THE FEUDAL SYSTEM. About the thirteenth century a number of treatises or codifications of feudal law and customs were drawn up, such as that of Beaumanior and other similar Cott t umbers in France, the SachRenspicgcl and Schlrabenspienel in Germany, and the Libri Fey dorum, in Italy. The appearance of these feudal codes, as well as other facts arising from a direct study of institutions, seems to point to the thirteenth century as the culminating period of feudalism, though the course of its development was very different in different countries. From the point of view of landholding, feudalism was most complete in England, due doubtless to the occurrence, just in the constructive period of feudal institutions, of the Norman Conquest with its accompanying eonfiseations and regrants. In dependent political powers were developed most completely in Germany or Italy, hut on the whole feudalism had its most symmetrical development in France, and it is there studied most satis factorily as a complete system.
The base of the whole structure was the fief. A fief was a body of land; it might lie made tip of a large stretch of contiguous territory or of many separate tracts, or it might he a single estate, or even possibly a comparatively small number of acres in a certain manor or township, which a tenant held from his lord On condition of certain 'feudal' services. When the fief was first granted, or when it was obtained by in heritance, or when a new lord sueceeded to the suzerainty, a ceremonial 'investiture' took place according to the traditional forms of the cere mony of fealty and homage. The tenant kneeled before the lord, placed his clasped hands be tween the hands of his lord, and in this attitude swore to be his man and to preserve fidelity to him in all things. The lord accepted the fealty and homage by kissing the tenant and infer entially promising him his protection and patron age, and by conveying to him, frequently by some symbolic action, the fief of which the vassal now became possessor.
The services owed by the tenant were of the following general classes: Military service was the duty of serving his lord in war with a certain number of men for a certain time; accord ing to a widespread custom, once a year and for forty days. So general was this duty that feudal tenure is frequently called military tenure. Court service was the twofold duty of coining when summoned to be a member of a body to decide in eases concerning one of his 'peers' or fellow vassals of the same lord, and of submit ting himself to the jurisdiction of such a court or of his lord. 'Wardship' is the term applied
to the right of the lord to assume the guardian ship of the minor heir of a- deceased tenant and the income from the estate during the minority, with the requirement, however, that the proper support and education of the heir be provided for from the estate. 'Marriage' similarly was the right of the lord to control the choice of a husband for the heiress or the widow of a tenant, and frequently of a wife for the heir. These last two forms of service reduced themselves prac tically to the imposition of a money fee propor tionate to the value of the estate concerned. Military service also was frequently transformed into a money payment. There were other direct money payments, although usually at quite un certain intervals. Of these, 'relief' was a money fee due from an heir on the acquisition of his property. It was very commonly estimated at a sum equal to the value of one year's income of the estate. 'Aids' were payments of an amount settled by custom under three contingencies: (I) to defray the expenses of knighting the lord's eldest son; (2) of the marriage of his daughter; (3) of his ransom in case he were cabtured in war. These were seldom exacted by any feudal lord except the King, and by him only from his direct tenants or tenants-in-ehief; but these in such a ease might call upon their tenants to re imburse them for what they had paid to the King. Finally, 'escheat' and 'forfeiture' were the conditions in which the fief could be taken back by the lord, the former in the ease where there was no heir, the latter in the case where the tenant had failed in the performance of his feudal obligations. 'Sub-infendation' is a term used to describe the grant of a portion of a tenant's holding to another person, to hold from him on similar terms to those on which the first tenant holds from his lord. Generally speaking, all the land of a country was held from the king by a comparatively small number of direct ten ants, known as tenants in (wile, or in chief. Many of these had very large fiefs consisting of a vast number of estates. They granted some jam lions of their holdings, as lesser fiefs, to others, and these a still further portion to others below them, and so on till there were frequently six. eight, or more enemy or 'mean' lords between the actual tenant of n certain estate and the King from whom it was ultimately held. All tenants below' those in (-unit(' were klION•I1 as 'sub-tenants.'