FEUDALISM
Feudalism the outgrowth of prevailing conditions and earlier customs.
40. Feudalism was the natural outcome of the peculiar conditions which prevailed in western Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries. Its chief elements were not, however, newly invented or discovered at that period but were only combined in order to meet the demands of the times. It will be well, therefore, to consider briefly those customs in the later Roman Empire and among the invading Germans which suggest (1) the habit of the mediæval landowner of granting his land to others in such a way that, while he retained the title, they became, to most intents and purposes, the real owners; and (2) the relation of lord and vassal.
Conditions of landholding in the later Roman Empire.
The beneficium.
We have seen how, before the barbarian inroads, the small landowners in the Roman Empire had often found it to their advantage to give up the title to their land to more powerful neighboring proprietors.[62] The scarcity of labor was such that the new owner, while extending the protection of his name over the land, was glad to permit the former owner to continue to till it, rent free, much as if it still belonged to him. With the invasions of the barbarians the lot of the defenseless small landholder became worse. He had a new resource, however, in the monasteries. The monks were delighted to accept any real estate which the owner—for the good of his soul and to gain the protection of the saint to whom the monastery church was dedicated—felt moved to turn over to them on the understanding that the abbot should permit the former owner to continue to cultivate his fields. Though he no longer owned the land, he still enjoyed its products and had only to pay a trifling sum each year in recognition of the monastery's ownership.[63] The use, or usufruct, of the land which was thus granted by the monastery to its former owner was called a beneficium. The same term was applied to the numerous grants which churches made from their vast possessions for limited periods and upon various conditions. We also find the Frankish kings and other great landowners disposing of their lands in a similar fashion. The beneficium forms the first stage in the development of mediæval landowning.
The origin of the relationship of lord and vassal.
Side by side with the beneficium grew up another institution which helps to explain the relation of lord and vassal in later times. Under the later Roman Empire the freeman who owned no land and found himself unable to gain a living might become the dependent of some rich and powerful neighbor, who agreed to feed, clothe, and protect him on condition that he should engage to be faithful to his patron, "love all that he loved and shun all that he shunned."[64]
The comitatus.
The invading Germans had a custom that so closely resembled this Roman one that scholars have found it impossible to decide whether we should attribute more influence to the Roman or to the German institution in the development of feudalism. We learn from Tacitus that the young German warriors were in the habit of pledging their fidelity to a popular chieftain, who agreed to support his faithful followers if they would fight at his side. The comitatus, as Tacitus named this arrangement, was not regarded by the Germans as a mere business transaction, but was looked upon as honorable alike to lord and man. Like the later relation of vassal and lord, it was entered upon with a solemn ceremony and the bond of fidelity was sanctioned by an oath. The obligations of mutual aid and support established between the leader and his followers were considered most sacred.
Combination of the comitatus and the beneficium produces feudal land tenure.
While there was a great difference between the homeless and destitute fellow who became the humble client of a rich Roman landowner, and the noble young German warrior who sat at the board of a distinguished military leader, both of these help to account for the later feudal arrangement by which one person became the "man," or faithful and honorable dependent, of another. When, after the death of Charlemagne, men began to combine the idea of the comitatus with the idea of the beneficium, and to grant the usufruct of parcels of their land on condition that the grantee should be true, loyal, and helpful to them, that is, become their vassal, we may consider that the feudal system of landowning was coming into existence.[65]
Gradual development of feudalism.
The fief.
Infeudation and subinfeudation.
Vassal and subvassal.
41. Feudalism was not established by any decree of a king or in virtue of any general agreement between all the landowners. It grew up gradually and irregularly without any conscious plan on any one's part, simply because it seemed convenient and natural under the circumstances. The owner of vast estates found it to his advantage to parcel them out among vassals who agreed to accompany him to war, attend his court, guard his castle upon occasion, and assist him when he was put to any unusually great expense. Land granted upon the terms mentioned was said to be "infeudated" and was called a fief. One who held a fief might himself become a lord by granting a portion of his fief to a vassal upon terms similar to those upon which he held of his lord or suzerain.[66] This was called subinfeudation, and the vassal of a vassal was called a subvassal or subtenant. There was still another way in which the number of vassals was increased. The owners of small estates were usually in a defenseless condition, unable to protect themselves against the insolence of the great nobles. They consequently found it to their advantage to put their land into the hands of a neighboring lord and receive it back from him as a fief. They thus became his vassals and could call upon him for protection.
