Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, "Fenton, Edward" to "Finistere" / Volume 10, Slice 3

by Various

When this stage was reached the formative age of feudalism may be considered at an end. When the government of the state had entered into feudalism, and the king was as much senior as king; when the vassal relationship was recognized as a proper and legal foundation of public duties; when the two separate sides of early feudalism were united as the almost universal rule, so that a man received a fief because he owed a vassal’s duties, or looked at in the other and finally prevailing way, that he owed a vassal’s duties because he had received a fief; and finally, when the old idea of the temporary character of the precarium tenure was lost sight of, and the right of the vassal’s heir to receive his father’s holding was recognized as the general rule—then the feudal system may be called full grown. Not that the age of growth was really over. Feudal history was always a becoming, always a gradual passing from one stage to another, so long as feudalism continued to form the main organization of society. But we may say that the formative age was over when these features of the system had combined to be its characteristic marks. What follows is rather a perfection of details in the direction of logical completeness. To assign any specific date to the end of this formative age is of course impossible, but meaning by the end what has just been stated, we shall not be far wrong if we place it somewhere near the beginning of the 10th century.

Before we leave the history of feudal origins another word is necessary. We have traced a definite line of descent for feudal institutions from Roman days through the Merovingian and Carolingian ages to the 10th century. That line of descent can be made out with convincing clearness and with no particular difficulty from epoch to epoch, from the precarium and the patrocinium, through the benefice and commendation, to the fief and vassalage. But the definiteness of this line should not cause us to overlook the fact that there was during these centuries much confusion of custom and practice. All round and about this line of descent there was a crowd of varying forms branching off more or less widely from the main stem, different kinds of commendation, different forms of precarium, some of which varied greatly from that through which the fief descends, and some of which survived in much the old character and under the old name for a long time after later feudalism was definitely established.[7] The variety and seeming confusion which reign in feudal society, under uniform controlling principles, rule also in the ages of beginning. It is easy to lose one’s bearings by over-emphasizing the importance of variation and exception. It is indeed true that what was the exception, the temporary offshoot, might have become the main line. It would then have produced a system which would have been feudal, in the wide sense of the term, but it would have been marked by different characteristics, it would have operated in a somewhat different way. The crowd of varying forms should not prevent us from seeing that we can trace through their confusion the line along which the characteristic traits and institutions of European feudalism, as it actually was, were growing constantly more distinct.[8] That is the line of the origin of the feudal system. (See also [France]: Law and Institutions.)

The growth which we have traced took place within the Frankish empire. When we turn to Anglo-Saxon England we find a different situation and a different result. There precarium and patrocinium were lacking. Certain Results in England. forms of personal commendation did develop, certain forms of dependent land tenure came into use. These do not show, however, the characteristic marks of the actual line of feudal descent. They belong rather in the varying forms around that line. Scholars are not yet agreed as to what would have been their result if their natural development had not been cut off by the violent introduction of Frankish feudalism with the Norman conquest, whether the historical feudal system, or a feudal system in the general sense. To the writer it seems clear that the latter is the most that can be asserted. They were forms which may rightly be called feudal, but only in the wider meaning in which we speak of the feudalism of Japan, or of Central Africa, not in the sense of 12th-century European feudalism; Saxon commendation may rightly be called vassalage, but only as looking back to the early Frankish use of the term for many varying forms of practice, not as looking forward to the later and more definite usage of completed feudalism; and such use of the terms feudal and vassalage is sure to be misleading. It is better to say that European feudalism is not to be found in England before the Conquest, not even in its beginnings. If these had really been in existence it would require no argument to show the fact. There is no trace of the distinctive marks of Frankish feudalism in Saxon England, not where military service may be thought to rest upon the land, nor even in the rare cases where the tenant seems to some to be made responsible for it, for between these cases as they are described in the original accounts, legally interpreted, and the feudal conception of the vassal’s military service, there is a great gulf.

In turning from the origin of feudalism to a description of the completed system one is inevitably reminded of the words with which de Quincey opens the second part of his essay on style. He says: “It is a natural resource that The completed system. whatsoever we find it difficult to investigate as a result, we endeavour to follow as a growth. Failing analytically to probe its nature, historically we seek relief to our perplexities by tracing its origin.... Thus for instance when any feudal institution (be it Gothic, Norman, or Anglo-Saxon) eludes our deciphering faculty from the imperfect records of its use and operation, then we endeavour conjecturally to amend our knowledge by watching the circumstances in which that institution arose.” The temptation to use the larger part of any space allotted to the history of feudalism for a discussion of origins does not arise alone from greater interest in that phase of the subject. It is almost impossible even with the most discriminating care to give a brief account of completed feudalism and convey no wrong impression. We use the term “feudal system” for convenience sake, but with a degree of impropriety if it conveys the meaning “systematic.” Feudalism in its most flourishing age was anything but systematic. It was confusion roughly organized. Great diversity prevailed everywhere, and we should not be surprised to find some different fact or custom in every lordship. Anglo-Norman feudalism attained a logical completeness and a uniformity of practice which, in the feudal age proper, can hardly be found elsewhere through so large a territory; but in Anglo-Norman feudalism the exception holds perhaps as large a place as the regular, and the uniformity itself was due to the most serious of exceptions from the feudal point of view—centralization under a powerful monarchy.

