THE
INFLUENCE
OF FEUDALISM.
Thomas Carlyle
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? 12
INTRODUCTION.
the principles of the Teutonic societies, the law was the law of
the community, not of the king. / It is true indeed that in the
earlier Middle Ages there was normally no such thing as legis-
lation in the modern sense, the law, strictly speaking, was noth-
ing but the traditional custom of the community, and legislative
acts were, properly speaking, nothing but authoritative declara-
tions of custom. As the changing conditions of mediseval life
finally made deliberate modification of these customs inevitable,
such action was taken, though reluctantly, but could only be
taken with the assent, expressed or tacit, of the community.
S Here are indeed political principles or ideas of the highest
moment, derived not from the traditions of the ancient world
and empire, but rooted in the constitutional practice of the
new societies. We have endeavoured to set out the evidence
for the predominance of these conceptions in the first volume,1
but their significance cannot be fully appreciated without a
study of the more important works on the constitutional
history of the various European countries in the early Middle
Ages.
It is in relation to these principles that we have to study the
appearance of the doctrine of the social contract; that is, the
conception of an agreement or bargain between the people and
the ruler. In the popular mind this conception is supposed to
belong to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the
real truth is that it is a mediseval conception, and that it arose
primarily out of conceptions and circumstances which were
characteristic of mediseval society. This principle or theory
has some place in ancient literature, especially in Plato's 'Laws,'2
and a phrase of St Augustine's has been sometimes quoted
as related to it, though probably without any sufficient justifi-
cation,3 but there is no evidence that there is any continuity
between the Platonic theory and that of the Middle Ages. We
have in the first volume pointed out the circumstances out of
which we think it arose,4 and, as we shall have to deal with it
in detail in this volume, we need only here say that it seems
to us clear that its origin is to be traced to the promises of
1 Cf. vol. i. chaps. 19 and 20. 3 St Augustine, 'Confessions,' III. 8. 2.
2 Cf. vol. i. p. 17. 4 Cf. vol. i. pp. 240-252.
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? INTRODUCTION.
obedience to the law, and of good government taken by the
king on his accession] It was in the eleventh century that the
Conception found a formal expression, but the principles which
lay behind the formal expression were already in existence,
and were firmly rooted in the constitutional order of the early
Middle Ages.
In approaching the subject of the nature of the political
theory of the great central period of mediseval civilisation,
from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, we must then first
be careful to observe the nature of the general principles which
the men of that time had inherited. These principles were
complex, and no complete or systematic treatment of them was
made until the thirteenth century. It may indeed be doubted
whether the various elements were capable of being brought
into an organic relation with each other, but we must not
here anticipate the discussion which belongs to later volumes.
Whether in the end these various conceptions were capable of
being fused into an organic whole or not, we must recognise
that they all have a real and significant place in mediseval
theory. The great formal conception of the distinction between
nature and convention, which came from the post-Aristotelian
philosophy in which the Christian Fathers were trained; the
principle of the equality and freedom of men which arose out
of this and the Christian tradition; the immensely significant
conception of the necessary freedom of the spiritual life and
the spiritual authority which specially represents this; the con-
viction of the sanctity of the political order; the principle of
the supreme authority of the law or custom of the community,
and of the King as responsible to govern according to the law,
--these conceptions or principles dominated the sentiment and
the theory of all mediseval society.
Our present task is to consider the development of these
conceptions under the actual circumstances of European society
from the1 tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and to inquire how
far they may have been modified or superseded by other
principles. For the new times brought new conditions, new
and important forms of political and social relations. We shall
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? 14
INTRODUCTION.
have especially to consider how far the development of feudal
ideas, and the organisation of European society on the basis of
feudal tenure, may have modified or overlaid earlier principles;
how far again in the great conflicts between the spiritual and
the temporal powers the conception of the sanctity and auto-
nomy of either may have been questioned or denied. The de-
velopment of mediseval society was very rapid, and the intellectual
development was even more rapid than that of the organisation
of society. The greatest difficulty indeed with which the
historian has to contend, in trying to interpret the Middle
Ages to the modern world, is the impression that the civilisa-
tion of these times was stationary and rigid, that the mediaeval
world was unlike the modern, specially in this, that it was
unchanging, while we perpetually change. This tradition is
primarily derived from the ignorance and prejudice of the
men of the new learning and the Eenaissance, and lingers
on, not in serious history, but in the literary tradition, and in
the prejudices which arose naturally enough out of the great
struggles of the Eeformation and the Revolution. If we are to
study the Middle Ages intelligently, if we are to appreciate
their real relation to the modern world, we must dismiss from
our minds these notions of a fixed and stereotyped society, we
must rather recognise that there have been few periods in the
history of the world when the movement of thought and of
life was more rapid than in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
^When we attempt to trace the history of political ideas
in the Middle Ages, we are at once confronted with the fact
that, after the active political reflection which is represented in
the literature of the ninth century, there follows a consider-
able period from which very little indeed of political theory
has survived in literature. From the end of the ninth century
till the middle of the eleventh the references to the principles
or ideas of politics are very scanty indeed. We have indeed to
remember that it is probable that a great deal of literature,
especially in the vernacular languages, has disappeared, but it
is at least a probable conclusion from what has survived that
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? INTRODUCTION.
15
there was not much reflection upon social and political ques-
tions, and that it was not till the middle of the eleventh
century that the great political agitations in Germany, and the
development of the great conflict between the Papacy and
the Empire, compelled men to question themselves as to the
principles which underlay the order of society.
This does not mean that during this time no important
changes were taking place in the structure of European society;
on the contrary, in some respects the period was one of great
and significant development. It was during these years that
feudalism was taking shape and form, establishing itself as a
system of social and economic and military organisation, and
in some degree affecting the structure of government. How
far the growth of feudalism affected the principle or theory of
political organisation is the first important question which we
have to consider.
It was during these years that European civilisation was
being rescued from a second great wave of barbarism, which
threatened for a time to overwhelm it. For upon the confused
faction fights which distracted Western Europe while the great
empire of Charlemagne was breaking up, there fell the torrent
of the second barbaric invasion. The Norsemen on the North
and West, the Magyars on the East harried and plundered, and
for a time it seemed as though the work of the preceding
centuries would be completely undone; and indeed Europe
very nearly relapsed into anarchy, and Church and State were
almost overwhelmed in a common destruction. But the victory
of Alfred over the Danes, of Otto the Great at the Lechfeld over
the Magyars, and the limits within which the Norse invasion
of France were finally contained, mark the fact that the new
civilisation was stronger than the forces which attacked it, that
the new barbarians had to reckon with a civilisation which
was not worn out like that of the Western Empire which the
forefathers of the Franks and the Englishmen had overthrown
five centuries earlier, but with one which was living and powerful
and capable of a rapid recovery and growth. The new invasions
did indeed leave profound traces behind them, but the greatest
and most powerful of the invaders, the Normans who settled in
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? 16
INTRODUCTION.
North-Western Trance, proved rapidly that they were capable
not merely of conquest, but that they could contribute greatly
to the progress of the very civilisation which for the moment
they had shaken.
The development of feudalism was in great measure the
resuIt"6F~the downfaTI_of? jih^QaxoJin^ian civilisation, but
the effects of this can also be traced in the relations of the
Papacy and the Empire. The breaking up of the Empire of
Charlemagne might indeed seem to have set the Papacy at
liberty, but actually it left it under the tyranny of the bar-
barous factions of the Eoman nobles, and its degradation was
even deeper than that of the State. It was rescued from this
in the tenth century by the Ottos, and in the eleventh by
Henry III. , but the conditions of its deliverance held in
themselves the seeds of disaster. The emperor exercised, and
for the time with excellent results, a very large measure of
control over the Church, and especially over the appointment
of its chief ministers, but it was impossible that the Church
should in the long run acquiesce in this. The principle of its
necessary independence was too firmly rooted in its history,
and it was the attempt to recover and vindicate this which
led to the great conflict of the Papacy and the Empire, of
the spiritual and temporal powers in the various European
countries. This conflict in its turn contributed a great deal
to compel men to consider and make explicit the fundamental
principles of the structure and organisation of society, and
thus to produce those energetic and audacious developments
in political theory which we have to consider.
