FEUCHÈRES, SOPHIE, Baronne de (1795-1840), Anglo-French adventuress, was born at St Helens, Isle of Wight, in 1795, the daughter of a drunken fisherman named Dawes. She grew up in the workhouse, went up to London as a servant, and became the mistress of the duc de Bourbon, afterwards prince de Condé. She was ambitious, and he had her well educated not only in modern languages but, as her exercise books—still extant—show, in Greek and Latin. He took her to Paris and, to prevent scandal and to qualify her to be received at court, had her married in 1818 to Adrien Victor de Feuchères, a major in the Royal Guards. The prince provided her dowry, made her husband his aide-de-camp and a baron. The baroness, pretty and clever, became a person of consequence at the court of Louis XVIII. De Feuchères, however, finally discovered the relations between his wife and Condé, whom he had been assured was her father, left her—he obtained a legal separation in 1827—and told the king, who thereupon forbade her appearance at court. Thanks to her influence, however, Condé was induced in 1829 to sign a will bequeathing about ten million francs to her, and the rest of his estate—more than sixty-six millions—to the duc d’Aumale, fourth son of Louis Philippe. Again she was in high favour. Charles X. received her at court, Talleyrand visited her, her niece married a marquis and her nephew was made a baron. Condé, wearied by his mistress’s importunities, and but half pleased by the advances made him by the government of July, had made up his mind to leave France secretly. When on the 27th of August 1830 he was found hanging dead from his window, the baroness was suspected and an inquiry was held, but the evidence of death being the result of any crime appearing insufficient, she was not prosecuted. Hated as she was alike by legitimatists and republicans, life in Paris was no longer agreeable for her, and she returned to London, where she died in December 1840.
FEUCHTERSLEBEN, ERNST, Freiherr von (1806-1849), Austrian physician, poet and philosopher, was born in Vienna on the 29th of April 1806; of an old Saxon noble family. He attended the “Theresian Academy” in his native city, and in 1825 entered its university as a student of medicine. In 1833 he obtained the degree of doctor of medicine, settled in Vienna as a practising surgeon, and in 1834 married. The young doctor kept up his connexion with the university, where he lectured, and in 1844 was appointed dean of the faculty of medicine. He cultivated the acquaintance of Franz Grillparzer, Heinrich Laube, and other intellectual lights of the Viennese world, interested himself greatly in educational matters, and in 1848, while refusing the presidency of the ministry of education, accepted the appointment of under secretary of state in that department. His health, however, gave way, and he died at Vienna on the 3rd of September 1849. He was not only a clever physician, but a poet of fine aesthetical taste and a philosopher. Among his medical works may be mentioned: Über das Hippokratische erste Buch von der Diät (Vienna, 1835), Ärzte und Publicum (Vienna, 1848) and Lehrbuch der ärztlichen Seelenkunde (1845). His poetical works include Gedichte (Stutt. 1836), among which is the well-known beautiful hymn, which Mendelssohn set to music. “Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rat.” As a philosopher he is best known by his Zur Diätetik der Seele [Dietetics of the soul] (Vienna, 1838), which attained great popularity, and the tendency of which, in contrast to Hufeland’s Makrobiotik (On the Art of Prolonging Life), is to show the true way of rendering life harmonious and lovely. This work had by 1906 gone into fifty editions. Noteworthy also is his Beiträge zur Litteratur-, Kunst- und Lebenstheorie (Vienna, 1837-1841), and an anthology, Geist der deutschen Klassiker (Vienna, 1851; 3rd ed. 1865-1866).
His collected works (with the exception of the purely medical ones) were published in 7 vols. by Fr. Hebbel (Vienna, 1851-1853). See M. Necker, “Ernst von Feuchtersleben, der Freund Grillparzers,” in the Jahrbuch der Grillparzer Gesellschaft, vol. iii. (Vienna, 1893).
FEUD, animosity, hatred, especially a permanent condition of hostilities between persons, and hence applied to a state of private warfare between tribes, clans or families, a “vendetta.” The word appears in Mid. Eng. as fede, which came through the O. Fr. from the O. High Ger. fehida, modern Fehde. The O. Teutonic faiho, an adjective, the source of fehida, gives the O. Eng. fáh, foe. “Fiend,” originally an enemy (cf. Ger. Feind), hence the enemy of mankind, the devil, and so any evil spirit, is probably connected with the same source. The word fede was of Scottish usage, but in the 16th century took the form foode, fewd in English. The New English Dictionary points out that “feud, fee (Lat. feudum) could not have influenced the change, for it appears fifty years later than the first instances of foode, &c., and was only used by writers on feudalism.” For the etymology of “feud” (feudum) see [Fee], and for its history see [Feudalism].
FEUDALISM (from Late Lat. feodum or feudum, a fee or fiel; see [Fee]). In every case of institutional growth in history two things are to be clearly distinguished from the beginning for a correct understanding of the process and its results. One of these is the change of conditions in the political or social environment which made growth necessary. The other is the already existing institutions which began to be transformed to meet the new needs. In studying the origin and growth of political feudalism, the distinction is easy to make. The all-prevailing need of the later Roman and early medieval society was protection—protection against the sudden attacks of invading tribes or revolted peasants, against oppressive neighbours, against the unwarranted demands of government officers, or even against the legal but too heavy exactions of the government itself. In the days of the decaying empire and of the chaotic German settlement, the weak freeman, the small landowner, was exposed to attack in almost every relation of life and on every side. The protection which normally it is the business of government to furnish he could no longer obtain. He must seek protection elsewhere wherever he could get it, and pay the price demanded for it. This is the great social fact—the failure of government to perform one of its most primary duties, the necessity of finding some substitute in private life—extending in greater or less degree through the whole formative period of feudalism, which explains the transformation of institutions that brought it into existence. Similar conditions have produced an organization which may be called feudal, in various countries, and in widely separated periods of history. While these different feudal systems have shown a general similarity of organization, there has been also great variation in their details, because they have started from different institutions and developed in different ways. The feudal system with which history most concerns itself is that of medieval western Europe, and it is that which will be here described.
The institutions which the need of protection seized upon when it first began to turn away from the state were twofold. They had both long existed in the private, not public, relations of the Romans, and they had up to this time Roman origins. shown no tendency to grow. One of them related to the person, to the man himself, without reference to property, the other related to land. There are thus distinguished at the beginning those two great sides of feudalism which remained to the end of its history more or less distinct, the personal relation and the land relation. The personal institution needs little description. It was the Roman patron and client relationship which had remained in existence into the days of the empire, in later times less important perhaps legally than socially, and which had been reinforced in Gaul by very similar practices in use among the Celts before their conquest. The description of this institution which has come down to us from Roman sources of the days when feudalism was beginning is not so detailed as we could wish, but we can see plainly enough that it met a frequent need, that it was called by a new name, the patrocinium, and that it was firmly enough entrenched in usage to survive the German conquest, and to be taken up and continued by the conquerors. In its new use, alike in the later Roman and the early German state, the landless freeman who could not support himself went to some powerful man, stated his need, and offered his services, those proper to a freeman, in return for shelter and support. This transaction, which was called commendation, gave rise in the German state to a written contract which related the facts and provided a penalty for its violation. It created a relationship of protection and support on one side, and of free service on the other.