In Spain much of the land was still held by the Moors. That which had been wrested from them was divided among the Christian heroes who conquered it, and who, though feudal rules were not formally recognized, held it with an aristocratic pretension commensurate with the leagues they shadowed with their swords.
In Germany, though imperialism had been established firmly by Otho the Great, the throne was forced to continual compromise with the ambition of its chief vassals, like the dukes of Saxony, Bavaria, Swabia, and Franconia. A papal appeal to such magnates was sufficient at any time to paralyze, or at least to neutralize, the imperial authority.
The Norman holdings in the south of Italy, the independence of the cities of Lombardy in the north, the claims of the German emperor and of the popes to landed control, were typical of the divisions of that unhappy peninsula.
Later than the age we are studying, Frederick Barbarossa (1152-90) enjoined that “in every oath of fealty to an inferior lord the vassal’s duty to the emperor should be expressly reserved.” But it was not so elsewhere. When Henry II. (1154-89) and Richard I. (1189-99) claimed lands in France, their French vassals never hesitated to adhere to these English lords, nor “do they appear to have incurred any blame on that account. St. Louis (1226-70) declared in his laws that if ‘justice be refused by the king to one of his vassals, the vassal may summon his own tenants, under penalty of forfeiting their fiefs, to assist him in obtaining redress by arms’” (Hallam).
The extent to which the French barons were independent of the throne will be evident from a glance at their privileges. They possessed unchallenged:
(1) The right of coining money. In Hugh Capet’s time there were one hundred and fifty independent mints in the realm.
(2) The right of waging private war. Every castle was a fortress, always equipped as in a state of siege.
(3) Immunity from taxation. Except that the king was provided with entertainment on his journeys, the crown had no revenue beyond that coming from the personal estates of its occupant.
(4) Freedom from all legislative control. Law-making ceased with the capitularies of Carloman in 882. The first renewal of the attempt at general legislation was not until the time of Louis VIII. in 1223. Even St. Louis declared in his establishments that the king could make no laws for the territories of the barons without their consent.
(5) Exclusive right of original judicature.