- cord, appear to have been a constant cause of violent ill-feeling and conflict. Everyone was bent upon profiting to the full by the weakness of his neighbor. In theory, the lord could force his vassals to settle their dis- putes in an orderly manner before his court ; but often he was neither able nor inclined to bring about a peaceable adjustment, and he would frequently have found it hard to enforce the decisions of his own court. So the vassals were left to fight out