[319] Charles, count of Flanders, had just died and had been succeeded by his son William. All persons who had received fiefs from the deceased count were now brought together to renew their homage and fealty to the new count.
[320] Such a case as this would be most apt to arise when a lord died and a vassal failed to renew his homage to the successor; or when a vassal died and his heir failed to do homage as was required.
[321] This law would apply also to a case where a man who is already a vassal of a lord should acquire from another vassal of the same lord some additional land and so become indebted to the lord for a new measure of fealty.
[322] Reversion to the original proprietor because of failure of heirs.
[323] Such land might be acquired for temporary use only i.e., for guardianship, during the absence or disability of its proprietor.
[324] Chartres was somewhat less than twenty miles southwest of Paris.
[325] The terms used in the original are incolume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, et possibile.
[326] In the English customary law of the twelfth century we read that, "it is allowable to any one, without punishment, to support his lord if any one assails him, and to obey him in all legitimate ways, except in theft, murder, and in all such things as are not conceded to any one to do and are reckoned infamous by the laws;" also that, "the lord ought to do likewise equally with counsel and aid, and he may come to his man's assistance in his vicissitudes in all ways."—Thorpe, Ancient Laws and Institutes, Vol. I., p. 590.
[327] The duke of Normandy. Outside of Normandy, of course, other feudal princes would be substituted.
[328] It was the feudal system that first gave the eldest son in France a real superiority over his brothers. This may be seen most clearly in the change wrought by feudalism whereby the old Frankish custom of allowing all the sons to inherit their father's property equally was replaced by the mediæval rule of primogeniture (established by the eleventh century) under which the younger sons were entirely, or almost entirely, excluded from the inheritance.