It is apparent, from what has been said, that, all through the Middle Ages, feudalism continued to grow, as it were, "from the top and bottom and in the middle all at once." (1) Great landowners carved out new fiefs from their domains and granted them to new vassals. (2) Those who held small tracts brought them into the feudal relation by turning them over to a lord or monastery, whose vassals they became. (3) Finally any lord might subinfeudate portions of his estate by granting them as fiefs to those whose fidelity or services he wished to secure. By the thirteenth century it had become the rule in France that there should be "no land without its lord." This corresponded pretty closely to the conditions which existed at that period throughout the whole of western Europe.
The hereditary character of fiefs and its consequences.
It is essential to observe that the fief, unlike the beneficium, was not granted for a certain number of years, or for the life of the grantee, to revert at his death to the owner. On the contrary, it became hereditary in the family of the vassal and passed down to the eldest son from one generation to another. So long as the vassal remained faithful to his lord and performed the stipulated services, and his successors did homage and continued to meet the conditions upon which the fief had originally been granted, neither the lord nor his heirs could rightfully regain possession of the land. No precise date can be fixed at which it became customary to make fiefs hereditary; it is safe, however, to say that it was the rule in the tenth century.[67]
The kings and great nobles perceived clearly enough the disadvantage of losing control of their lands by permitting them to become hereditary property in the families of their vassals. But the feeling that what the father had enjoyed should pass to his children, who, otherwise, would ordinarily have been reduced to poverty, was so strong that all opposition on the part of the lord proved vain. The result was that little was left to the original and still nominal owner of the fief except the services and dues to which the practical owner, the vassal, had agreed in receiving it. In short, the fief came really to belong to the vassal, and only a shadow of his former proprietorship remained in the hands of the lord. Nowadays the owner of land either makes some use of it himself or leases it for a definite period at a fixed money rent. But in the Middle Ages most of the land was held by those who neither really owned it nor paid a regular rent for it and yet who could not be deprived of it by the original owner or his successors.
Subvassals of the king not under his control.
Obviously the great vassals who held directly of the king became almost independent of him as soon as their fiefs were granted to them in perpetuity. Their vassals, since they stood in no feudal relation to the king, escaped the royal control altogether. From the ninth to the thirteenth century the king of France or the king of Germany did not rule over a great realm occupied by subjects who owed him obedience as their lawful sovereign, paid him taxes, and were bound to fight under his banner as the head of the state. As a feudal landlord himself, he had a right to demand fidelity and certain services from those who were his vassals. But the great mass of the people over whom he nominally ruled, whether they belonged to the nobility or not, owed little to the king directly, because they lived upon the lands of other feudal lords more or less independent of him.
Enough has been said of the gradual and irregular growth of feudalism to make it clear that complete uniformity in feudal customs could hardly exist within the bounds of even a small kingdom, much less throughout the countries of western Europe. Yet there was a remarkable resemblance between the institutions of France, England, and Germany, so that a description of the chief features of feudalism in France, where it was highly developed, will serve as a key to the general situation in all the countries we are studying.
The fief the central institution of feudalism.
Homage.
42. The fief (Latin, feudum) was the central institution of feudalism and the one from which it derives its name. In the commonest acceptance of the word, the fief was land, the perpetual use of which was granted by its owner, or holder, to another person, on condition that the one receiving it should become his vassal. The one proposing to become a vassal knelt before the lord and rendered him homage[68] by placing his hands between those of the lord and declaring himself the lord's "man" for such and such a fief. Thereupon the lord gave his vassal the kiss of peace and raised him from his kneeling posture. Then the vassal took the oath of fidelity upon the Bible, or some holy relic, solemnly binding himself to fulfill all his duties toward his lord. This act of rendering homage by placing the hands in those of the lord and taking the oath of fidelity was the first and most essential obligation of the vassal and constituted the feudal bond. For a vassal to refuse to do homage for his fief when it changed hands, was equivalent to a declaration of revolt and independence.
