Their having retained so much of their ancient manners and customs, during [173] centuries of misery and oppression, is the best evidence that those customs were riveted to their very souls. The Rajput of character is a being of the most acute sensibility; where honour is concerned, the most trivial omission is often ignorantly construed into an affront.
Provision for Chief’s Relations.
Charsa.
For what these minor vassals held to be their rights on the great pattawats, the reader is again referred to the letter of protest of the inferior pattawats of the Deogarh estate—it may aid his judgement; and it is curious to observe how nearly the subject of their prayer to the sovereign corresponded with the edict of Conrad of Italy,[[49]] in the year 1037, which originated in disagreements between the great lords and their vassals on the subject of sub-infeudations [174].
The extent to which the subdivision before mentioned is carried in some of the Rajput States, is ruinous to the protection and general welfare of the country. It is pursued in some parts till there is actually nothing left sufficiently large to share, or to furnish subsistence for one individual: consequently a great deprivation of services to the State ensues. But this does not prevail so much in the larger principalities as in the isolated tributary Thakurats or lordships scattered over the country; as amongst the Jarejas of Cutch, the tribes in Kathiawar, and the small independencies of Gujarat bordering on the greater western Rajput States. This error in policy requires to be checked by supreme authority, as it was in England by Magna Charta,[[50]] when the barons of those days took such precautions to secure their own seignorial rights.
Brotherhood.
The author of the Middle Ages exemplifies ingeniously the advantages of sub-[175]infeudation, by the instance of two persons holding one knight’s fee; and as the lord was entitled to the service of one for forty days, he could commute it for the joint service of the two for twenty days each. He even erects as a maxim on it, that “whatever opposition was made to the rights of sub-infeudation or frerage, would indicate decay in the military character, the living principle of feudal tenure”;[[54]] which remark may be just where proper limitation exists, before it reaches that extent when the impoverished vassal would descend to mend his shoes instead of his shield. Primogeniture is the corner-stone of feudality, but this unrestricted sub-infeudation would soon destroy it.[[55]] It is strong in these States; its rights were first introduced by the Normans from Scandinavia. But more will appear on this subject and its technicalities, in the personal narrative of the author.
[1]. “Plusieurs possesseurs de fiefs, ayant voulu en laisser perpétuellement la propriété à leurs descendans, prirent des arrangemens avec leur Seigneur; et, outre ce qu’ils donnèrent pour faire le marché, ils s’engagèrent, eux et leur postérité, à abandonner pendant une année, au Seigneur, la jouissance entière du fief, chaque fois que le dit fief changerait de main. C’est ce qui forma le droit de relief. Quand un gentilhomme avait dérogé, il pouvait effacer cette tache moyennant finances, et ce qu’il payait s’appelait relief, il recevait pour quittance des lettres de relief ou de réhabilitation” (Art. ‘Relief,’[‘Relief,’] Dict. de l’anc. Régime).
[2]. Namely, “the heir or heirs of an earl, for an entire earldom, one hundred pounds; the heir or heirs of a baron, for an entire barony, one hundred marks; the heir or heirs of a knight, for a whole knight’s fee, one hundred shillings at most” (Art. III. Magna Charta).