we will describe him as we have known him; for we looked on him, and some while lived in his herd. King William was a very wise man, and very rich, more worshipful and strong than any of his foregangers. He was mild to good men who loved God; and stark beyond all bounds to those who withsaid his will. On the very stede, where God gave him to win England, he reared a noble monastery, and set monks therein, and endowed it well. He was very worshipful. Thrice he bore his king-helmet1 every year when he was in England; at Easter he bore it at Winchester, at Pentecost at Westminster, and in mid-winter at Gloucester. And there were with him all the rich men over all England; archbishops and diocesan bishops, abbots and earls, thanes and knights. Moreover he was a very stark man, and very savage, so that no man durst do anything against his will. He had earls in his bonds, who had done against his will; bishops he set off their bishoprics, abbots off their abbotries, and thanes in prisons; and at last he did not spare his own brother Odo. Him he set in prison. Yet, among other things, we must not forget the good frith 2 which he made in this land, so that a man that was good for aught might travel over the kingdom with his bosom full of gold without molestation; and no man durst slay another man, though he had suffered never so mickle evil from the other. He ruled over England, and by his cunning he was so thoroughly acquainted with it, that there is not a hide of land of which he did not know, both who had it and what was its worth, and that he set down in his writings. Wales was under his weald, and therein he wrought castles; and he wielded the Isle of Man withal. Moreover he subdued Scotland by his mickle strength. Normandy was his by kinn, and over the earldom called Manns he ruled; and if he might have lived yet two years, he would have won Ireland by the fame of his power, and without any armament. Yet truly in his time men had mickle suffering, and very many hardships. Castles he caused to be wrought, and poor men to be oppressed. He was so very stark.

He

1 His crown. The kings wore their crowns in public at the great festivals. -C. M. Y.

2 Frith is the king's peace or protection, the violation of which subjected the offender to a heavy fine.

took from his subjects many marks of gold, and many hundred pounds of silver, and that he took, some by right and some by mickle might, for very little need. He had fallen into avarice, and greediness he loved withal. . . . He let his lands to fine as dear as he could; then came some other and bade more than the first had given, and the King let it to him who bade more; then came a third, and bid yet more, and the King let it into the hands of the man who bade the most. Nor did he reck how sinfully his reeves got money of poor men, or how many unlawful things they did. For the more men talked of right law, the more they did against the law. . . . He also set many deer-friths,1 and he made laws therewith, that whosoever should slay hart or hind, him man should blind. As he forbade the slaying of harts, so also did he of boars. So much he loved the high deer, as if he had been their father. He also decreed about hares, that they should go free. His rich men moaned and the poor men murmured, but he was so hard that he recked not the hatred of them all; for it was need they should follow the King's will withal, if they wished to live, or to have lands, or goods, or his favour. Alas! that any man should be so moody, and should so puff up himself, and think himself above all other men. May Almighty God have mercy on his soul, and grant him forgiveness of his sins! "2

FEUDALISM.

(From "History of England during the Early and Middle Ages," by CHARLES H. PEARSON, M.A.)

THE origin of feudalism is as difficult to trace as the source of the Niger. The relation of chief and clansman among barbarians, the oath of Roman soldiers to the Emperor, the civic

1 Deer-friths were forests in which the deer were under the king's protection or frith.

2 Abridged from vol. ii. chapter i.

responsibility of a father for his children, transferred to a lord for his dependents, are all elements in the system which overspread Europe in the Middle Ages. Men in those times commonly regarded it from the practical point of view, as service for reward. But it came to have a higher meaning to the State. The feudal baron was the representative of kingship on his domain; rendering justice, maintaining police, and seeing that military service was performed. As a viceroy, he was accountable for the just performance of these duties to the crown: above all, he was a link in the great chain that bound the lowest peasant and the successors of Charlemagne together. Roman imperialism had divided the world into master and slave. The juster theory of the Middle Ages, no doubt influenced by Christianity, regarded mankind as a great family, and sought to strengthen the bonds of union by engagements taken solemnly before man and God. The oath of homage was the most binding that could be taken; the love of a father to his son, the duty of a wife to her husband, were regarded as of less force.

