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NOTES.

1. Guizot on the Social Working of the Feudal System.-"Let us investigate this society in itself, and see what part it has played in the history of civilization. First of all, let us take feudalism in its most simple, primitive, and fundamental element: let us consider a single possessor of a fief in his domain, and let us see what will become of all those who form the little society around him.

"He establishes himself upon an isolated and elevated spot, which he takes care to render safe and strong: there he constructs what he will call his castle. With whom does he establish himself? With his wife and children; perhaps some freemen who have not become proprietors, attach themselves to his person, and continue to live with him at his table. These are the inhabitants of the interior of the castle. Around and at its foot, a little population of colonists and serfs gather together, who cultivate the domains of the possessor of the fief. In the centre of this lower population, religion plants a church; it brings hither a priest. In the early period of the feudal system, this priest was commonly at the same time the chaplain of the castle and the pastor of the village : by and by these two characters separated; the village had its own pastor, who lived there beside his church. This, then was the elementary feudal society, the feudal molecule, so to speak. It is this element that we have first of all to examine. We will demand of it the double question which should be asked of all our facts: What has resulted from it in favor of the development, 1, of man himself-2, of society?

"We are perfectly justified in addressing this double question to the little society which I have just described, and in placing faith in its replies; for it was the type and faithful image of the entire feudal society. The lord, the people on his domains, and the priest: such is feudalism upon the great as well as the small scale, when we have taken from it royalty and the towns, which are distinct and foreign elements.

"The first fact that strikes us in contemplating this little society, is the prodigious importance which the possessor of the fief must have had, both in his own eyes, and in the eyes of those who surrounded him. The sentiment of personality, of individual liberty, predominated in the barbaric life. But here it was wholly different: it was no longer only the liberty of the man, of the warrior; it was the importance of the proprietor, of the head of the family, of the master, that came to be considered. From this consideration an impression of immense superiority must have resulted; a superiority quite peculiar, and very different from everything that we meet with in the career of other civilizations. I will give the proof of this. I take in the ancient world some great aristocratical position, a Roman patrician for instance. Like the feudal lord, the

Roman patrician was head of a family, master, superior.

He was, moreover, the religious magistrate, the pontiff in the interior of his family. Now his importance as a religious magistrate came to him from without; it was not a purely personal and individual importance; he received it from on high; he was the delegate of the Divinity; the interpreter of the religious creed. The Roman patrician was, besides, the member of a corporation which lived united on the same spot, a member of the senate; this again was an importance which came to him from without, from his corporation, a received, a borrowed importance. The greatness of the ancient aristocrats, associated as it was with a religious and political character, belonged to the situation, to the corporation in general, rather than to the individual. That of the possessor of the fief was purely individual; it was not derived from any one; all his rights, all his power came to him from himself. He was not a religious magistrate; he took no part in a senate; it was in his person that all his importance resided; all that he was, he was of himself, and in his own name. What a mighty influence must such a situation have exerted on its occupant! What individual haughtiness, what prodigious pride-let us say the word-what insolence must have arisen in his soul! Above himself there was no superior of whom he was the representative or interpreter: there was no equal near him; no powerful and general law which weighed upon him; no external rule which influenced his will; he knew no curb but the limits of his strength and the presence of danger. Such was the necessary moral result of this situation upon the character of man.

"I now proceed to a second consequence, mighty also, and too little noticed, namely, the particular turn taken by the feudal family spirit.

"Let us cast a glance over the various family systems. Take, first of all, the patriarchal system of which the Bible and oriental records offer the model. The family was very numerous, it was a tribe. The chief, the patriarch, lived therein in common with his children, his near relations, the various generations which united themselves around him, all his kindred, all his servants; and not only did he live with them all, but he had the same interests, the same occupations, and he led the same life. Was not this the condition of Abraham, of the Patriarchs, and of the chiefs of the Arab tribes who still reproduce the image of the patriarchal life?

