FEUDALISM AND CHIVALRY.
1. FEUDALISM.
FEUDALISM DEFINED.—Feudalism is the name given to a special form of society and government, based upon a peculiar military tenure of land which prevailed in Europe during the latter half of the Middle Ages, attaining, however, its most perfect development in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries.
A feudal estate, which might embrace a few acres or an entire province, was called a fief, or feud, whence the term Feudalism. The person granting a fief was called the suzerain, liege, or lord; the one receiving it, his vassal, liegeman, or retainer.
THE IDEAL SYSTEM.—The few definitions given above will render intelligible the following explanation of the theory of the Feudal System.
In theory, all the soil of the country was held by the king as a fief from God (in practice, the king's title was his good sword), granted on conditions of fealty to right and justice. Should the king be unjust or wicked, he forfeited the kingdom, and it might be taken from him and given to another. According to Papal theorists it was the Pope who, as God's vicar on earth, had the right to pronounce judgment against a king, depose him, and put another in his place.
In the same way that the king received his fief from God, so he might grant it out in parcels to his chief men, they, in return for it, promising, in general, to be faithful to him as their lord, and to serve and aid him. Should these men, now vassals, be in any way untrue to their engagement, they forfeited their fiefs, and these might be resumed by their suzerain and bestowed upon others.
In like manner these immediate vassals of the king or suzerain might parcel out their domains in smaller tracts to others, on the same conditions as those upon which they had themselves received theirs; and so on down through any number of stages.
We have thus far dealt only with the soil of a country. We must next notice what disposition was made of the people under this system.
The king in receiving his fief was intrusted with sovereignty over all persons living upon it: he became their commander, their lawmaker, and their judge—in a word, their absolute and irresponsible ruler. Then, when he parcelled out his fief among his great men, he invested them, within the limits of the fiefs granted, with all his own sovereign rights. Each vassal became a virtual sovereign in his own domain. And when these great vassals divided their fiefs and granted them to others, they in turn invested their vassals with those powers of sovereignty with which they themselves had been clothed. Thus every holder of a fief became "monarch of all he surveyed."