We have, then, to deal with three great subjects--first, the
nature of the principles implicit in feudalism, and the effect
of these principles upon political ideas; second, the character-
istic political conceptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
as related to the development of the general political and social
structure of Western civilisation; and thirdly, the forms and
theories of the relations of the temporal and spiritual authorities.
It is indeed true that we cannot isolate these various aspects of
mediseval life and thought from each other, but they do in some
measure really represent the operation of different forces, and
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? INTRODUCTION.
17
we have to consider how far it may be true that they tended
to give rise to different conceptions or principles. We shall
have to make the effort finally to bring our reflections upon
them together, and to form some unified view of their effect
upon the principles of mediseval life, but for the time being
we have found ourselves driven to deal with them separately.
We have found that the adequate treatment of the subjects
has required so much space that we have decided to deal with
feudalism and the general political ideas in this volume, and
with the relations of the temporal and spiritual powers in the
next.
We deal with feudalism first, not because it was in our judg-
ment the most important element in the structure of mediseval
society, but because it has often been thought to have been so,
and because this at least is true, that whatever its influence
may have been, it represented a new element in civilisation.
In dealing with it we shall be obliged to transcend the limits
of time which we have set to the general scope of this volume.
For the significance of feudalism in relation to political theory
cannot adequately be discussed without taking into account the
great feudal law books of the thirteenth century; and, what is
more important, the system of feudalism represents an organic
development culminating in the latter years of the thirteenth
century, which cannot be understood unless we take account
of the whole process of its development. We are, of course,
aware of the risk that we run of reading back the conceptions
of the thirteenth century into the eleventh and twelfth, and
we shall do our best to guard against this risk.
VOL. III.
B
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? PART I.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM ON POLITICAL THEORY.
CHAPTER I.
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
There is perhaps no subject in mediseval history which is so
difficult as that of feudalism. Its origins are still obscure
and controverted, its development belongs largely to the tenth
century, and there are few periods of mediseval history where
the sources of our information are so scanty and so fragmentary,
and in the literature which has survived there is only a little
that can be said to bear directly upon feudalism. And, finally,
its real nature and essential characteristics have been so confused
by the laxity of literary usage that it is difficult to say what is
meant by the word.
Feudalism is a system of personal relations, of land tenure,
of military organisation, of judicial order, and of political
order. It affected the life of every class in the mediseval
community, from the villein to the king or emperor, and it
even affected profoundly the position of at least the greater
clergy, the bishops and abbots. There are, indeed, few aspects
of mediseval life which were not touched by it, and it is
therefore natural that it should be thought that it must have
profoundly modified both the institutions and the political
ideas of the Middle Ages.
It is not our part here to deal with the first of these
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? 20
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part I.
subjects, the influence of feudalism on the institutions of
the Middle Ages, its direct effects upon the forms of the
great constitutional development which culminated in the
Parliament of Edward I. and the States-General of Philip the
Fair, and the parallel developments in other European coun-
tries. We cannot even attempt to summarise the results of the
work of the constitutional historians, for any summary would
probably mislead rather than illuminate. But it is possible
to say that while feudalism left for centuries deeply marked
traces on the social and political structure of European society,
and while the great systems of national organisation did indeed
take into themselves elements which belonged to feudalism,
they also represented principles which in their essential nature
were independent of and even contradictory to some specific
characteristics of the feudal system. In the end the king
or the parliament, or both, came to be directly related to all
the individuals who compose the State, and in their authority
the local and personal authorities and jurisdictions of feudalism
were finally lost. The royal justice at last absorbs all feudal
justice, in the administrative authority of the crown all the areas
of feudal administration are merged, and the legislative authority
of parliament asserts itself as supreme over all feudal traditions
and customs. The king and the parliament represent the nation,
and the unity of the nation finally transcends all the separatist
tendencies of feudalism.
It may even be said that the best example of this can be
found in that country where at first sight feudalism might seem
to have triumphed, for the unity of the German kingdom was
finally destroyed, and the great fiefs became practically auton-
omous provinces. But it was not feudalism which triumphed,
but territorialism. In the territorial areas there developed the
same centralised authority and administration as in England or
France, and it was no doubt that very fact which accounts for
the failure of the constitutional movement of the close of the
fifteenth century.
We have to deal here not primarily with institutions, but
with the question how far feudalism affected the political ideas]
of the Middle Ages, how far its influence coincided with tha
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? CHAP. I. ]
21
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
traditions which they inherited, and furthered the development |
of social and political ideas which were already present, or how
far it may have tended to neutralise or modify them. We
must be prepared to find that the influence of feudalism was
very complex, and that it may have tended in different /
directions.
We begin by pointing out what may seem a paradox, that
feudalism represents two principles which in their ultimate
development may seem contradictory, but which yet affected
the minds of the men of the Middle Ages at the same time.
The first principle is that of personal loyalty and devotion, the
second is that of the contractual relation.
The first principle is that which is represented especially in
the poetic literature of the Middle Ages, and which has thus
passed naturally enough into the literary as distinguished from
the historical presentation of the Middle Ages in modern
times. We are all familiar with the romantic representation
of mediseval life as dominated by the sentiment of chivalrous
loyalty and devotion. How much of exaggeration there is con-
tained in this we shall presently see, but there are elements of
real truth in it. And, more than this, these sentiments have a
real and permanent importance in political as well as in social
life. Human life in its deepest and largest terms cannot be
lived upon principles of utility and contract. Whether in the
family or in the nation the actual working of human life is
impossible without the sense of loyalty and devotion.
This is the first principle of feudalism, and the second may
well seem contradictory to it. For nothing could seem further
apart than the conception of personal loyalty and the conception
of bargain or contract as the foundation of human relations.
And yet there is no escape from the conclusion that in the last
resort feudal relations were contractual relations, that the
vassal was bound indeed to discharge certain obligations, but
only on the condition that the lord also discharged his obliga-
tions to the vassal. Here again it is evident that we are deal-
ing with a principle which is reasonable and just, for in the
long run human relations are impossible unless there is some
reasonable recognition and fulfilment of mutual obligations.
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? 22
[part 1.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.
The principles may seem contradictory, and indeed they were
hard to reconcile, but it is also true to say that they were not
only held together and constantly reconciled in practice, but
also that the political thinkers of the Middle Ages were aware
of certain great rational principles which lie behind these con-
ceptions, and in which they found a reasonable reconciliation
of them.
For this is the truth about feudalism. At first sight it seems
very strange and unintelligible. We find it difficult to under-
stand how men could think and act thus, but if we are a little
patient we find it becoming intelligible, and finally we see it not
as wholly unnatural and abnormal, but as representing a phase
of social and political development which lies indeed behind us,
but whose conditions we can understand, and we shall see
that in a measure these apparently strange principles have a
continuing significance even among ourselves.
The difficulty of understanding feudalism has been immensely
increased by the habit of conceiving of it as a homogeneous
system, complete and perfect at some definite time and place.
