Notice the effect that dependent tenure of land is having on the legal status of freemen.
206. Capitulary of Aachen, 801–813.
M. G. LL. 4to, II, 1, no. 77.
16. No one shall leave his senior, after he has received from him the value of a solidus, unless his senior attempts to kill him, to beat him with a club, to violate his wife or his daughter, or to take his hereditary possession from him.
207. Agreement of Lothar, Ludwig, and Charles, 847.
M. G. LL. 4to, II, 2, no. 204.
2. We decree that every freeman shall accept whatever senior he wishes in our kingdom, from among us and our faithful subjects.
3. We command that no man shall leave his senior without good cause, and that no lord shall receive a man who has left his senior, unless it be in accordance with the customs of our predecessors.
4. Every subject of each one of us shall go to war or other necessary expedition with his senior, unless the kingdom is invaded and all the subjects are called out in mass to repel it, which is called landwehr.