Obligations of the vassal. Military service.
Money fiefs.
The obligations of the vassal varied greatly.[69] Sometimes homage meant no more than that the vassal bound himself not to attack or injure his lord in honor or estate, or oppose his interests in any other manner. The vassal was expected to join his lord when there was a military expedition on foot, although it was generally the case that the vassal need not serve at his own expense for more than forty days. The rules, too, in regard to the length of time during which a vassal might be called upon to guard the castle of his lord varied almost infinitely. The shorter periods of military service proved very inconvenient to the lord. Consequently it became common in the thirteenth century for the king and the more important nobles to secure a body of soldiers upon whom they could rely at any time, and for any length of time, by creating money fiefs. A certain income was granted to a knight upon condition that the grantee should not only become a vassal of the lord but should also agree to fight for him whenever it was necessary.
Other feudal obligations.
Money payments.
Besides the military service due from the vassal to his lord, he was expected to attend the lord's court when summoned. There he sat with other vassals to hear and pronounce upon those cases in which his peers—i.e., his fellow-vassals—were involved.[70] Moreover, he had to give the lord the benefit of his counsel when required, and attend him upon solemn occasions. Under certain circumstances vassals had to make money payments to their lord, as well as serve him in person; as, for instance, when the fief changed hands through the death of the lord or of the vassal, when the fief was alienated, when the lord was put to extra expense by the necessity of knighting his eldest son or providing a dowry for his daughter, or when he was in captivity and was held for a ransom. Lastly, the vassal might have to entertain his lord should the lord come his way. There are amusingly detailed accounts, in some of the feudal contracts, of exactly how often the lord might come, how many followers he might bring, and what he should have to eat.
A Mediæval Castle near Klagenfurt, Austria
Different classes of fiefs.
There were fiefs of all kinds and of all grades of importance, from that of a duke or count, who held directly of the king and exercised the powers of a practically independent prince, down to the holding of the simple knight, whose bit of land, cultivated by peasants or serfs, was barely sufficient to enable him to support himself and provide the horse upon which he rode to perform his military service for his lord.
The nobility.
Their privileges.
In order to rank as a noble in mediæval society it was, in general, necessary to be the holder of land for which only such services were due as were considered honorable, and none of those which it was customary for the peasant or serf to perform. The noble must, moreover, be a free man and have at least sufficient income to maintain himself and his horse without any sort of labor. The nobles enjoyed certain privileges which set them off from the non-noble classes. Many of these privileges were perpetuated in France, and elsewhere on the continent, down to the time of the French Revolution, and in Italy and Germany, into the nineteenth century. The most conspicuous privilege was a partial exemption from taxation.
Difficulty of classifying the nobles.
It is natural to wish to classify the nobility and to ask just what was the difference, for example, between a duke, a count, and a marquis. Unfortunately there was no fixed classification, at least before the thirteenth century. A count, for instance, might be a very inconspicuous person, having a fief no larger than the county of Charlemagne's time, or he might possess a great many of the older counties and rank in power with a duke. In general, however, it may be said that the dukes, counts, bishops, and abbots who held directly from the king were of the highest rank. Next to them came an intermediate class of nobles of the second order, generally subvassals of the king, and below these the simple knights.
Feudal registers.
43. The great complexity of the feudal system of land tenure made it necessary for the feudal lords to keep careful registers of their possessions. Very few of these registers have been preserved, but we are so fortunate as to have one of the count of Champagne, dating from the early thirteenth century. This gives us an idea of what feudalism really was in practice, and shows how impossible it is to make a satisfactory map of any country during the feudal period.
Fiefs and Suzerains of the Counts of Champagne
Growth of the possessions of the counts of Champagne typical of the period.