It becomes much more intelligible when we begin to see that
under the one term there are contained ideas which were very
different from each other, and that as it had slowly grown up,
so it was perpetually developing and changing. The feudal idea
as it is presented to us in the epic or romantic poetry is some-
thing quite different from that which is represented by such a
characteristic set of law-books as those which make up the
Assizes of Jerusalem, or by Beaumanoir, and when we look a
little more closely we begin to understand this, and to see that
the conceptions of the epics and romances of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries represent sometimes the tradition of th<<p
past, sometimes an elaborate and artificial convention rathe^t
than the actual reality. I
There has indeed often been a very serious misunderstanding);
even among scholars as to the value of the artistic representa-J
tion of manners and customs. In some poetry, as for instance'
in the earlier mediseval epic, the pictures of external life andj|
manners of men and women, is highly realistic, and supplies uss
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? CHAP. I. ] PERSONAL LOYALTY. 23
with very valuable information as to the conditions of con-
temporary society. In other forms of literature, and especially
in the romance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is
evident that we are dealing with an art which is in great part,
in its relation to the circumstances of life, conventional and
traditional, and which even in its essential sentimental or
emotional interest represents an abstraction of human life,
valuable indeed and profoundly moving and significant, but
still an abstraction rather than a realistic treatment. The
great fighting man of the epic literature, and the frank, high-
hearted, and sometimes implacable woman, upon whom often
the whole movement of the story depends, these are real figures
of men and women, and they live in the real world. But the
romantic hero or heroine, absorbed in their emotions, far re-
moved from the actual circumstances of daily life, are placed
in a world which is mainly unreal and conventional. The
transition from the Beowulf or the Icelandic Sagas to the
Arthurian romance is the transition from idealised and heroic
reality to an elaborate convention.
It is necessary to use the evidence of mediseval poetry with
great caution, and to make careful distinctions between the
value of different forms of it as illustrating the customs and
ideas of any one time.
We cannot here attempt to discuss in detail the origin of
feudalism, the subject has been handled with great learning
by a number of historians,1 but we can say with great con-
fidence, that its origin was extremely complex. Comitatus,
Commendatio, and Beneficium, these are the main elements of
the relation of lord and vassal, and each of these had an im-
portant part in the development of the whole system. From
the Comitatus there came the devotion of the band of followers
to their leader in war, the almost indissoluble tie which united
the "companion" to his chief in faith and loyalty, and this may
have been the first, as it was certainly among the most import-
ant, of the elements out of which the feudal relation grew. It
1 Cf. e. g. , Waitz, Brunner, Fustel de Coulanges, Flach, &e.
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? 24
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part I.
is this aspect of the relation that we find specially illustrated
in the epics and romances, while its influence can also be traced
in certain principles of the feudal law books. The process of
Commendation by which a hitherto independent person became
dependent on some powerful man or ruler in return for the
protection that he could afford to him, was probably the means
by which the feudal relation was most widely extended. The
gradual transformation of a relation, which was originally
almost wholly personal, into a great system of land tenure on
the basis of military or of "base" service, which in its turn
became a system of political relations, this is connected with
the Beneficium. It is out of these complex and incoherent
elements that the feudal system was gradually formed; some-
thing of each goes to make up the whole system as we see
it from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and they are all
represented in the literature and legal systems of these times.
It is not necessary to deal at length with the conception of
personal loyalty and devotion, it will be sufficient to indicate
its nature by means of an example from the literature of the
twelfth century.
One of the most interesting illustrations of the influence of
the conception is to be found in the French Chanson de Geste,
the 'Eaoul de Cambrai,' which belongs probably to the latter
part of the twelfth century. When Eaoul is knighted he takes
as his squire Bernier, the illegitimate son of Ybert of Bibemont.
Eaoul obtains from the King of France a grant of the lands of
Vermandois, which had beloDged to Ybert's family, and invades
the country in spite of the protests of Bernier. He sacks and
burns the town of Origny with its monastery, and Bernier's
mother perishes in the fire. Bernier vows revenge, and joins
his father; and, in the battle which follows, kills Eaoul. But
the significant thing is the reluctance with which he turns
against Eaoul; in the first flush of his passion over his mother's
death he does indeed refuse all Eaoul's attempts to make
amends, but afterwards he endeavours to make peace, and
when he has given him the fatal wound he weeps and laments
that he should have turned against him who had knighted him,
and, in spite of his grievous wrongs, he can find no joy in his
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? CHAP. I. ]
25
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
vengeance. 1 Through all his life the thought of what he had
done haunts him, and there is a tragic fitness in his end, for
after many years Kaoul's uncle kills him near the place where
long before he had killed Eaoul.
Nothing can illustrate more vividly the essential character
of the traditional feudal conception as it is expressed in the
poetry of the Middle Ages. In spite of the dreadful wrongs
of which Eaoul had been guilty, in spite of his brutal and
overbearing character, in spite of the wanton murder of his
mother and the other nuns of Origny, Bernier feels that he has
committed an unheard-of crime in turning against his lord, to
whom he feels himself bound by ties even more sacred than
those of nature. 2
Illustrations of the personal loyalty and devotion of vassal
to lord could be indefinitely multiplied from the mediseval
poets, but no useful purpose would be here served by doing
this. Only it is important to remember that they do not
represent a principle peculiar to France, but rather a universal
and highly significant aspect of the organisation of European
society in the Middle Ages. The feudal relation was not one of
mere dependence, or of mere advantage, but one of faith and
loyal service, and the whole conception is admirably summed
up in the famous phrases of the letter of Fulbert of Chartres
written in 1020 a. d. to the Duke of Aquitaine. He that
swears fidelity to his lord must have in his mind these
1 'Raoul de Cambrai,' 3132--
"B. l'oi, le sens quida changier
Desoz eon elme commence a larmoier;
A haute voiz commence a huchier:
'E! R. , sire, fix de franche mollier,
Tu m'adoubas, ce ne puis je noier;
Mais durement le m'a puis vendu chier.
Ma mere arcis par dedens j. monstier,
Et moi fesis la teste pecoier.
Droit m'en ofris, ce ne puis je noier;
De la vengance ja plus fain ne qier. '"
2 I wish here to express my great
obligation to the extremely valuable
and suggestive discussion of this aspect
of feudalism, as it is presented in the
French epics, by M. Flach, in an essay
entitled, "Le Compagnonnagedans les
Chanson de Geste," which he after-
wards embodied in his work entitled,
'Les Origines de l'Ancienne France. ' I
do not know that I am convinced by
his very interesting and ingenious at-
tempt to show that the feudal relation
finds its ultimate source in the concep-
tion of adoption into a new family or
blood brotherhood, but M. Flach has
admirably illustrated and classified
the principles of the feudal relation as
seen especially in the mediseval poetry
of France.
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? 26
[PABT I.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.
six words, "Incolume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, possibile,"
he must do what he can to keep his lord's body unharmed, to
keep his secrets and strongholds, to maintain his rights of
jurisdiction and all his other dignities, to keep his possessions
safe, to see that he does not make that difficult or impossible to
his lord which is now easy and possible. Fulbert adds that
these obligations are mutual, and we shall have more to say
upon this point presently. 1
These conceptions were not merely traditional or merely ideal,
and we should observe that they have their place also in the
more technical expression of feudal principles in the law books,
and as late as the thirteenth century.