But too great emphasis upon variation conveys also a wrong impression. Underlying all the apparent confusion of fact and practice were certain fundamental principles and relationships, which were alike everywhere, and which really gave shape to everything that was feudal, no matter what its form might be. The chief of these are the following: the relation of vassal and lord; the principle that every holder of land is a tenant and not an owner, until the highest rank is reached, sometimes even the conception rules in that rank; that the tenure by which a thing of value is held is one of honourable service, not intended to be economic, but moral and political in character; the principle of mutual obligations of loyalty, protection and service binding together all the ranks of this society from the highest to the lowest; and the principle of contract between lord and tenant, as determining all rights, controlling their modification, and forming the foundation of all law. There was actually in fact and practice a larger uniformity than this short list implies, because these principles tended to express themselves in similar forms, and because historical derivation from a common source in Frankish feudalism tended to preserve some degree of uniformity in the more important usages.

The foundation of the feudal relationship proper was the fief, which was usually land, but might be any desirable thing, as an office, a revenue in money or kind, the right to collect a toll, or operate a mill. In return for the fief, the man became the vassal of his lord; he knelt before him, and, with his hands between his lord’s hands, promised him fealty and service; he rose to his feet and took the oath of fealty which bound him to the obligations he had assumed in homage; he received from his lord ceremonial investiture with the fief. The faithful performance of all the duties he had assumed in homage constituted the vassal’s right and title to his fief. So long as they were fulfilled, he, and his heir after him, held the fief as his property, practically and in relation to all under tenants as if he were the owner. In the ceremony of homage and investiture, which is the creative contract of feudalism, the obligations assumed by the two parties were, as a rule, not specified in exact terms. They were determined by local custom. What they were, however, was as well known, as capable of proof, and as adequate a check on innovation by either party, as if committed to writing. In many points of detail the vassal’s services differed widely in different parts of the feudal world. We may say, however, that they fall into two classes, general and specific. The general included all that might come under the idea of loyalty, seeking the lord’s interests, keeping his secrets, betraying the plans of his enemies, protecting his family, &c. The specific services are capable of more definite statement, and they usually received exact definition in custom and sometimes in written documents. The most characteristic of these was the military service, which included appearance in the field on summons with a certain force, often armed in a specified way, and remaining a specified length of time. It often included also the duty of guarding the lord’s castle, and of holding one’s own castle subject to the plans of the lord for the defence of his fief. Hardly less characteristic was court service, which included the duty of helping to form the court on summons, of taking one’s own cases to that court instead of to some other, and of submitting to its judgments. The duty of giving the lord advice was often demanded and fulfilled in sessions of the court, and in these feudal courts the obligations of lord and vassal were enforced, with an ultimate appeal to war. Under this head may be enumerated also the financial duties of the vassal, though these were not regarded by the feudal law as of the nature of the tenure, i.e. failure to pay them did not lead to confiscation, but they were collected by suit and distraint like any debt. They did not have their origin in economic considerations, but were either intended to mark the vassal’s tenant relation, like the relief, or to be a part of his service, like the aid, that is, he was held to come to the aid of his lord in a case of financial as of military necessity. The relief was a sum paid by the heir for the lord’s recognition of his succession. The aids were paid on a few occasions, determined by custom, where the lord was put to unusual expense, as for his ransom when captured by the enemy, or for the knighting of his eldest son. There was great variety regarding the occasion and amount of these payments, and in some parts of the feudal world they did not exist at all. The most lucrative of the lord’s rights were wardship and marriage, but the feudal theory of these also was non-economic. The fief fell into the hands of the lord, and he enjoyed its revenues during the minority of the heir, because the minor could not perform the duties by which it was held. The heiress must marry as the lord wished, because he had a right to know that the holder of the fief could meet the obligations resting upon it. Both wardship and marriage were, however, valuable rights which the lord could exercise himself or sell to others. These were by no means the only rights and duties which could be described as existing in feudalism, but they are the most characteristic, and on them, or some of them, as a foundation, the whole structure of feudal obligation was built, however detailed.