At the opening of the tenth century we find in the chronicles of the time an account of a certain ambitious count of Troyes, Robert by name, who died in 923 while trying to wrest the crown of France from Charles the Simple. His county passed to his son-in-law, who already held, among other possessions, the counties of Château-Thierry and Meaux. His son, in turn, inherited all three counties and increased his dominions by judicious usurpations. This process of gradual aggrandizement went on for generation after generation, until there came to be a compact district under the control of the counts of Champagne, as they began to call themselves at the opening of the twelfth century. It was in this way that the feudal states in France and Germany grew up. Certain lines of feudal lords showed themselves able, partly by craft and violence, and partly, doubtless, by good fortune, to piece together a considerable district, in much the same way as we shall find that the king of France later pieced together France itself.
The register of the counts of Champagne illustrates the complexity of feudal relations.
The register referred to above shows that the feudal possessions of the counts of Champagne were divided into twenty-six districts, each of which centered about a strong castle. We may infer that these divisions bore some close relation to the original counties which the counts of Champagne had succeeded in bringing together. All these districts were held as fiefs of other lords. For the greater number of his fiefs the count rendered homage to the king of France, but he was the vassal of no less than nine other lords beside the king. A portion of his lands, including probably his chief town of Troyes, he held of the duke of Burgundy. Châtillon, Épernay, and some other towns, he held as the "man" of the Archbishop of Rheims. He was also the vassal of the Archbishop of Sens, of four other neighboring bishops, and of the abbot of the great monastery of St. Denis. To all of these persons he had pledged himself to be faithful and true, and when his various lords fell out with one another it must have been difficult to see where his duty lay. Yet his situation was similar to that of all important feudal lords.
The chief object, however, of the register was to show not what the count owed to others but what his own numerous vassals owed to him. It appears that he subinfeudated his lands and his various sources of income to no less than two thousand vassal knights. The purpose of the register is to record the terms upon which each of these knights held his fief. Some simply rendered the count homage, some agreed to serve him in war for a certain length of time each year, others to guard his castle for specified periods. A considerable number of the vassals of the count held lands of other lords, there being nothing to prevent a subvassal from accepting a fief directly from the king, or from any other neighboring noble landholder. So it happened that several of the vassals of the counts of Champagne held of the same persons of whom the count himself held.
The infeudation of other things than land.
It is evident that the counts of Champagne were not contented with the number of vassals that they secured by subinfeudating their land. The same homage might be rendered for a fixed income, or for a certain number of bushels of oats to be delivered each year by the lord, as for the use of land. So money, houses, wheat, oats, wine, chickens, were infeudated, and even half the bees which might be found in a particular forest. It would seem to us the simpler way to have hired soldiers outright, but in the thirteenth century the traditions of feudalism were so strong that it seemed natural to make vassals of those whose aid was desired. The mere promise of a money payment would not have been considered sufficiently binding. The feudal bond of homage served to make the contract firmer than it would otherwise have been.
The arrow indicates a lord of whom the vassal held one or more fiefs.
It is clear, then, that no such regular hierarchy existed as some historians have imagined, beginning with the king and ending with the humblest knight included in the feudal aristocracy. The fact that vassals often held of a number of different lords made the feudal relations infinitely complex. The diagram on page 115, while it may not exactly correspond to the situation at any given moment, will serve to illustrate this complexity.
The feudal system maintained only by force.
44. Should one confine one's studies of feudalism to the rules laid down by the feudal lawyers and the careful descriptions of the exact duties of the vassal which are to be found in the contracts of the period, one might conclude that everything had been so minutely and rigorously fixed as to render the feudal bond sufficient to maintain order and liberty. But one has only to read a chronicle of the time to discover that, in reality, brute force governed almost everything outside of the Church. The feudal obligations were not fulfilled except when the lord was sufficiently powerful to enforce them. The bond of vassalage and fidelity, which was the sole principle of order, was constantly broken and faith was violated by both vassal and lord.[71]
The breaking of the feudal bond.
It often happened that a vassal was discontented with his lord and transferred his allegiance to another. This he had a right to do under certain circumstances, as, for instance, when his lord refused to see that justice was done him in his court. But such changes were generally made merely for the sake of the advantages which the faithless vassal hoped to gain. The records of the time are full of accounts of refusal to do homage, which was the commonest way in which the feudal bond was broken. So soon as a vassal felt himself strong enough to face his lord's displeasure, or realized that the lord was a helpless minor, he was apt to declare his independence by refusing to recognize the feudal superiority of the one from whom he had received his land.