We have in the Assizes of Jerusalem a very full treatment
of the mutual obligation of vassal and lord to which we shall
constantly have to recur; for the moment we can fix our
attention on one passage in the work of Jean d'Ibelin, which
forms a very important part of the Assizes. In this passage
he has described the mutual nature of the obligations of lord
and vassal, and then points out that there are some obligations
which are peculiar to the vassal. The vassal owes his lord
reverence as well as faith, and must do some things for him
which the lord is not bound to do. He must be ready to act
as a hostage to deliver his lord from prison, and if in battle he
sees his lord disarmed and unhorsed he must if necessary give
him his own horse in order to enable him to escape from
1 Fulbert of Chartres, Ep. 58: "Qui Ut autem fidelis hsec nocumenta
domino suo fidelitatem jurat, ista sex caveat justum est sed non ideo
in memoria semper habere debet: in- sacramentum meretur.
colume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, Non enim sufficit abstinere a malo,
possibile: videlicet, Incolume, ne sit nisi fiat quod bonum est. Re6tat
domino in damnum de corpore suo. ergo ut in eisdem sex supra dictia
Tutum, ne sit ei in damnum de secreto consilium et auxilium domino fideliter
suo, vel de munitionibus per quas prsestet, si beneficio dignus videri vult,
tutus esse potest. Honestum, ne sit et salvus esse de fidelitate quam
ei in damnum de sua iustitia, vel de iuravit.
aliis causis quse ad honestatem eius Dominus quoque fideli suo in his
pertinere videntur. Utile, ne sit ei omnibus vicem reddere debet: quod
in damnum de suis possessionibus. si non fecerit, merito censebitur male-
Facile vel possibile, ne id bonum quod fidus: sicut ille si in eorum prsevari-
dominus suus leviter facere poterat, catione vel faciendo vel consentieudo,
faciat ei difficile: neve id quod pos- deprehensus fuerit, perfidus et per-
sibile ei erat, reddat ei impossibile. jurus. "
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? CHAP. I. ]
27
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
danger, and again he must be ready to act as security for his
lord's debts to the extent of the value of his fief. 1 The lord
must indeed in his turn do all that he can to help and deliver
his vassal who has thus imperilled himself for him, and to
compensate him for the losses he may have suffered; but there
is a real and marked difference in the nature of the obligations,
they are indeed mutual, but they are not quite the same, and
the element of reverence, which the vassal owes, is distinctive
and important. It is noteworthy that both Glanvill and
Bracton, while describing the feudal obligations as mutual,
both treat the element of reverence which the vassal owes as
distinctive. 2
The principle of personal devotion and fidelity to the lord
forms, then, a very important part of the tradition of mediseval
society, and we must take careful account of it in trying to
estimate the characteristic conceptions of the Middle Ages
with respect to the nature of political association. And we
must also observe that we have here something quite different
from those principles of political relation and obligation which
we have so far considered. These sentiments of personal
1 Assizes of Jerusalem--Jean d'lbe-
lin, 196: "Mais que tant que l'ome
deit au seignor reverence en totes
choses, et chascun deit garder sa fei
l'un vers l'autre fermement et enterine-
ment, chascun en dreit sei, por sa fei
et s'onor garder et sa leaute? et sa bone
renome? e: et l'ome deit tant plus au
seignor par la fei que il li est tenus,
que le seignor a` l'home: que l'om
deit entrer en ostage por son seignor
geter de prison, c'il l'en requiert ou
fait requerre par certain message. Et
chascun qui fait homage a` autre est
tenus par sa fei, ce il treuve son seig-
nor en besoin d'armes, a` pie? , entre ses
enemis ou en leuc que il soit en perill
de mort ou de prison, de faire son leau
poeir de remontir le et geter le de cel
perill, et c'il autrement ne le peut
faire, il li doit doner son cheval ou sa
beste sur quei il chevauche, c'il la re-
quiert, et aider le a` metre sur, et aider
le a` son pooir a` son cors sauver. . . .
Et chascun qui tient fie? d'autre de
quei il est son home, est tenus a` son
seignor d'entrer por lui en tel point en
hostage por dette on en plegerie de
tant vaillant come le fie? que il tient
de lui, et de quei il est son home,
vaudrait raisnablement a` vendre par
l'assise. "
2 Glanvill, ix. 4: "Mutua quidem
debet esse dominii et homagii fideli-
tatis connexio, ita quod quantum homo
debet domino ex homagio, tantum illi
debet dominus ex dominio prseter solam
reverentiam. "
Bracton, 'De Legibus et Consuetudi-
nibus Angliae,'ii. 35. 2: "Est itaque
tanta et talis connexio per homagium
inter dominus et tenentem suum, quod
tantum debet dominus tenenti, quan-
tum tenens domino, prse solam rever-
? ? entiam. "
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? 28
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part 1.
loyalty must not be confused with the principles of political
society either in the form in which they had come down
from the ancient world through the Fathers, or as they were
implicit in the political structure of the Teutonic societies,
so far as we have considered them hitherto. It is no doubt
true that in the Teutonic societies, as distinguished from the
developed political organisations of the ancient world, there
survived traditions and sentiments which were related to the
conception of the chieftainship of a tribe, and one of the chief
difficulties in dealing with the history of feudalism is to
disentangle the tribal from the feudal sentiment. In some
mediseval states, and especially in the German kingdom, the
influence of tribal sentiment and tribal loyalty is difficult to
measure, and it is probably true to say that the feudal relation
only partially overlaid it.
However this may be, these sentiments of personal loyalty
and devotion to the immediate lord to whom a man had sworn
his faith and service constitute a new element in the tangle
of ideas and organisations, out of which there slowly emerged
the national state of modern times. And it was an element
which was very difficult to reconcile with the national idea
and the national constitution. The loyalty of the vassal to
his immediate lord was one of the most characteristic elements
of the chaos of the tenth century, and it was only very slowly
that this loyalty was transferred to the national king.
If we turn back again to the French epics of the Middle
Ages we sometimes find that they represent alongside of the
profound devotion of the vassal to his immediate lord an almost
unmeasured contempt for the king or overlord, and we can
find an illustration of this in the same Chanson de Geste, the
'Eaoul de Cambrai,' which we have already cited. The death
of Eaoul, which we have already described, is followed by a
long conflict between his house and that of Bernier, until,
after a long struggle, Gautier, the nephew of Eaoul, and Ber-
nier are reconciled with each other. The King of the French
is vexed at the reconciliation, and both parties then turn on
the King and denounce him as the real author of the feud.
When the King threatens to take his father's lands from him,
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? CHAP. I. ]
29
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
using many violent words, Bernier flatly defies him, and there
follows a long war between the nobles and the King, who is
represented throughout as playing a mean but unsuccessful
part. The nobles do indeed hold their hand when the King
is defeated, because he is their lord, but in the main nothing
is more emphatically marked than the difference between
the deep sense of obligation and loyalty of the vassals or
companions to their immediate lords, and the loose and un-
certain deference which they owe to the overlord or King. 1
Enough has been said to indicate the nature of feudalism
conceived of as finding its principle in the sense of personal
loyalty, of an almost unlimited obligation of the vassal towards
his lord. This conception has a place even in the technical
legal works of the Middle Ages, but it is especially emphasised
in the poetry, in the epics and romances. It is to a large
extent upon this that there has grown up the literary tradi-
tion of mediseval society as based primarily upon the conception
of an unswerving loyalty, a romantic personal devotion which
overrides all other obligations and principles. But the whole
truth is very different from the literary tradition. When we
turn from the poetry to the law books we find ourselves in
another world, we find a conception of society which is much
nearer to the actual conditions and ideals of the Middle Ages.
1 'Raoul de Cambrai,' line 5368.
Guerri of Cambrai--
"B. frere, por Dieu venez avant.
Cis roi est fel . . .
Iceste guerre, par le cors S. Amant
Commenca il, se sevent li auquant.
