The publication of his works was completed in 14 volumes in 1816. Another edition in 26 volumes was published at Florence in 1826-1827. A biographical memoir of Federici by Neymar appeared at Venice in 1838.
FEE, an estate in land held of a superior lord on condition of the performance of homage or service (see [Feudalism]). In English law “fee” signifies an estate of inheritance (i.e. an estate descendable to the heirs of the grantee so long as there are any in existence) as opposed to an estate for life. It is divisible into three species: (1) fee simple; (2) conditional fee; (3) fee tail. (See [Estate].) A fee farm rent is the rent reserved on granting a fee farm, i.e. land in fee simple, to be held by the tenant and his heirs at a yearly rent. It is generally at least one-fourth of the value of the land at the time of its reservation. (See [Rent].)
The word “fee” has also the sense of remuneration for services, especially the honorarium paid to a doctor, lawyer or member of any other profession. It is also used of a fixed sum paid for the right to enter for an examination, or on admission to membership of a university or other society. This sense of the word is taken by the New English Dictionary to be due to a use of “fee” in its feudal sense, and to represent a sum paid to the holder of an office “in fee.”
The etymology of the Med. Lat. feudum, feodum or feum, of its French equivalent fief, and English “fee,” in Scots law “feu” (q.v.), is extremely obscure. (See the New English Dictionary, s.v. “Fee.”) There is a common Teutonic word represented in Old English as feoh or féo, in Old High German as fehu, meaning property in the shape of cattle (cf. modern Ger. Vieh, Dutch vee). The old Aryan péku gives Sanskrit paçu, Lat. pecus, cattle, whence pecunia, money. The O. Eng. feoh, in the sense of money, possibly survives in “fee,” honorarium, though this is not the view of the New English Dictionary. The common explanation of the Med. Lat. feudum or feodum, of which Ducange (Glossarium, s.v.) gives an example from a constitution of the emperor Charles the Fat of the year 884, is that it is formed from the Teutonic fehu, property, and ôd, wealth (cf. [Allodium] and [Udal]). This would apparently restrict the original meaning to movable property, while the early applications of feudum are to the enjoyment of something granted in return for service (beneficium). Another theory takes the origin to be fehu alone, in a particular sense of wages, payment for services. This leaves the d- of feudum unexplained. Some have taken the origin to be a verbal form feudare = feum dare. Another theory finds the source in the O. High Ger. fehôn, to eat, feed upon, “take for one’s enjoyment.”
FEHLING, HERMANN VON (1812-1885), German chemist, was born at Lübeck on the 9th of June 1812. With the intention of taking up pharmacy he entered Heidelberg University about 1835, and after graduating went to Giessen as préparateur to Liebig, with whom he elucidated the composition of paraldehyde and metaldehyde. In 1839 on Liebig’s recommendation he was appointed to the chair of chemistry in the polytechnic at Stuttgart, and held it till within three years of his death, which happened at Stuttgart on the 1st of July 1885. His earlier work included an investigation of succinic acid, and the preparation of phenyl cyanide (benzonitrile), the simplest nitrile of the aromatic series; but later his time was mainly occupied with questions of technology and public health rather than with pure chemistry. Among the analytical methods worked up by him the best known is that for the estimation of sugars by “Fehling’s solution,” which consists of a solution of cupric sulphate mixed with alkali and potassium-sodium tartrate (Rochelle salt). He was a contributor to the Handwörterbuch of Liebig, Wöhler and Poggendorff, and to the Graham-Otto Textbook of Chemistry, and for many years was a member of the committee of revision of the Pharmacopoeia Germanica.
FEHMARN, an island of Germany, belonging to the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein, in the Baltic, separated from the north-east corner of Holstein by a strait known as the Fehmarn-Sund, less than a quarter of a mile in breadth. It is a gently undulating tract of country, about 120 sq. m. in area, bare of forest but containing excellent pasture-land, and rears cattle in considerable numbers. Pop. 10,000.