Ideally regarded, feudalism covered Europe with a network of these fiefs, rising in graded ranks one above the other from the smallest, the knight’s fee, at the bottom, to the king at the top, who was the supreme landowner, or who held the kingdom from God. Actually not even in the most regular of feudal countries, like England or Germany, was there any fixed gradation of rank, titles or size. A knight might hold directly of the king, a count of a viscount, a bishop of an abbot, or the king himself of one of his own vassals, or even of a vassal’s vassal, and in return his vassal’s vassal might hold another fief directly of him. The case of the count of Champagne, one of the peers of France, is a famous example. His great territory was held only in small part of the king of France. He held a portion of a foreign sovereign, the emperor, and other portions of the duke of Burgundy, of two archbishops, of four bishops, and of the abbot of St Denis. Frequently did great lay lords, as in this case, hold lands by feudal tenure of ecclesiastics.

It is now possible perhaps to get some idea of the way in which the government of a feudal country was operated. The early German governments whose chief functions, military, judicial, financial, legislative, were carried on by the freemen of the nation because they were members of the body politic, and were performed as duties owed to the community for its defence and sustenance, no longer existed. New forms of organization had arisen in which indeed these conceptions had not entirely disappeared, but in which the vast majority of cases a wholly different idea of the ground of service and obligation prevailed. Superficially, for example, the feudal court differed but little from its Teutonic predecessor. It was still an assembly court. Its procedure was almost the same as the earlier. It often included the same classes of men. Saxon Witenagemot and Norman Curia regis seem very much alike. But the members of the feudal court met, not to fulfil a duty owed to the community, but a private obligation which they had assumed in return for the fiefs they held, and in the history of institutions it is differences of this sort which are the determining principles. The feudal state was one in which, as it has been said, private law had usurped the place of public law. Public duty had become private obligation. To understand the feudal state it is essential to make clear to one’s mind that all sorts of services, which men ordinarily owe to the public or to one another, were translated into a form of rent paid for the use of land, and defined and enforced by a private contract. In every feudal country, however, something of the earlier conception survived. A general military levy was occasionally made. Something like taxation occasionally occurred, though the government was usually sustained by the scanty feudal payments, by the proceeds of justice and by the income of domain manors. About the office of king more of this earlier conception gathered than elsewhere in the state, and gradually grew, aided not merely by traditional ideas, but by the active influence of the Bible, and soon of the Roman law. The kingship formed the nucleus of new governments as the feudal system passed away.

Actual government in the feudal age was primitive and undifferentiated. Its chief and almost only organ, for kingdom and barony alike, was the curia—a court formed of the vassals. This acted at once and without any consciousness of difference of function, as judiciary, as legislature, in so far as there was any in the feudal period, and as council, and it exercised final supervision and control over revenue and administration. Almost all the institutions of modern states go back to the curia regis, branching off from it at different dates as the growing complexity of business forced differentiation of function and personnel. In action it was an assembly court, deciding all questions by discussion and the weight of opinion, though its decisions obtained their legal validity by the formal pronunciation of the presiding member, i.e. of the lord whose court it was. It can readily be seen that in a government of this kind the essential operative element was the baron. So long as the government remained dependent on the baron, it remained feudal in its character. When conditions so changed that government could free itself from its dependence on the baron, feudalism disappeared as the organization of society; when a professional class arose to form the judiciary, when the increased circulation of money made regular taxation possible and enabled the government to buy military and other services, and when better means of intercommunication and the growth of common ideas made a wide centralization possible and likely to be permanent. Feudalism had performed a great service, during an age of disintegration, by maintaining a general framework of government, while allowing the locality to protect and care for itself. When the function of protection and local supervision could be resumed by the general government the feudal age ended. In nearly all the states of Europe this end was reached during, or by the close of, the 13th century.

At the moment, however, when feudalism was disappearing as the organization of society, it gave rise to results which in a sense continued it into after ages and even to our own day. One of these results was the system of law which it created. Decline and survivals. As feudalism passed from its age of supremacy into its age of decline, its customs tended to crystallize into fixed forms. At the same time a class of men arose interested in these forms for their own sake, professional lawyers or judges, who wrote down for their own and others’ use the feudal usages with which they were familiar. The great age of these codes was the 13th century, and especially the second half of it. The codes in their turn tended still further to harden these usages into fixed forms, and we may date from the end of the 13th century an age of feudal law regulating especially the holding and transfer of land, and much more uniform in character than the law of the feudal age proper. This was particularly the case in parts of France and Germany where feudalism continued to regulate the property relations of lords and vassals longer than elsewhere, and where the underlying economic feudalism remained in large part unchanged. In this later pseudo-feudalism, however, the political had given way to the economic, and customs which had once had no economic significance came to have that only.