Faisons li guere, franc chevalier vail-
lant. "
Id. , line 5412. Bernier--
"Sire asez poez plaidier
Qe par celui gi tot a a baillier
Ja tos secors ne li ara mestier
Qe ne li face toz les menbres trenchier. "
Id. , line 5425. Guerri--
"Cest coart roi deit on bien essilier,
Car ceste guerre nos fist il commencier. "
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? 12
INTRODUCTION.
the principles of the Teutonic societies, the law was the law of
the community, not of the king. / It is true indeed that in the
earlier Middle Ages there was normally no such thing as legis-
lation in the modern sense, the law, strictly speaking, was noth-
ing but the traditional custom of the community, and legislative
acts were, properly speaking, nothing but authoritative declara-
tions of custom. As the changing conditions of mediseval life
finally made deliberate modification of these customs inevitable,
such action was taken, though reluctantly, but could only be
taken with the assent, expressed or tacit, of the community.
S Here are indeed political principles or ideas of the highest
moment, derived not from the traditions of the ancient world
and empire, but rooted in the constitutional practice of the
new societies. We have endeavoured to set out the evidence
for the predominance of these conceptions in the first volume,1
but their significance cannot be fully appreciated without a
study of the more important works on the constitutional
history of the various European countries in the early Middle
Ages.
It is in relation to these principles that we have to study the
appearance of the doctrine of the social contract; that is, the
conception of an agreement or bargain between the people and
the ruler. In the popular mind this conception is supposed to
belong to the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the
real truth is that it is a mediseval conception, and that it arose
primarily out of conceptions and circumstances which were
characteristic of mediseval society. This principle or theory
has some place in ancient literature, especially in Plato's 'Laws,'2
and a phrase of St Augustine's has been sometimes quoted
as related to it, though probably without any sufficient justifi-
cation,3 but there is no evidence that there is any continuity
between the Platonic theory and that of the Middle Ages. We
have in the first volume pointed out the circumstances out of
which we think it arose,4 and, as we shall have to deal with it
in detail in this volume, we need only here say that it seems
to us clear that its origin is to be traced to the promises of
1 Cf. vol. i. chaps. 19 and 20. 3 St Augustine, 'Confessions,' III. 8. 2.
2 Cf. vol. i. p. 17. 4 Cf. vol. i. pp. 240-252.
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? INTRODUCTION.
obedience to the law, and of good government taken by the
king on his accession] It was in the eleventh century that the
Conception found a formal expression, but the principles which
lay behind the formal expression were already in existence,
and were firmly rooted in the constitutional order of the early
Middle Ages.
In approaching the subject of the nature of the political
theory of the great central period of mediseval civilisation,
from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, we must then first
be careful to observe the nature of the general principles which
the men of that time had inherited. These principles were
complex, and no complete or systematic treatment of them was
made until the thirteenth century. It may indeed be doubted
whether the various elements were capable of being brought
into an organic relation with each other, but we must not
here anticipate the discussion which belongs to later volumes.
Whether in the end these various conceptions were capable of
being fused into an organic whole or not, we must recognise
that they all have a real and significant place in mediseval
theory. The great formal conception of the distinction between
nature and convention, which came from the post-Aristotelian
philosophy in which the Christian Fathers were trained; the
principle of the equality and freedom of men which arose out
of this and the Christian tradition; the immensely significant
conception of the necessary freedom of the spiritual life and
the spiritual authority which specially represents this; the con-
viction of the sanctity of the political order; the principle of
the supreme authority of the law or custom of the community,
and of the King as responsible to govern according to the law,
--these conceptions or principles dominated the sentiment and
the theory of all mediseval society.
Our present task is to consider the development of these
conceptions under the actual circumstances of European society
from the1 tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and to inquire how
far they may have been modified or superseded by other
principles. For the new times brought new conditions, new
and important forms of political and social relations. We shall
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? 14
INTRODUCTION.
have especially to consider how far the development of feudal
ideas, and the organisation of European society on the basis of
feudal tenure, may have modified or overlaid earlier principles;
how far again in the great conflicts between the spiritual and
the temporal powers the conception of the sanctity and auto-
nomy of either may have been questioned or denied. The de-
velopment of mediseval society was very rapid, and the intellectual
development was even more rapid than that of the organisation
of society. The greatest difficulty indeed with which the
historian has to contend, in trying to interpret the Middle
Ages to the modern world, is the impression that the civilisa-
tion of these times was stationary and rigid, that the mediaeval
world was unlike the modern, specially in this, that it was
unchanging, while we perpetually change. This tradition is
primarily derived from the ignorance and prejudice of the
men of the new learning and the Eenaissance, and lingers
on, not in serious history, but in the literary tradition, and in
the prejudices which arose naturally enough out of the great
struggles of the Eeformation and the Revolution. If we are to
study the Middle Ages intelligently, if we are to appreciate
their real relation to the modern world, we must dismiss from
our minds these notions of a fixed and stereotyped society, we
must rather recognise that there have been few periods in the
history of the world when the movement of thought and of
life was more rapid than in the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries.
^When we attempt to trace the history of political ideas
in the Middle Ages, we are at once confronted with the fact
that, after the active political reflection which is represented in
the literature of the ninth century, there follows a consider-
able period from which very little indeed of political theory
has survived in literature. From the end of the ninth century
till the middle of the eleventh the references to the principles
or ideas of politics are very scanty indeed. We have indeed to
remember that it is probable that a great deal of literature,
especially in the vernacular languages, has disappeared, but it
is at least a probable conclusion from what has survived that
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? INTRODUCTION.
15
there was not much reflection upon social and political ques-
tions, and that it was not till the middle of the eleventh
century that the great political agitations in Germany, and the
development of the great conflict between the Papacy and
the Empire, compelled men to question themselves as to the
principles which underlay the order of society.
This does not mean that during this time no important
changes were taking place in the structure of European society;
on the contrary, in some respects the period was one of great
and significant development. It was during these years that
feudalism was taking shape and form, establishing itself as a
system of social and economic and military organisation, and
in some degree affecting the structure of government. How
far the growth of feudalism affected the principle or theory of
political organisation is the first important question which we
have to consider.
It was during these years that European civilisation was
being rescued from a second great wave of barbarism, which
threatened for a time to overwhelm it. For upon the confused
faction fights which distracted Western Europe while the great
empire of Charlemagne was breaking up, there fell the torrent
of the second barbaric invasion. The Norsemen on the North
and West, the Magyars on the East harried and plundered, and
for a time it seemed as though the work of the preceding
centuries would be completely undone; and indeed Europe
very nearly relapsed into anarchy, and Church and State were
almost overwhelmed in a common destruction. But the victory
of Alfred over the Danes, of Otto the Great at the Lechfeld over
the Magyars, and the limits within which the Norse invasion
of France were finally contained, mark the fact that the new
civilisation was stronger than the forces which attacked it, that
the new barbarians had to reckon with a civilisation which
was not worn out like that of the Western Empire which the
forefathers of the Franks and the Englishmen had overthrown
five centuries earlier, but with one which was living and powerful
and capable of a rapid recovery and growth. The new invasions
did indeed leave profound traces behind them, but the greatest
and most powerful of the invaders, the Normans who settled in
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? 16
INTRODUCTION.
North-Western Trance, proved rapidly that they were capable
not merely of conquest, but that they could contribute greatly
to the progress of the very civilisation which for the moment
they had shaken.
The development of feudalism was in great measure the
resuIt"6F~the downfaTI_of? jih^QaxoJin^ian civilisation, but
the effects of this can also be traced in the relations of the
Papacy and the Empire. The breaking up of the Empire of
Charlemagne might indeed seem to have set the Papacy at
liberty, but actually it left it under the tyranny of the bar-
barous factions of the Eoman nobles, and its degradation was
even deeper than that of the State. It was rescued from this
in the tenth century by the Ottos, and in the eleventh by
Henry III. , but the conditions of its deliverance held in
themselves the seeds of disaster. The emperor exercised, and
for the time with excellent results, a very large measure of
control over the Church, and especially over the appointment
of its chief ministers, but it was impossible that the Church
should in the long run acquiesce in this. The principle of its
necessary independence was too firmly rooted in its history,
and it was the attempt to recover and vindicate this which
led to the great conflict of the Papacy and the Empire, of
the spiritual and temporal powers in the various European
countries. This conflict in its turn contributed a great deal
to compel men to consider and make explicit the fundamental
principles of the structure and organisation of society, and
thus to produce those energetic and audacious developments
in political theory which we have to consider.