"Homage," in the beautiful language of Littleton, "is the most honourable service, and most humble service of reverence that a frank tenant may do to his lord. For, when the tenant shall make homage to his lord, he shall be ungirt, and his head uncovered, and his lord shall sit, and the tenant shall kneel before him on both his knees, and hold his hands jointly together between the hands of his lord, and shall say thus: 'I become your man from this day forward, of life and limb, and of earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and faithful, and bear to you faith for the tenements (M.N.) that I claim to hold of you; saving the faith that I owe unto our sovereign lord the king;' and then the lord so sitting shall kiss him." In order to avoid mistake, the tenements for which homage was paid were enumerated. The whole ceremony was performed before witnesses, and was a record of the lord's title-deeds. . . . Where a fief was held by a married woman, her husband took her place towards the lord. But the exception in favour of single women was inconvenient; and in later times a modified form of oath was introduced, in which all mention of personal duty was omitted. Again, bishops elect did homage for their baronies,

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but, after consecration, they only took the oath of fealty. The clerical oath of homage (like that of the women) omitted the words "I become your man," on the ground that the priest had professed himself to be only the man of God. Lastly, homage was restricted to the holders of estates which they could bequeath to their heirs generally, or the heirs of their body.

The distinction of homage and fealty is important. Fealty was more sacred, because confirmed with an oath; less digni fied, as it could be done by attorney; more general, as it extended to all freeholders and villeins; less personal, as it did not include the obligation to become the lord's man; and less binding, as, unlike those who held by homage, the tenant by fealty was not bound to sell or pledge everything for his lord's ransom. Hence, apparently, tenants for a term of life did fealty, but not homage. . . . The difference between fealty and the allegiance which every subject owed to the crown lay in the fact that fealty was done in respect of a tenure, implied a direct benefit enjoyed, and was legal evidence of the lord's rights.

Homage and fealty being the relations of service, the vassal's condition was determined by the nature of his tenure. Every tenure implied some service, either fixed, and then more or less honourable; or arbitrary, and so a mark of servitude. The Church taking precedence of the State, tenure in frank almoigne that is, by the services of religion-came first. This was the tenure of lands that were given without the obligation of any secular service. The Churchmen endowed were, however, bound to offer up prayers and masses for the soul of their benefactor, and he or his heirs might distrain on them if this duty were neglected.1 Tenure by homage ancestral was merely tenantcy-in-chief by immemorial prescription in the family. It carried with it the ordinary feudal burdens to the tenant; but, in return, his lord was bound to warrant him the possession of his estate. Tenure by grand serjeantry implied the performance of some personal service to the King,

1 The Templars' lands were claimed by the heirs of the original donors as escheats when the order was dissolved. So, too, a very just claim was set up at the dissolution of monasteries, that lands granted in frank almoigne should revert to the families of their original donors, since the services for which they were given could no longer be rendered.

to be his chamberlain or champion. Tenure by petty serjeantry was the yearly payment of some implement of war to the King. These were the tenures of tenants-in-chief; below them, scutage and socage tenures. The term scutage is now commonly used of the tax for which service of the shield was commuted. Originally, it meant the obligation to serve in arms forty days in the year, and was attached to every knight's. fee. Fealty, with or without homage, and scutage, together made up knight's service. Fealty, with or without homage, and any other special service, below petty serjeantry, constituted the important class of socage tenures. The obligation to perform all services indiscriminately was villenage. other words, the distinction between gentry and mere freedom lay in the service of arms; between freedom and servitude, in fixed instead of variable dues. The distinctions of socage tenure are numerous, as the word came to cover the service of the plough, rent for houses paid immediately to the crown (burgage tenure), or rent by various tenures, even one so debasing as doing the hangman's duty. Sometimes two or three conditions were united; it did not matter, so long as they were not variable. Beneath these middle classes came the large class of villeins. A villein might be regardant, attached to the soil; or in gross, attached to the person of his lord. A freeman might hold land in villenage, and be bound to do villein's service upon it. One of the things that most complicates the consideration of feudal England is the way in which a personality attached to corporations and lands. Every acre of soil, every institution, was animate, so to speak, with duties and privileges, which had attached to it from time immemorial, and could not be lost.

The obligations of a feudal vassal were service in council, in the court of law, and in the field. . . . He was bound to sustain his lord in self-defence and to guard his castle during a certain number of days.... He was forced to contribute to redeem his lord from captivity, or when his lord's eldest daughter was married, or when the eldest son became knight. These reliefs, as they were called, were at first arbitrary and oppressive. Gradually they were fixed, by custom, at the rate of five pounds for the knight's fee of land, or four hides: this