The true heirs of Charlemagne were not the kings of France, nor those of Germany and Italy, at first, but rather the feudal lords. Not only had the empire been dismembered after the deposition of Charles the Fat, but its composing kingdoms and even its great fiefs as well. Dukes and counts had been quite as powerless as kings against the Northmen, Saxons, and Hungarians, and quite as unable to maintain the vast domains under their control. Populations whose leaders did not know how to bring them together for concerted action had acquired, little by little, the habit of depending upon themselves alone.
After having fled for a long time at the approach of the heathen to the woods among the wild beasts, some stout-hearted people had turned their heads and refused to abandon all their possessions without an attempt at defence. Here and there in mountain gorges, at river fords, on the hill overlooking the plain, entrenchments and walls were raised where the brave and the strong held out. An edict of 853 directed the counts and vassals of the king to repair their old castles and to build new ones. The country was soon covered with fortresses against which invaders flung themselves in vain. A few reverses quickly taught these bold adventurers prudence. They no longer dared to venture so far, to where these strongholds had sprung up from the ground on all sides, and the new invasion meeting with fresh obstacles and difficulties came to an end in the following century. It was not until afterwards that the masters of these castles became the terror of the countryside they had once helped to save.
A Feudal Castle
Feudalism, so oppressive in its age of decline, had therefore its time of lawful and just existence. All power is raised up by its virtues and falls by its abuse.
But what was the new régime? We have seen the matter of acquiring and holding property become more uniform among barbarian nations, by the settlement of heredity upon lands ceded by the king, and the law’s sanction given to another kind of usurpation—the heredity of the royal offices. It was generally the owners of freehold property or of royal lands who became the holders of these offices, which brought about the union of sovereignty and proprietorship in the same hands. This is essentially what constitutes feudalism.
In the absolute monarchy of the Roman Empire public offices in all degrees of the hierarchy were bestowed directly by the ruler, and their disposition remained always in his power, so that he could take them back when and under what condition he pleased. Furthermore the public official held neither the land of the province he governed nor the control of any particular piece of property that he might happen to own as a private citizen. He was bound therefore, as landlord, by the civil law applicable to the whole empire, and as governor, to the voluntary will of his sovereign. In the feudal régime it was exactly the opposite. The lord who enfeoffed, that is, conceded by title of sub-fief some portion of his own fief, gave up entirely to the grantee or vassal the property and its control, and it could not be taken back unless the vassal failed to perform some part of the agreement made at the time of receiving the investiture.
One lord might obtain land from another and thus become his vassal. The former had to go to the latter, and between the two there took place the ceremony known as homage. Kneeling before his future lord, with their hands together, the future vassal proclaimed loudly that he would be the other’s homme, or man, that is to say, that he would be attached and devoted to him, defend him with his own life, somewhat as the ancient leudes of Germany did towards their warrior chiefs. After this profession, which is homage in the original sense of the word, he took an oath of fidelity or faith to the lord, promising to fulfil the new duties required of him under the new title of homme of the lord. When he had contracted this double tie, the lord no longer feared to confide his land to a man so strongly bound to him, and gave it to him by investiture or seizin, accompanied with symbolic emblems—a sod of grass, a stone, or some other object according to the custom of the fief. “It is the custom,” says Otto von Freising,[e] “to deliver up kingdoms by the sword, and provinces by the standard.” This three-part ceremony of homage once completed, the reciprocal obligations began.
RECIPROCAL OBLIGATIONS OF VASSAL AND LORD
There were in the first place the moral obligations of the vassal towards his lord, such as keeping his secrets, revealing the machinations of his enemies, to give one’s horse to him in battle if he be unseated, to take his place in captivity, to respect and to cause his honour to be respected, to assist him with good counsel, etc. The material obligations, the services due from the vassal, were of several kinds.