We have, then, to deal with three great subjects--first, the
nature of the principles implicit in feudalism, and the effect
of these principles upon political ideas; second, the character-
istic political conceptions of the eleventh and twelfth centuries
as related to the development of the general political and social
structure of Western civilisation; and thirdly, the forms and
theories of the relations of the temporal and spiritual authorities.
It is indeed true that we cannot isolate these various aspects of
mediseval life and thought from each other, but they do in some
measure really represent the operation of different forces, and
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? INTRODUCTION.
17
we have to consider how far it may be true that they tended
to give rise to different conceptions or principles. We shall
have to make the effort finally to bring our reflections upon
them together, and to form some unified view of their effect
upon the principles of mediseval life, but for the time being
we have found ourselves driven to deal with them separately.
We have found that the adequate treatment of the subjects
has required so much space that we have decided to deal with
feudalism and the general political ideas in this volume, and
with the relations of the temporal and spiritual powers in the
next.
We deal with feudalism first, not because it was in our judg-
ment the most important element in the structure of mediseval
society, but because it has often been thought to have been so,
and because this at least is true, that whatever its influence
may have been, it represented a new element in civilisation.
In dealing with it we shall be obliged to transcend the limits
of time which we have set to the general scope of this volume.
For the significance of feudalism in relation to political theory
cannot adequately be discussed without taking into account the
great feudal law books of the thirteenth century; and, what is
more important, the system of feudalism represents an organic
development culminating in the latter years of the thirteenth
century, which cannot be understood unless we take account
of the whole process of its development. We are, of course,
aware of the risk that we run of reading back the conceptions
of the thirteenth century into the eleventh and twelfth, and
we shall do our best to guard against this risk.
VOL. III.
B
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? PART I.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM ON POLITICAL THEORY.
CHAPTER I.
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
There is perhaps no subject in mediseval history which is so
difficult as that of feudalism. Its origins are still obscure
and controverted, its development belongs largely to the tenth
century, and there are few periods of mediseval history where
the sources of our information are so scanty and so fragmentary,
and in the literature which has survived there is only a little
that can be said to bear directly upon feudalism. And, finally,
its real nature and essential characteristics have been so confused
by the laxity of literary usage that it is difficult to say what is
meant by the word.
Feudalism is a system of personal relations, of land tenure,
of military organisation, of judicial order, and of political
order. It affected the life of every class in the mediseval
community, from the villein to the king or emperor, and it
even affected profoundly the position of at least the greater
clergy, the bishops and abbots. There are, indeed, few aspects
of mediseval life which were not touched by it, and it is
therefore natural that it should be thought that it must have
profoundly modified both the institutions and the political
ideas of the Middle Ages.
It is not our part here to deal with the first of these
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? 20
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part I.
subjects, the influence of feudalism on the institutions of
the Middle Ages, its direct effects upon the forms of the
great constitutional development which culminated in the
Parliament of Edward I. and the States-General of Philip the
Fair, and the parallel developments in other European coun-
tries. We cannot even attempt to summarise the results of the
work of the constitutional historians, for any summary would
probably mislead rather than illuminate. But it is possible
to say that while feudalism left for centuries deeply marked
traces on the social and political structure of European society,
and while the great systems of national organisation did indeed
take into themselves elements which belonged to feudalism,
they also represented principles which in their essential nature
were independent of and even contradictory to some specific
characteristics of the feudal system. In the end the king
or the parliament, or both, came to be directly related to all
the individuals who compose the State, and in their authority
the local and personal authorities and jurisdictions of feudalism
were finally lost. The royal justice at last absorbs all feudal
justice, in the administrative authority of the crown all the areas
of feudal administration are merged, and the legislative authority
of parliament asserts itself as supreme over all feudal traditions
and customs. The king and the parliament represent the nation,
and the unity of the nation finally transcends all the separatist
tendencies of feudalism.
It may even be said that the best example of this can be
found in that country where at first sight feudalism might seem
to have triumphed, for the unity of the German kingdom was
finally destroyed, and the great fiefs became practically auton-
omous provinces. But it was not feudalism which triumphed,
but territorialism. In the territorial areas there developed the
same centralised authority and administration as in England or
France, and it was no doubt that very fact which accounts for
the failure of the constitutional movement of the close of the
fifteenth century.
We have to deal here not primarily with institutions, but
with the question how far feudalism affected the political ideas]
of the Middle Ages, how far its influence coincided with tha
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? CHAP. I. ]
21
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
traditions which they inherited, and furthered the development |
of social and political ideas which were already present, or how
far it may have tended to neutralise or modify them. We
must be prepared to find that the influence of feudalism was
very complex, and that it may have tended in different /
directions.
We begin by pointing out what may seem a paradox, that
feudalism represents two principles which in their ultimate
development may seem contradictory, but which yet affected
the minds of the men of the Middle Ages at the same time.
The first principle is that of personal loyalty and devotion, the
second is that of the contractual relation.
The first principle is that which is represented especially in
the poetic literature of the Middle Ages, and which has thus
passed naturally enough into the literary as distinguished from
the historical presentation of the Middle Ages in modern
times. We are all familiar with the romantic representation
of mediseval life as dominated by the sentiment of chivalrous
loyalty and devotion. How much of exaggeration there is con-
tained in this we shall presently see, but there are elements of
real truth in it. And, more than this, these sentiments have a
real and permanent importance in political as well as in social
life. Human life in its deepest and largest terms cannot be
lived upon principles of utility and contract. Whether in the
family or in the nation the actual working of human life is
impossible without the sense of loyalty and devotion.
This is the first principle of feudalism, and the second may
well seem contradictory to it. For nothing could seem further
apart than the conception of personal loyalty and the conception
of bargain or contract as the foundation of human relations.
And yet there is no escape from the conclusion that in the last
resort feudal relations were contractual relations, that the
vassal was bound indeed to discharge certain obligations, but
only on the condition that the lord also discharged his obliga-
tions to the vassal. Here again it is evident that we are deal-
ing with a principle which is reasonable and just, for in the
long run human relations are impossible unless there is some
reasonable recognition and fulfilment of mutual obligations.
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? 22
[part 1.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.
The principles may seem contradictory, and indeed they were
hard to reconcile, but it is also true to say that they were not
only held together and constantly reconciled in practice, but
also that the political thinkers of the Middle Ages were aware
of certain great rational principles which lie behind these con-
ceptions, and in which they found a reasonable reconciliation
of them.
For this is the truth about feudalism. At first sight it seems
very strange and unintelligible. We find it difficult to under-
stand how men could think and act thus, but if we are a little
patient we find it becoming intelligible, and finally we see it not
as wholly unnatural and abnormal, but as representing a phase
of social and political development which lies indeed behind us,
but whose conditions we can understand, and we shall see
that in a measure these apparently strange principles have a
continuing significance even among ourselves.
The difficulty of understanding feudalism has been immensely
increased by the habit of conceiving of it as a homogeneous
system, complete and perfect at some definite time and place.
