Fig. 9.—Tour du Télégraphe, Narbonne, Fourteenth Century.
Fig. 10.—Old Castle of Angoulême, Thirteenth Century.
The reciprocal obligations of the vassal and his suzerain were numerous, some moral, some material. The vassal was bound to loyally preserve the secrets confided to him by his suzerain (Fig. 13), to prevent and frustrate any treachery on the part of his enemies, to defend him at the risk of his own life, to resign his own horse on the battle-field should his lord have lost his, to go as a prisoner in his stead, to cause his honour to be respected, and to assist him with his advice. At the simple request of the suzerain, the vassal was bound to follow him to the field, either alone or accompanied with a specified number of armed men, according to the importance of the fief. The duration of this military service varied, in like manner, in proportion to the fief, from twenty to sixty days—a period that did not admit of very distant expeditions. The feudal seignior stood in place of the sovereign, and being invested with executive authority, had necessarily, in order to exercise it, recourse to the latent force distributed amongst his vassals, and he naturally did so in accordance with his own convenience. Justice, administered in this manner, was termed fiance, that is to say, public security. The seignior was wont to summon the men of his fief or fiefs to his plaids, or assizes, either for the purpose of assisting him with their advice, to act with him as judges, or to carry out the sentences he pronounced. He had a right to two kinds of assistance—obligatory, or legal aids, and voluntary, or gracious aids. Legal aids were due from the vassal under three sets of circumstances: when the seignior was taken prisoner and had to pay a ransom, when his eldest son was about to be made a knight, and when he gave away his eldest daughter in marriage. In feudal society these aids stood in the place of the public taxes, which in ancient times, as in our own days, were collected by the State alone; they differed, however, in this respect, that they were not due at any stated periods, nor perhaps could they ever be absolutely enforced, they were a kind of voluntary gift—from the bestowal of which, however, few vassals dared to free themselves.
Fig. 11.—Act of Faith and Homage, Twelfth Century.—Seal of Conon de Béthune, preserved in the National Archives of France.
Fig. 12.—Act of Faith and Homage, Thirteenth Century.—Seal representing Raimond de Mont-Dragon kneeling before the Archbishop of Arles, his Suzerain, in the National Archives of France.
The seignior, who never abdicated his sovereignty over his vassal, sometimes interfered in certain essential modifications necessary to the fief—modifications that the vassal was incompetent to undertake. These gave rise to new rights, and became a fresh source of revenue to the seignior. For instance, the seignior was entitled—first, to the right of relief, a sum of money payable by every person of full age who succeeded to the possession of a fief, which sum became larger as the line of succession became less direct; secondly, to the right of alienation, payable by those who sold or alienated the fief in any way; thirdly, to the rights of escheat and of confiscation, in accordance with which the fief reverted to the suzerain when the vassal died without leaving an heir, or when, from some act of his own, he had incurred the penalty of being deprived of his feudatory rights; fourthly, to the right of guardianship, in virtue of which the seignior, during the minority of his vassals, held the ward and administration of the fief besides enjoying its revenues; fifthly, to the right of marriage, which consisted in finding a husband for the female inheritor of a fief; this right gave the seignior the privilege of forcing her to select one of the suitors that he chose to present to her.
As long as a vassal scrupulously fulfilled his numerous and delicate obligations he might consider himself as the absolute master of his fief, he might partially or entirely sub-feudalise it, and become in his own turn the suzerain of vassals of an inferior order termed vavasseurs, who were bound to render to him the same obligations that he himself paid to his own seignior. On the other hand, the suzerain was bound to respect his contract, not to dispossess his vassal without a legitimate motive, but to protect him, and to render him on all occasions substantial justice. It was, moreover, to his interest to do this, for the prosperity of the fief depended upon the security and welfare of the vassal.