The origin of the system of feuds has been a fertile subject of speculation and dispute. If we merely seek for the ex istence of a kind of landed tenure resem bling that of the fief in its essential prin ciple, it is probable that such may be dis covered in various ages and parts of the world. But feuds alone are not the feudal system. They are only one of the elements out of which that system grew. In its entireness, it is certain that the feudal system never subsisted anywhere before it arose in the middle ages in those parts of Europe in which the Germanic nations settled themselves after the sub version of the Roman empire.
Supposing feud to be the same word with the Roman emphyteusis, it does not follow that the Germanic nations bor rowed the notion of this species of tenure from the Romans. It is perhaps more probable that it was the common form of tenure among them before their settle ment in the Roman provinces. It is to be observed that the emphyteusis, the precaria, the beneficium, only subsisted under the Roman scheme of polity in particular instances, but they present themselves as the very genius of the Germanic scheme. What was only oc casional under the one became general under the other. In other words, if the Romans had feuds, it was their Germanic conquerors who first established a of feuds. They probably established'fished such a system upon their first settlement in the conquered provinces. The word fetid= indeed is not found in any writing of earlier date than the beginning of the eleventh century, although, as Mr. Hallam has remarked, the words feum and fenum, which are evidently the same with feudum, occur in several charters of the preceding century. But, as we have shown, fendum or feud, in all probability, was not the Teutonic term. "Can it be doubted," asks Mr. Hallam, "that some word of barbarous original must have answered, in the vernacular languages, to the Latin beneficium?" There is rea son to believe, as we have seen, that this vernacular word must have been Lehn, or some cognate form, and that feud was merely a corrupted term of the Roman law which was latterly applied to denote the same thing.
We know so little with certainty re specting the original institutions of the Germanic nations, that it is impossible to say how much they may have brought with them from their northern forests, or how much they may have borrowed from the imperial polity, of the other chief element which enters into the system of feudalism, the connection subsisting be tween the grantor and the grantee of the fief, the person having the property and the person having the usufruct, or, as they were respectively designated, the suzerain or to and the tenant or vassal.
Tenant may be considered as the name given to the latter in reference to the particular nature of his right over the land ; vassal, that denoting the particular nature of his personal connection with his lord. The former has been already explained; the consideration of the latter introduces a new view. By some writers the feudal vassals have been derived from the comites, or officers of the Roman imperial household [Comm] : by others from the comites, or companions, men tioned by Tacitus ( German. 13, &c.) as attending upon each of the German chiefs in war. The latter opinion is ingeniously maintained by Montesquieu (xxx. 3). One fact appears to be certain, and is of some importance, namely, that the ori ginal vassali or vassi were merely noble men who attached themselves to the court and to attendance upon the prince, with out necessarily holding any landed estate or beneficium by royal grant. In this sense the words occur in the early part of the ninth century. Vassal has been derived from the Celtic gwas, and from the German gesell, which are probably the same word, and of both of which the original signification seems to be a helper, or subordinate associate, in labour of any kind.
If the vassal was at first merely the associate of or attendant upon his lord, nothing could be more natural than that, when the lord came to have land to give away, he should most frequently bestow it upon his yaws's, both as a reward for their past and a bond by which he might secure their filture services. If the pecu liar form of tenure constituting the fief or lehn did not exist before, here was the very case which would suggest it. At all events, nothing could be more perfectly adapted to the circumstances. The vas sal was entitled to a recompense ; at the same time it was not the interest of the Lord to sever their connexion, and to allow him to become independent; pro bably that was as little the desire of the vassal himself; he was conveniently and appropriately rewarded therefore by a fief; that is, by a loan of land, the profits of which were left to him as entirely as if he had obtained the ownership of the land, but his precarious and revocable tenure of which, at the same time, kept him bound to his lord in the same de pendence as before.