It becomes much more intelligible when we begin to see that
under the one term there are contained ideas which were very
different from each other, and that as it had slowly grown up,
so it was perpetually developing and changing. The feudal idea
as it is presented to us in the epic or romantic poetry is some-
thing quite different from that which is represented by such a
characteristic set of law-books as those which make up the
Assizes of Jerusalem, or by Beaumanoir, and when we look a
little more closely we begin to understand this, and to see that
the conceptions of the epics and romances of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries represent sometimes the tradition of th<<p
past, sometimes an elaborate and artificial convention rathe^t
than the actual reality. I
There has indeed often been a very serious misunderstanding);
even among scholars as to the value of the artistic representa-J
tion of manners and customs. In some poetry, as for instance'
in the earlier mediseval epic, the pictures of external life andj|
manners of men and women, is highly realistic, and supplies uss
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? CHAP. I. ] PERSONAL LOYALTY. 23
with very valuable information as to the conditions of con-
temporary society. In other forms of literature, and especially
in the romance of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, it is
evident that we are dealing with an art which is in great part,
in its relation to the circumstances of life, conventional and
traditional, and which even in its essential sentimental or
emotional interest represents an abstraction of human life,
valuable indeed and profoundly moving and significant, but
still an abstraction rather than a realistic treatment. The
great fighting man of the epic literature, and the frank, high-
hearted, and sometimes implacable woman, upon whom often
the whole movement of the story depends, these are real figures
of men and women, and they live in the real world. But the
romantic hero or heroine, absorbed in their emotions, far re-
moved from the actual circumstances of daily life, are placed
in a world which is mainly unreal and conventional. The
transition from the Beowulf or the Icelandic Sagas to the
Arthurian romance is the transition from idealised and heroic
reality to an elaborate convention.
It is necessary to use the evidence of mediseval poetry with
great caution, and to make careful distinctions between the
value of different forms of it as illustrating the customs and
ideas of any one time.
We cannot here attempt to discuss in detail the origin of
feudalism, the subject has been handled with great learning
by a number of historians,1 but we can say with great con-
fidence, that its origin was extremely complex. Comitatus,
Commendatio, and Beneficium, these are the main elements of
the relation of lord and vassal, and each of these had an im-
portant part in the development of the whole system. From
the Comitatus there came the devotion of the band of followers
to their leader in war, the almost indissoluble tie which united
the "companion" to his chief in faith and loyalty, and this may
have been the first, as it was certainly among the most import-
ant, of the elements out of which the feudal relation grew. It
1 Cf. e. g. , Waitz, Brunner, Fustel de Coulanges, Flach, &e.
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? 24
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part I.
is this aspect of the relation that we find specially illustrated
in the epics and romances, while its influence can also be traced
in certain principles of the feudal law books. The process of
Commendation by which a hitherto independent person became
dependent on some powerful man or ruler in return for the
protection that he could afford to him, was probably the means
by which the feudal relation was most widely extended. The
gradual transformation of a relation, which was originally
almost wholly personal, into a great system of land tenure on
the basis of military or of "base" service, which in its turn
became a system of political relations, this is connected with
the Beneficium. It is out of these complex and incoherent
elements that the feudal system was gradually formed; some-
thing of each goes to make up the whole system as we see
it from the tenth to the thirteenth centuries, and they are all
represented in the literature and legal systems of these times.
It is not necessary to deal at length with the conception of
personal loyalty and devotion, it will be sufficient to indicate
its nature by means of an example from the literature of the
twelfth century.
One of the most interesting illustrations of the influence of
the conception is to be found in the French Chanson de Geste,
the 'Eaoul de Cambrai,' which belongs probably to the latter
part of the twelfth century. When Eaoul is knighted he takes
as his squire Bernier, the illegitimate son of Ybert of Bibemont.
Eaoul obtains from the King of France a grant of the lands of
Vermandois, which had beloDged to Ybert's family, and invades
the country in spite of the protests of Bernier. He sacks and
burns the town of Origny with its monastery, and Bernier's
mother perishes in the fire. Bernier vows revenge, and joins
his father; and, in the battle which follows, kills Eaoul. But
the significant thing is the reluctance with which he turns
against Eaoul; in the first flush of his passion over his mother's
death he does indeed refuse all Eaoul's attempts to make
amends, but afterwards he endeavours to make peace, and
when he has given him the fatal wound he weeps and laments
that he should have turned against him who had knighted him,
and, in spite of his grievous wrongs, he can find no joy in his
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? CHAP. I. ]
25
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
vengeance. 1 Through all his life the thought of what he had
done haunts him, and there is a tragic fitness in his end, for
after many years Kaoul's uncle kills him near the place where
long before he had killed Eaoul.
Nothing can illustrate more vividly the essential character
of the traditional feudal conception as it is expressed in the
poetry of the Middle Ages. In spite of the dreadful wrongs
of which Eaoul had been guilty, in spite of his brutal and
overbearing character, in spite of the wanton murder of his
mother and the other nuns of Origny, Bernier feels that he has
committed an unheard-of crime in turning against his lord, to
whom he feels himself bound by ties even more sacred than
those of nature. 2
Illustrations of the personal loyalty and devotion of vassal
to lord could be indefinitely multiplied from the mediseval
poets, but no useful purpose would be here served by doing
this. Only it is important to remember that they do not
represent a principle peculiar to France, but rather a universal
and highly significant aspect of the organisation of European
society in the Middle Ages. The feudal relation was not one of
mere dependence, or of mere advantage, but one of faith and
loyal service, and the whole conception is admirably summed
up in the famous phrases of the letter of Fulbert of Chartres
written in 1020 a. d. to the Duke of Aquitaine. He that
swears fidelity to his lord must have in his mind these
1 'Raoul de Cambrai,' 3132--
"B. l'oi, le sens quida changier
Desoz eon elme commence a larmoier;
A haute voiz commence a huchier:
'E! R. , sire, fix de franche mollier,
Tu m'adoubas, ce ne puis je noier;
Mais durement le m'a puis vendu chier.
Ma mere arcis par dedens j. monstier,
Et moi fesis la teste pecoier.
Droit m'en ofris, ce ne puis je noier;
De la vengance ja plus fain ne qier. '"
2 I wish here to express my great
obligation to the extremely valuable
and suggestive discussion of this aspect
of feudalism, as it is presented in the
French epics, by M. Flach, in an essay
entitled, "Le Compagnonnagedans les
Chanson de Geste," which he after-
wards embodied in his work entitled,
'Les Origines de l'Ancienne France. ' I
do not know that I am convinced by
his very interesting and ingenious at-
tempt to show that the feudal relation
finds its ultimate source in the concep-
tion of adoption into a new family or
blood brotherhood, but M. Flach has
admirably illustrated and classified
the principles of the feudal relation as
seen especially in the mediseval poetry
of France.
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? 26
[PABT I.
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM.
six words, "Incolume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, possibile,"
he must do what he can to keep his lord's body unharmed, to
keep his secrets and strongholds, to maintain his rights of
jurisdiction and all his other dignities, to keep his possessions
safe, to see that he does not make that difficult or impossible to
his lord which is now easy and possible. Fulbert adds that
these obligations are mutual, and we shall have more to say
upon this point presently. 1
These conceptions were not merely traditional or merely ideal,
and we should observe that they have their place also in the
more technical expression of feudal principles in the law books,
and as late as the thirteenth century.