War the law of the feudal world.
We may say that war, in all its forms, was the law of the feudal world. War formed the chief occupation of the restless aristocracy who held the land and exercised the governmental control. The inveterate habits of a military race, the discord provoked by ill-defined rights or by self-interest and covetousness, all led to constant bloody struggles in which each lord had for his enemies all those about him. An enterprising vassal was likely to make war at least once, first, upon each of his several lords; secondly, upon the bishops and abbots with whom he was brought into contact, and whose control he particularly disliked; thirdly, upon his fellow-vassals; and lastly, upon his own vassals. The feudal bonds, instead of offering a guarantee of peace and concord, appear to have been a constant cause of violent conflict. Every one was bent upon profiting by the permanent or temporary weakness of his neighbor. This chronic dissension extended even to members of the same family; the son, anxious to enjoy a part of his heritage immediately, warred against his father, younger brothers against older, and nephews against uncles who might seek to deprive them of their rights.
In theory, the lord could force his vassals to settle their disputes in an orderly and righteous manner before his court. But often he was neither able nor inclined to bring about a peaceful adjustment, and he would frequently have found it embarrassing to enforce the decisions of his own court. So the vassals were left to fight out their quarrels among themselves and found their chief interest in life in so doing. War was practically sanctioned by law. The great French code of laws of the thirteenth century and the Golden Bull, a most important body of law drawn up for Germany in 1356, did not prohibit neighborhood war, but merely provided that it should be conducted in a decent and gentlemanly way.
Tourneys and jousts.
The jousts, or tourneys, were military exercises—play wars—to fill out the tiresome periods which occasionally intervened between real wars.[72] They were, in fact, diminutive battles in which whole troops of hostile nobles sometimes took part. These rough plays called down the condemnation of the popes and councils, and even of the kings. The latter, however, were too fond of the sport themselves not to forget promptly their own prohibitions.[73]
Disastrous effects of feudal warfare generally recognized.
The 'Truce of God.'
45. The disastrous nature of the perpetual feudal warfare and the necessity of some degree of peace and order, had already become apparent even as early as the eleventh century. In spite of all the turmoil, mankind was making progress. Commerce and enlightenment were increasing in the older towns and preparing the way for the development of new ones. Those engaged in peaceful pursuits could not but find the prevailing disorder intolerable. The Church was untiring, as it was fitting that it should be, in its efforts to secure peace; and nothing redounds more to the honor of the bishops than the "Truce of God." This prohibited all hostilities from Thursday night until Monday morning, as well as upon all of the numerous fast days.[74] The church councils and the bishops required the feudal lords to take an oath to observe the weekly truce, and, by means of the dreaded penalty of excommunication, met with some success. With the opening of the Crusades in 1096, the popes undertook to effect a general pacification by diverting the prevailing warlike spirit against the Turks.
At the same time the king, in France and England at least, was becoming a power that made for order in the modern sense of the word. He endeavored to prevent the customary resort to arms to settle every sort of difficulty between rival vassals. By increasing the military force that he had at his command he compelled the submission of cases of dispute to his tribunals. But even St. Louis (d. 1270), who made the greatest efforts to secure peace, did not succeed in accomplishing his end. The gradual bettering of conditions was due chiefly to general progress and to the development of commerce and industry, which made the bellicose aristocracy more and more intolerable.
General Reading.—The older accounts of feudalism, such as that given by Guizot or Hallam, should be avoided as the reader is likely to be misled by them. The earlier writers appear, from the standpoint of recent investigations, to have been seriously mistaken upon many important points. In French, Luchaire, Manuel des Institutions Françaises (Hachette & Co., Paris, $3.00), and Esmein, Cours Élémentaire d'Histoire du Droit Français ($2.00), are excellent.
In English there is Emerton's Chapter XIV on "Feudal Institutions" in his Mediæval Europe, and Adams, Civilization, Chapter IX, devoted especially to the origin of feudalism. Cheyney gives a selection of documents relating to the subject in Translations and Reprints, Vol. IV, No. 3.