![]() ![]() ![]() Thus the feudal order embraces society from top to bottom, though the "powerful and well-differentiated social group of the urban classes" came to occupy a distinct position to some extent outside the classic feudal hierarchy. The phrase "feudal society" includes within the feudal structure not only the warrior aristocracy bound by vassalage, but also the peasantry bound by manorialism, and the estates of the Church. Concerning the king's feudal court, the prototype of parliament, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. On the manorial level this might be a fairly mundane matter of agricultural policy, but also included the handing down by the lord of sentences for criminal offences, including capital punishment. This involved the vassal providing "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. However, the vassal had another obligation to his lord: attendance at his court, whether manorial, baronial or at the king's court itself in the form of parliament. ![]() This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal was responsible to answer to calls to military service on behalf of the lord. The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was the performance of military service. Once the commendation was complete, the lord and vassal were now in a feudal relationship with agreed-upon mutual obligations to one another. Fealty also refers to an oath which more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage. The word fealty derives from the Latin fidelitas, and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. During homage, the lord and vassal entered a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces, a valuable right in a society without police and with only a rudimentary justice system. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.īefore a lord could grant land to a tenant, he had to make that person a vassal. Below the tenant, further tenants could hold from each other in series. Yet inheritance of land was not unconditional before inheriting, the heir had to pay a suitable feudal relief.īelow the king in the feudal pyramid was a tenant-in-chief (generally in the form of a baron or knight) who was a vassal of the king, and holding from him in turn was a tenant - generally a knight, sometimes a baron, including tenants-in-chief in their capacity as holders of other fiefs. These leases were inheritable from father to son or through other patriarchal lines of transference. All nobles, knights and other tenants, called vassals, merely "held" land on a perpetual lease from the king, who was thus at the top of the "feudal pyramid". Under the English feudal system, the person of the king was the only absolute "owner" of land. ![]()
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