We have in the Assizes of Jerusalem a very full treatment
of the mutual obligation of vassal and lord to which we shall
constantly have to recur; for the moment we can fix our
attention on one passage in the work of Jean d'Ibelin, which
forms a very important part of the Assizes. In this passage
he has described the mutual nature of the obligations of lord
and vassal, and then points out that there are some obligations
which are peculiar to the vassal. The vassal owes his lord
reverence as well as faith, and must do some things for him
which the lord is not bound to do. He must be ready to act
as a hostage to deliver his lord from prison, and if in battle he
sees his lord disarmed and unhorsed he must if necessary give
him his own horse in order to enable him to escape from
1 Fulbert of Chartres, Ep. 58: "Qui Ut autem fidelis hsec nocumenta
domino suo fidelitatem jurat, ista sex caveat justum est sed non ideo
in memoria semper habere debet: in- sacramentum meretur.
colume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, Non enim sufficit abstinere a malo,
possibile: videlicet, Incolume, ne sit nisi fiat quod bonum est. Re6tat
domino in damnum de corpore suo. ergo ut in eisdem sex supra dictia
Tutum, ne sit ei in damnum de secreto consilium et auxilium domino fideliter
suo, vel de munitionibus per quas prsestet, si beneficio dignus videri vult,
tutus esse potest. Honestum, ne sit et salvus esse de fidelitate quam
ei in damnum de sua iustitia, vel de iuravit.
aliis causis quse ad honestatem eius Dominus quoque fideli suo in his
pertinere videntur. Utile, ne sit ei omnibus vicem reddere debet: quod
in damnum de suis possessionibus. si non fecerit, merito censebitur male-
Facile vel possibile, ne id bonum quod fidus: sicut ille si in eorum prsevari-
dominus suus leviter facere poterat, catione vel faciendo vel consentieudo,
faciat ei difficile: neve id quod pos- deprehensus fuerit, perfidus et per-
sibile ei erat, reddat ei impossibile. jurus. "
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? CHAP. I. ]
27
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
danger, and again he must be ready to act as security for his
lord's debts to the extent of the value of his fief. 1 The lord
must indeed in his turn do all that he can to help and deliver
his vassal who has thus imperilled himself for him, and to
compensate him for the losses he may have suffered; but there
is a real and marked difference in the nature of the obligations,
they are indeed mutual, but they are not quite the same, and
the element of reverence, which the vassal owes, is distinctive
and important. It is noteworthy that both Glanvill and
Bracton, while describing the feudal obligations as mutual,
both treat the element of reverence which the vassal owes as
distinctive. 2
The principle of personal devotion and fidelity to the lord
forms, then, a very important part of the tradition of mediseval
society, and we must take careful account of it in trying to
estimate the characteristic conceptions of the Middle Ages
with respect to the nature of political association. And we
must also observe that we have here something quite different
from those principles of political relation and obligation which
we have so far considered. These sentiments of personal
1 Assizes of Jerusalem--Jean d'lbe-
lin, 196: "Mais que tant que l'ome
deit au seignor reverence en totes
choses, et chascun deit garder sa fei
l'un vers l'autre fermement et enterine-
ment, chascun en dreit sei, por sa fei
et s'onor garder et sa leaute? et sa bone
renome? e: et l'ome deit tant plus au
seignor par la fei que il li est tenus,
que le seignor a` l'home: que l'om
deit entrer en ostage por son seignor
geter de prison, c'il l'en requiert ou
fait requerre par certain message. Et
chascun qui fait homage a` autre est
tenus par sa fei, ce il treuve son seig-
nor en besoin d'armes, a` pie? , entre ses
enemis ou en leuc que il soit en perill
de mort ou de prison, de faire son leau
poeir de remontir le et geter le de cel
perill, et c'il autrement ne le peut
faire, il li doit doner son cheval ou sa
beste sur quei il chevauche, c'il la re-
quiert, et aider le a` metre sur, et aider
le a` son pooir a` son cors sauver. . . .
Et chascun qui tient fie? d'autre de
quei il est son home, est tenus a` son
seignor d'entrer por lui en tel point en
hostage por dette on en plegerie de
tant vaillant come le fie? que il tient
de lui, et de quei il est son home,
vaudrait raisnablement a` vendre par
l'assise. "
2 Glanvill, ix. 4: "Mutua quidem
debet esse dominii et homagii fideli-
tatis connexio, ita quod quantum homo
debet domino ex homagio, tantum illi
debet dominus ex dominio prseter solam
reverentiam. "
Bracton, 'De Legibus et Consuetudi-
nibus Angliae,'ii. 35. 2: "Est itaque
tanta et talis connexio per homagium
inter dominus et tenentem suum, quod
tantum debet dominus tenenti, quan-
tum tenens domino, prse solam rever-
? ? entiam. "
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? 28
THE INFLUENCE OF FEUDALISM. [part 1.
loyalty must not be confused with the principles of political
society either in the form in which they had come down
from the ancient world through the Fathers, or as they were
implicit in the political structure of the Teutonic societies,
so far as we have considered them hitherto. It is no doubt
true that in the Teutonic societies, as distinguished from the
developed political organisations of the ancient world, there
survived traditions and sentiments which were related to the
conception of the chieftainship of a tribe, and one of the chief
difficulties in dealing with the history of feudalism is to
disentangle the tribal from the feudal sentiment. In some
mediseval states, and especially in the German kingdom, the
influence of tribal sentiment and tribal loyalty is difficult to
measure, and it is probably true to say that the feudal relation
only partially overlaid it.
However this may be, these sentiments of personal loyalty
and devotion to the immediate lord to whom a man had sworn
his faith and service constitute a new element in the tangle
of ideas and organisations, out of which there slowly emerged
the national state of modern times. And it was an element
which was very difficult to reconcile with the national idea
and the national constitution. The loyalty of the vassal to
his immediate lord was one of the most characteristic elements
of the chaos of the tenth century, and it was only very slowly
that this loyalty was transferred to the national king.
If we turn back again to the French epics of the Middle
Ages we sometimes find that they represent alongside of the
profound devotion of the vassal to his immediate lord an almost
unmeasured contempt for the king or overlord, and we can
find an illustration of this in the same Chanson de Geste, the
'Eaoul de Cambrai,' which we have already cited. The death
of Eaoul, which we have already described, is followed by a
long conflict between his house and that of Bernier, until,
after a long struggle, Gautier, the nephew of Eaoul, and Ber-
nier are reconciled with each other. The King of the French
is vexed at the reconciliation, and both parties then turn on
the King and denounce him as the real author of the feud.
When the King threatens to take his father's lands from him,
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? CHAP. I. ]
29
PERSONAL LOYALTY.
using many violent words, Bernier flatly defies him, and there
follows a long war between the nobles and the King, who is
represented throughout as playing a mean but unsuccessful
part. The nobles do indeed hold their hand when the King
is defeated, because he is their lord, but in the main nothing
is more emphatically marked than the difference between
the deep sense of obligation and loyalty of the vassals or
companions to their immediate lords, and the loose and un-
certain deference which they owe to the overlord or King. 1
Enough has been said to indicate the nature of feudalism
conceived of as finding its principle in the sense of personal
loyalty, of an almost unlimited obligation of the vassal towards
his lord. This conception has a place even in the technical
legal works of the Middle Ages, but it is especially emphasised
in the poetry, in the epics and romances. It is to a large
extent upon this that there has grown up the literary tradi-
tion of mediseval society as based primarily upon the conception
of an unswerving loyalty, a romantic personal devotion which
overrides all other obligations and principles. But the whole
truth is very different from the literary tradition. When we
turn from the poetry to the law books we find ourselves in
another world, we find a conception of society which is much
nearer to the actual conditions and ideals of the Middle Ages.
1 'Raoul de Cambrai,' line 5368.
Guerri of Cambrai--
"B. frere, por Dieu venez avant.
Cis roi est fel . . .
Iceste guerre, par le cors S. Amant
Commenca il, se sevent li auquant.
Faisons li guere, franc chevalier vail-
lant. "
Id. , line 5412. Bernier--
"Sire asez poez plaidier
Qe par celui gi tot a a baillier
Ja tos secors ne li ara mestier
Qe ne li face toz les menbres trenchier. "
Id. , line 5425. Guerri--
"Cest coart roi deit on bien essilier,
Car ceste guerre nos fist il commencier. "
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