Part 40 (1/2)
The king in receiving his fief was intrusted with sovereignty over all persons living upon it: he became their commander, their lawmaker, and their judge--in a word, their absolute and irresponsible ruler. Then, when he parcelled out his fief among his great men, he invested them, within the limits of the fiefs granted, with all his own sovereign rights. Each va.s.sal became a virtual sovereign in his own domain. And when these great va.s.sals divided their fiefs and granted them to others, they in turn invested their va.s.sals with those powers of sovereignty with which they themselves had been clothed. Thus every holder of a fief became ”monarch of all he surveyed.”
To ill.u.s.trate the workings of the system, we will suppose the king or suzerain to be in need of an army. He calls upon his own immediate va.s.sals for aid; these in turn call upon their va.s.sals; and so the order runs down through the various ranks of retainers. The retainers in the lowest rank rally around their respective lords, who, with their bands, gather about their lords, and so on up through the rising tiers of the system, until the immediate va.s.sals of the suzerain, or chief lord, present themselves before him with their graduated trains of followers. The array const.i.tutes a feudal army,--a splendidly organized body in theory, but in fact an extremely poor instrument for warfare.
Such was the ideal feudal state. It is needless to say that the ideal was never perfectly realized. The system simply made more or less distant approaches to it in the several European countries.
ROMAN AND TEUTONIC ELEMENTS IN THE SYSTEM.--Like many another inst.i.tution that grew up on the conquered soil of the empire. Feudalism was of a composite character; that is, it contained both Roman and Teutonic elements. The spirit of the inst.i.tution was barbarian, but the form was cla.s.sical. We might ill.u.s.trate the idea we are trying to convey, by referring to the mediaeval papal church. It, while Hebrew in spirit, was Roman in form. It had shaped itself upon the model of the empire, and was thoroughly imperial in its organization. Thus was it with Feudalism.
Beneath the Roman garb it a.s.sumed, beat a German life.
THE CEREMONY OF HOMAGE.--A fief was conferred by a very solemn and peculiar ceremony called homage. The person about to become a va.s.sal, kneeling with uncovered head, placed his hands in those of his future lord, and solemnly vowed to be henceforth his man (Latin _h.o.m.o_, whence ”homage”), and to serve him faithfully even with his life. This part of the ceremony, sealed with a kiss, was what properly const.i.tuted the ceremony of homage. It was accompanied by an oath of fealty, and the whole was concluded by the act of invest.i.ture, whereby the lord put his va.s.sal in actual possession of the land, or by placing in his hand a clod of earth or a twig, symbolized the delivery to him of the estate for which he had just now done homage and sworn fealty.
THE RELATIONS OF LORD AND Va.s.sAL.--In general terms the duty of the va.s.sal was service; that of the lord, protection. The most honorable service required of the va.s.sal, and the one most willingly rendered in a martial age, was military aid. The liegeman must always be ready to follow his lord upon his military expeditions; he must defend his lord in battle; if he should be unhorsed, must give him his own animal; and, if he should be made a prisoner, must offer himself as a hostage for his release.
Among other incidents attaching to a fief were _escheat_, _forfeiture_, and _aids_. By Escheat was meant the falling back of the fief into the hands of the lord through failure of heirs. If the fief lapsed through disloyalty or other misdemeanor on the part of the va.s.sal, this was known as Forfeiture. Aids were sums of money which the lord had a right to demand, in order to defray the expense of knighting his eldest son, of marrying his eldest daughter, or for ransoming his own person in case of captivity.
The chief return that the lord was bound to make to the va.s.sal as a compensation for these various services, was counsel and protection--by no means a small return in an age of turmoil and insecurity.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.--After the death of Charlemagne and the part.i.tion of his great empire among his feeble successors, it seemed as though the world was again falling back into chaos. The bonds of society seemed entirely broken. The strong oppressed the weak; the n.o.bles became highway-robbers and marauders.
It was this distracted state of things that, during the ninth and tenth centuries, caused the rapid development of the Feudal System. It was the only form of social organization, the only form of government that it was practicable to maintain in that rude, transitional age. All cla.s.ses of society, therefore, hastened to enter the system, in order to secure the protection which it alone could afford. Kings, princes, and wealthy persons who had large landed possessions which they had never parcelled out as fiefs, were now led to do so, that their estates might be held by tenants bound to protect them by all the sacred obligations of homage and fealty. Again, the smaller proprietors who held their estates by allodial tenure voluntarily surrendered them into the hands of some neighboring lord, and then received them again from him as fiefs, that they might claim protection as va.s.sals. They deemed this better than being robbed of their property altogether. Thus it came that almost all the allodial lands of France, Germany, Italy, and Northern Spain were, during the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, converted into feudal estates, or fiefs.
