The Historians' History of the World 08 [Parthians, Sassanids and Arabs; The Crusades and the Papacy]

KNIGHTS AND PEASANTS

The lord summonsed his men to court, and they had to attend, either to serve him with their advice or to take part in the judging of disputes brought before him, and they thus bound themselves to assistance in carrying out the judgments their own mouths had proclaimed.

(3) The “aids,” some legal and compulsory, others courteous and voluntary. Legal aids were usually demanded under three conditions—when the lord was a prisoner and required to pay a ransom, when he knighted his eldest son, and when he gave his eldest daughter in marriage. This aid took the place of the public imposts of ancient and modern legislatures, but as may be seen was of a totally different character. It was not, in fact, periodic or exacted in a regular manner for public needs; it had the appearance of a voluntary gift under certain peculiar circumstances. An annual tax would have seemed an affront to the vassals.

To these services must be added certain feudal rights by which the lord, in virtue of his sovereignty, intervened in any important change the ceded fief might undergo. Some of these were for him a new source of revenue. These rights were the relief, a sum of money due from every major individual who entered into possession of a fief by right of succession, and more particularly if that succession did not take place in line of direct descent; the right to the alienation tax, which he who sold or alienated his fief in any fashion must pay; the right of disinheritance and confiscation by which the fief reverted to the lord when the vassal died without heirs or when he had forfeited his fief or deserved for any reason to be deprived of it; the right of guardianship, by virtue of which the lord, during the minority of his vassal, undertook his tutelage and the administration of his fief, and enjoyed its revenue; the marriage right, that is to say, the right of the overlord to provide a husband for the heiress of a fief, and oblige her to choose from the suitors he presents.

The vassal who fulfilled his obligations fully and conscientiously was as nearly as possible master of his own fief. He could in turn enfeoff the whole or part of his domain, and become in turn the sovereign lord of vassals of a lower rank, or vavasseurs, holding towards him the same obligations as he to his own lord. Such was the fabric of the hierarchy.

If the vassal had his obligations, the lord also had his. He could not take back a fief arbitrarily or without a legitimate reason from his vassal. He must protect him if he were attacked, see that he received justice, etc.

Let us note that the feudal system in developing itself made a fief of everything. Every concession—for hunting in the forests, for ferrying across rivers, for acting as guides on the roads, for escorting merchants, for running communal ovens in the towns—every useful employment, in fact, conceded in return for fidelity and homage, became a fief.

Lords multiplied concessions of this kind in order to multiply the number of men owing them military service. But the fief itself, to which the rights of justice were attached, remained in general undivided and was handed down according to the laws of primogeniture.