"Another family system presents itself, namely, the clan, a petty society, whose type we must seek for in Scotland or Ireland. Through this system, probably, a large portion of the European family has passed. This is no longer the patriarchal family. There is here a great difference between the situation of the chief and that of the rest of the population. They did not lead the same life. The greater portion tilled and served, the chief was idle and warlike. But they had a common origin: they all bore the same name, and their relations of kindred, ancient traditions, the same recollections, the same affections, established a moral tie, a sort of equality between all the members of the clan.

"These are the two principal types of the family society presented by history. But have we here the feudal family? Obviously not. It seems at first that the

feudal family bears some relation to the clan; but the difference is much greater than the resemblance. The population which surrounded the possessor of the fief were totally unconnected with him; they did not bear his name: between them and him there was no kindred, no bond, moral or historical. Neither did it resemble the patriarchal family. The possessor of the fief led not the same life, nor did he engage in the same occupations with those who surrounded him; he was an idler and a warrior, while the others were laborers. The feudal family was not numerous; it was not a tribe; it reduced itself to the family, properly so called, namely, to the wife and children; it lived separated from the rest of the population, shut up in the castle. The colonist and serfs made no part of it: the origin of the members of this society was different, the inequality of their situation immense. Five or six individuals in a situation at once superior to and estranged from the rest of the society-that was the feudal family. It was of course invested with a peculiar character. It was narrow, concentrated, and constantly called upon to defend itself against, to distrust, and at least to isolate itself from, even its retainers."

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"No doubt, after a certain time, some moral relations, some habits of affection, became contracted between the colonists and the possessor of the fief. But this happened in spite of their relative position, and not by reason of its influence. Considered in itself, the position was radically wrong. There was nothing morally in common between the possessor of the fief and the colonists; they constituted part of his domain; they were his property; and under this name property were included all the rights which, in the present day, are called the rights of public sovereignty, as well as the rights of private property, the right of imposing laws, of taxing, and of punishing, as well as that of disposing of and selling. As far as it is possible that such should be the case where men are in presence of men, between the lord and the cultivators of his lands there existed no rights, no guarantees, no society.

"Hence I conceive the truly prodigious and invincible hatred with which the people at all times have regarded the feudal system, its recollections, its very name. It is not a case without example for men to have submitted to oppressive despotisms, and to have become accustomed to them; nay, to have willingly accepted them. Theocratic and monarchical despotisms have more than once obtained the consent, almost the affections, of the population subjected to them. But feudal despotism has always been repulsive and odious; it has oppressed the destinies, but never reigned over the souls of men. The reason is that in theocracy and monarchy, power is exercised in virtue of certain words which are common to the master and to the subject; it is the representative, the minister of another power superior to all human power; it speaks and acts in the name of the Divinity, or of a general idea, and not in the name of man himself, of man alone. Feudal despotism was altogether different; it was the power of the individual over the individual; the dominion of the personal and capricious will of a man. This is, perhaps, the only tyranny of which, to his eternal honor,

man,

man will never willingly accept. Whenever, in his master, he beholds a mere from the moment that the will which oppresses him appears a merely human and individual will like his own, he becomes indignant, and supports the yoke wrathfully. Such was the true and distinguishing character of feudal power; and such was also the origin of the antipathy which it has ever inspired.-History of Civilization.

2. Act of Homage and Fealty.—It may be worth while here to give the ceremonies performed in conferring feudal tenures:

"The manner of entering into the homage of another is this: that is to say, the feudal seigneur must be requested, with bare head, by the man who wishes to do faith and homage, to be received into his faith; and if the seigneur will, he sits down, and the vassal unbuckles his girdle, if he have one, lays down his sword and staff, kneels on one knee, and says these words: 'I become your man from this day forth, of life and limb, and will hold faith to you for the lands I claim to hold of you.' And when the freeholder shall do fealty to his lord, he shall put his right hand upon a book, and shall say these words: "This hear, my lord, that I will be faithful and loyal to you, and will keep faith to you for the lands which I claim to hold of you, and will loyally fulfil unto you the customs and services that I shall owe you on the conditions belonging thereto, so help me God and the saints.' And then he shall kiss the book; but he shall not kneel when he does fealty, nor make so humble a reverence as is before prescribed for homage. And there is a great difference between doing fealty and doing homage; for homage can only be done to the seigneur himself, whereas the seneschal of the seigneur's court or his bailiff may receive fealty in his name."