Moreover, for like reasons and in like manner, churches, monasteries, and cities became members of the Feudal System. They granted out their vast possessions as fiefs, and thus became suzerains and lords. Bishops and abbots became the heads of great bands of retainers, and led military expeditions, like temporal chiefs. On the other hand, these same monasteries and towns, as a means of security and protection, did homage to some powerful lord, and thus came in va.s.salage to him.
In this way were Church and State, all cla.s.ses of society from the wealthiest suzerain to the humblest tenant, bound together by feudal ties.
Everything was impressed with the stamp of Feudalism.
CLa.s.sES OF FEUDAL SOCIETY.--Besides the n.o.bility, or the landed cla.s.s, there were under the Feudal System three other cla.s.ses, namely, _freemen_, _serfs_ or _villeins_, and _slaves._ These lower cla.s.ses made up the great bulk of the population of a feudal state. The freemen were the inhabitants of chartered towns, and in some countries the yeomanry, or small farmers, who did not hold their lands by a regular feudal tenure.
The serfs, or villeins, were the laborers who cultivated the ground. The peculiarity of their condition was that they were not allowed to move from the estate where they lived, and when the land was sold they pa.s.sed with it just like any fixture. The slaves const.i.tuted a still lower cla.s.s made up of captives in war or of persons condemned to bondage as a penalty for crime. These chattel slaves, however, almost disappeared before the thirteenth century, being converted into the lowest order of serfs, which was a step toward freedom.
CASTLES OF THE n.o.bLES.--The lawless and violent character of the times during which Feudalism prevailed is well shown by the nature of the residences of the n.o.bles. These were strong stone fortresses, usually perched upon some rocky eminence, and defended by moats and towers.
France, Germany, Italy, Northern Spain, England, and Scotland, in which countries the Feudal System became most thoroughly developed, fairly bristled with these fortified residences of the n.o.bility. One of the most striking and picturesque features of the scenery of many districts of Europe at the present time is the ivy-mantled towers and walls of these feudal castles, now falling into ruins.
CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF FEUDALISM.--Chief among the various causes which undermined and at length overthrew Feudalism, were the hostility to the system of the kings and the common people, the Crusades, the revolt of the cities, and the introduction of fire-arms in the art of war.
[Ill.u.s.tration: FEUDAL CASTLE AT ROUEN.]
The Feudal System was hated and opposed by both the royal power and the people. Kings opposed it and sought to break it down, because it left them only the semblance of power. The people always hated it for the reason that under it they were regarded as of less value than the game in the lord's hunting-park.
The Crusades, or Holy Wars, that agitated all Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries did much to weaken the power of the n.o.bles; for in order to raise money for their expeditions, they frequently sold or mortgaged their estates, and in this way power and influence pa.s.sed into the hands of the kings or of the wealthy merchants of the cities. Many of the great n.o.bles also perished in battle with the Infidels, and their lands escheated to their suzerain, whose domains were thus augmented. The growth of the towns also tended to the same end. As they increased in wealth and influence, they became able to resist the exactions and tyranny of the lord in whose fief they happened to be, and eventually were able to secede, as it were, from his authority, and to make of themselves little republics (see p. 464).
Again, the use of gunpowder in war hastened the downfall of Feudalism, by rendering the yeoman foot-soldier equal to the armor-clad knight. ”It made all men of the same height.” as Carlyle puts it.
But it is to be noted that, though Feudalism as a system of government virtually disappeared during the latter part of the mediaeval age, it still continued to exist as a social organization. The n.o.bles lost their power and authority as rulers and magistrates, as petty sovereigns, but retained generally their t.i.tles, privileges, and social distinctions.
DEFECTS OF THE FEUDAL SYSTEM.--Feudalism was perhaps the best form of social organization that it was possible to maintain in Europe during the mediaeval period; yet it had many and serious defects, which rendered it very far from being a perfect social or political system. Among its chief faults may be pointed out the two following. First, it rendered impossible the formation of strong national governments. Every country was divided and subdivided into a vast number of practically independent princ.i.p.alities. Thus, in the tenth century France was part.i.tioned among nearly two hundred overlords, all exercising equal and coordinate powers of sovereignty. The enormous estates of these great lords were again divided into about 70,000 smaller fiefs.
In theory, as we have seen, the holders of these petty estates were bound to serve and obey their overlords, and these great n.o.bles were in turn the sworn va.s.sals of the French king. But many of these lords were richer and stronger than the king himself, and if they chose to cast off their allegiance to him, he found it impossible to reduce them to obedience.