FEUDAL SYSTEM. A fee, feud or fief is a possession, of which the vassal receives the right of use and enjoyment, of disposition and alienation, on condition of fidelity, that is, of affording assistance or counsel, and avoiding all injurious acts, together with the performance of certain services incident to the tenure while the feudal lord still retains a paramount right. A fief is distinguished from allodial possessions by the circumstance that it cannot be alienated without the consent of the feudal lord, by the services usually due from the vassal and by a peculiar kind of inheritance. The system origi nated among the German tribes and the nature of feudal property is explained by its origin. Such was the passion of the ancient Germans for war, that in time of peace private feuds took the place of public contention; and in default of these the .men of military age spent weeks and months and years in adventures and made in cursions into the territory of the neighboring tribes, or took part in the quarrels of the dis tant ones. In the expeditions of particular ad ventures against the adjacent tribes or the Roman provinces, their booty consisted of gar ments, arms, furniture, slaves. But when the northern hordes broke into the south and in the partition of the conquered lands large dis tricts fell into the hands of kings or dukes and their subordinates, they gave certain portions of the territory to their attendants to enjoy the possession for life. These estates were called beneficia or fiefs, because they were only lent to their possessors, to revert after their death to the grantor, who immediately gave them to an other of his servants. From this custom of the ancient Germans arose the feudal system and feudal service, which is purely German. As the son commonly esteemed it his duty, or was forced by necessity, to devote his arm to the lord in whose service his father had lived, he also received his father's fief ; or rather, he was invested with it anew. By the usage of cen turies this custom became a right; and to de prive one of his paternal fief, though it was prohibited by no law, seemed an act of injustice.
This change took place between the 9th and 11th centuries. A fief rendered vacant by the death of the holder was at once taken possession of by his son, on the sole condition cf paying homage to the feudal superior. In the case of ecclesias tical fiefs the right of succession belonged, un der the same condition, to those who succeeded the last holders in their ecclesiastical office. The castle-fiefs, so called, were a peculiar kind of military fiefs, the possessor of which was bound to defend the castle belonging to his lord. The vassal who directed the defense mas called, in the imperial fortresses, a burgrave. Thus the several orders of vassals formed a system of concentric circles, of which each was under the influence of the next, and all moved around a common centre, the king, as the supreme feudal lord. With military vassals another class arose. From the oldest times in the courts of kings and the governors whom they appointed, as well as in those of the bishops, were certain officers who at first performed active service, but were afterward rather a splendid appendage to the court. The four offices of the marshal, the chamberlain, the cup-bearer and the sewer, are the oldest and most honorable, but by no means the only ones; offices, on the contrary, were as numerous as the employments which could be devised at court. These officers, at a period when money was scarce and the old German notion in full vigor which considered none but landed proprietors as citizens and none but the owners of large estates as noble men, were naturally rewarded by grants of land during the time of service; and these es tates, like the military fiefs, but somewhat later, certainly not before the time of Frederick I (1152-90), became by degrees hereditary. The splendor of the court and the advantages ac cruing from these services induced many noble men to solicit them. They became the first in the new class of servants or ministers which was thus formed; and under them there was a multitude of other servants, particularly on the estates of the nobility.