3. Oppressions of the Feudal System in England. "In England, women and even men, simply as tenants in chief, and not as wards, fined to the crown for leave to marry whom they would, or not to be compelled to marry any other. Towns not only fined for original grants of franchises, but for repeated confirmations. The Jews paid exorbitant sums for every common right of mankind, for protection, for justice. In return they were sustained against their Christian debtors in demands of usury, which superstition and tyranny rendered enormous. Men fined for the king's good will; or that he would remit his anger; or to have his mediation with their adversaries. Many fines seem, as it were, imposed in sport, if we look to the cause, though their extent and the solemnity with which they were recorded, prove the humor to have been differently relished by the two parties. Thus the bishop of Winchester paid a tun of good wine for not reminding the king (John) to give a girdle to the countess of Albemarle; and Robert de Vaux five best palfreys, that he might hold his peace about Henry Pinel's wife. Another paid four marks for leave to eat (pro licentiâ comedendi). But of all the abuses which deformed the Anglo-Norman government, none was so pernicious as the sale of judicial redress. The king,

we are often told, is the fountain of justice; but in those ages it was one which gold alone could unseal. Men fined to have right done them; to sue in a certain court; to implead a certain person; to have a restitution of land which they had recovered at law. From the sale of that justice which every citizen has a right to demand, it was an easy transition to withhold or deny it. Fines were received for the king's help against the adverse suitor; that is, for the perversion of justice, or for delay. Sometimes they were paid by opposite parties, and, of course, for opposite ends. These were called counter fines; but the money was sometimes, or as Lord Lyttleton thinks, invariably, returned to the unsuccessful suitor."-HALLAM'S Middle Ages, vol. ii. p. 316.

Abuses of Prerogative-Purveyance.-"The real prerogatives that might formerly be exerted, were sometimes of so injurious a nature, that we can hardly separate them from their abuse: a striking instance is that of purveyance, which will at once illustrate the definition above given of a prerogative, the limits within which it was to be exercised, and its tendency to transgress them. This was a right of purchasing whatever was necessary for the king's household, at a fair price, in preference to every competitor, and without the consent of the owner. By the same prerogative, carriages and horses were impressed for the king's journeys, and lodgings provided for his attendants. This was defended on a pretext of necessity, or at least of great convenience to the sovereign, and was both of high antiquity and universal practice throughout Europe. But the royal purveyors had the utmost temptation, and doubtless no small store of precedents, to stretch this power beyond its legal boundary, and not only to fix their own price too low, but to seize what they wanted without any payment at all, or with tallies, which were carried in vain to an empty exchequer. This gave rise to a number of petitions from the commons, upon which statutes were often framed ; but the evil was almost incurable in its nature, and never ceased till that prerogative was itself abolished. Purveyance, as I have already said, may serve to distinguish the defects from the abuses of our Constitution. It was a reproach to the law that men should be compelled to send their goods without their consent; it was a reproach to the administration that they were deprived of them without payment.

"The right of purchasing men's goods for the use of the king was extended by a sort of analogy to their labor. Thus Edward III. announces to all sheriffs that William of Walsingham had a commission to collect as many painters as might suffice for our works in St. Stephen's chapel, Westminster, to be at our wages as long as shall be necessary,' and to arrest and keep in prison all who should refuse or be refractory; and enjoins them to lend their assistance. Windsor Castle owes its massive magnificence to laborers impressed from every part of the kingdom. There is even a commission from Edward IV. to take as many workmen in gold as were wanting, and to employ them at the king's cost upon the trappings of himself and his household."-HALLAM'S Middle Ages, vol. iii. p. 148.

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