Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/301

 FEUDAL STATES OF EUROPE 257 The great lord, who had many vassals, could by means of their military service command a small army; Political and so was in a position to exercise the military features of functions of the State, and to enforce obedience to his commands. It was furthermore the duty of his vassals to attend his court, and this supplied him with a council of state and the opportunity to exercise judicial powers. They owed him occasional feudal aids and reliefs; he could also fill his treasury by exercise of the rights of wardship and tion and revenue. But in feudalism everything is expressed , in different terms from those employed in the modern state, ! or in the ancient city-state, or in the Roman Empire. It has its peculiar names for its own peculiar institutions: feudal armies, court attendance rather than a congress or parlia- j personal lordship and dependent land tenure instead of Although feudalism could in some measure approximate to the military, legislative, judicial, and financial functions ! of the State, the lord's power was greatly limited Limitations j in all these respects. He could require military ? "l^owr**" service of his vassals, but he could not keep them of the 1 waging war on their own account. He could make war, but 1 he could not preserve the peace in the fiefs of his vassals.
 * marriage ; thus feudalism had its equivalents for state taxa-
 * aids instead of taxes, knight service in place of standing
 * ment or chamber of deputies, vassals in place of citizens,
 * nationality and territorial sovereignty.
 * from fighting also for some other lord or from eu a or
 * He could procure the assent of his vassals assembled at his

court to certain laws or policies, but he could not send his officials into their fiefs to see to the execution of these meas- ures. He had to leave all that to the vassals themselves. He had no power of local administration save in his own domains. At his court he could judge his vassals and settle their disputes; but the subvassals, to whom they had sub- infeudated portions of their fiefs, did not attend his court and he found it difficult to exert any control over them, since all their services and payments were rendered, not to
 * him, but to their lords who were his vassals. He could im-