Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/623

* FEUDALISM. 561 FEUDALISM. The Origins of Feudalism. (1) Personal Relationship. — Amid the disorders and inse- curity of the early mediaeval period it became very usual for men of low rank and little si nngth to 'commend' themselves to men of higher position and greater power. This 'com- mendation' might he to the King, in which case an additional and closer bond was created than that between ruler and subject ; or it might he to a noble or a church corporation, or even merely from one freeman to another. Commendation tended to become a formal procedure accom- panied by an oath of fealty and service from the inferior to the superior. The relationship thus established was known as that between vassal and suzerain, or man and lord, and the ceremony as 'homage and fealty.' (2) Landholding Relationships. — Landed es- tates were frequently granted by kings, or other possessors of extensive landed property, to per- sons who should bold these estates for their own use, but should, in acknowledgment of having received them, perform certain services, or make certain payments, to the grantor. In early times such grants do not seem to have been considered as hereditary, but they tended to become so. Rulers obtained lands to be thus disposed of by conquest and confiscation; men of lower rank re- ceived such extensive royal grants that they were in a position to make similar grants on a smaller scale to others. During the same period many holders of land in full ownership gave it to powerful persons or bodies, especially to the Church, taking it back for possession during their own lifetime, or during the lives of a cer- tain number of heirs. Such a grant was called a 'precarium,' and was often held in practically hereditary tenure by the original donor and his successors, although the ultimate title to it was vested in a third person or corporation. In these ways there came to be but little land that was actually owned by the person who occupied it, and but little that was directly claimed by the person who received payments from it. Land had come to be 'held' by one man from another, and land 'tenure' had taken the place of land 'ownership.' A piece of land held in this way was called a 'fief,' a 'fee,' or a 'feud' ; the pro- cedure by which it was granted was known as 'enfeoffment,' and the relation between the person holding it and the person from whom it was held as that between landlord anil tenant. See Fee ; Feoffment. Next, it is to be noted that the personal bond of homage and fealty and the relation of landlord and tenant tended to run together. Men usu- ally 'commended' themselves to the lord from whom they held their land; a person receiving a fief from the King was both his tenant and his Vassal ; and when a landholder enfeoffed a tenant he usually received an oath of homage and fealty from him. The conception of vassalage and ten- ancy became inseparably bound up together. Some- times, it is true, a fief consisted of something else than land. It might be an office or even a regular income, held on condition of fealty, homage, and feudal service ; but after the tenth century, in most western countries of Europe, the possession of any considerable holding of land without the accompaniment of personal homage and fealty to some lord was almost unknown. (3) Powers of Government. — Large monarchies, under the conditions existing in the early Middle Ages, could only be governed by placing their different sections or provinces under govern' or viceroys. In the Empire of the Franks these were known as counts; in England, as carls. When the King was a strung man. and his gov- ernment well organized and orderly, the gov- ernors were appointed officials with limited pow- ers and a temporary, or ai most a life tenure of office. During the disorders of the ninth and tenth centuries, however, the provincial rulers obtained extensive local powers. They exercised such functions of government ;b taxation, the raising of military forces, the administration of justice, and the coinage of money. .Moreover, their positions came to be looked upon and treated as hereditary. In many cases their power was strengthened by the fact that the district over which the count ruled had been occupied earlier by an independent race or tribe, and had been brought into the monarchy only by con- quest or annexation. The surviving race-feeling, therefore, now attached itself to the local ruler. In addition the semi-independent political powers of these rulers over whole districts were closely combined with the personal and landholding re- lationships already described. Men naturally commended themselves to the nearest powerful lord, and performed the services due for their land to him. Ecclesiastical bodies, bishoprics, and abbeys, which were the holders of such a large proportion of the land, and whose estates were considered as being held feudally, were naturally dependent upon the good will of the local ruler to defend them from the attacks of others, and to refrain from aggression upon them himself. These rulers also had lands in their possession which they granted out as fiefs to be held from themselves by persons wdio were thus alike their subjects, their tenants, and their vassals. Thus, in the case of these great lords of whole districts, political powers, the rights of a feudal landlord, and personal lordship were in- separably combined. It is this close union of the powers included under the modern conception of government with a system of landholding and with personal relations of fealty that forms the fundamental character of feudalism, and lies at the base of the legal institutions of the Middle Ages. In the great lordships, at first, a fief in- volved not only the possession of land and of personal claims and duties, but of most of the important rights of government over the persons dwelling on the land. In the course of time the same conditions came to prevail in a partial degree in smaller lordships too. When the King gave away land, he fre- quently granted to the new holder all kinds of claims which he possessed over the people dwell- ing on the land. In the ninth and tenth cen- turies, for instance, the King in many cases, especially in land granted to the Church, prom- ised that royal officials should not intrude, in the future, upon the land for purposes of taxation, administration of justice, or military levy. This left it open to the landholder to exercise those rights upon bis tenants, who thus became prac- tically his subjects as well. Such royal grants were known as 'grants of immunity.' or 'immuni- ties.' In England similar grants were made in late Anglo-Saxon times, reciting the privileges of 'sac and soc,' 'toll and team,' and other