rise, for the profit of the suzerain, to a right, either for redemption or indemnity, at each change.

Accordingly, from the tenth century, the suzerain might in France either resume the fief, by paying its value to the possessor, or exact a certain sum from the purchaser, generally equal to a year's rent. This right, known under the names of placitum, rachatum, reaccapitum, &c., was subject to many variations, and was manifested under numerous forms, the study of which has no political importance.

3. Forfeiture (forisfactura, putting-out, forfeiture,) was likewise a right and a source of revenue for the suzerain. When the vassal failed in any of his principal feudal duties, he incurred forfeiture, that is to say, he lost his fief, either for a limited time, or for life, or even for ever. The avidity of the suzerain laboured incessantly to multiply the cases of forfeiture, and to get it pronounced contrary to all justice; but it was not the less a legal penalty, the chief legal pensity of the feudal code, and a principle universally admitted in feudalism.

4. The right of wardship, or of garde-noble, must also be included among the prerogatives of the suzerain. During the minority of his vassal, he took the guardianship, the administration of the fief, and enjoyed the revenue. This right has never been generally admitted into French feudalism; it existed in Normandy and in some other provinces.

Elsewhere, in the case of the minority of the possessor of fief, the administration of his fief was remitted to the nearest heir, and the care of his person to that of the relation who could not inherit from him. This last custom was doubtless

much more favourable to the minor. Still the guardianship of the suzerain was more frequent in France than Mr. Hallam appears to suppose in his View of the State of Europe in the Middle Ages.

5. The suzerain had also the right of marriage (maritagium), that is to say, the right of offering a husband to the heiress of a fief, and of obliging her to choose among those whom he offered her. The obligation of military service, an obligation of which a woman could not acquit herself, was the source of this right. The following are the terms in which the Assises de Jerusalem consecrate it:

1 Vol. i. p. 190. London, 1819.

"When the seigneur desires to summon, as he is entitled to do, a woman who holds an estate of him which owes him body service, to take a husband, he must present to her three men of suitable condition, in this way; he must send three of his men, one to represent himself, and two to represent his court, and the one who represents him, must say to her: 'Madam, on the part of my lord so and so, I offer to your choice three men,' naming them--' and call upon you, on the part of my lord, by such a day,' naming the day, 'to have taken one of these three for your husband,' and this he saith three times."

The woman could only escape accepting one of the husbands offered her, by paying to the suzerain a sum equal to that which they had offered him to have her as a wife; for he who desired the hand of the inheritor of a fief, thus bought it of the suzerain.

Mr. Hallam thinks that this right has never been in use in France; this is an error. The right of marriage was so prevalent in French feudalism, that in the duchy of Burgundy, for example, and in the fourteenth century, not only did the duke of Burgundy thus marry the minor daughters of his vassals, but he extended his power even to the daugh ters and widows of merchants, coloni, or rich citizens.3

These were the principal prerogatives introduced by custom, for the benefit of the suzerains. Violence and usurpation had often contributed to their origin, and were mixed still oftener with their exercise Still, upon the whole, they were tolerably conformable with the nature of the feudal relation, with its fundamental principles; accordingly they were generally accepted. I might follow these up by the enumeration of many other rights which the suzerains often claimed and possessed over their vassals; but they would contribute nothing to the just idea of their relations, and those of which I have just spoken are the only really general and important ones.

When once he had acquitted himself of these various obligations towards his lord, the vassal owed him nothing more, and enjoyed an entire independence in his fief; there he 'Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242.

* State of Europe in the Middle Ages, vol. i. p. 191.

Mémoires de Jacques Duclercq, 1. iii. c. 6, in the Collection des M moires relatifs a l'Histoire de France, 1. ix. p. 417.

alone gave laws to the inhabitants, administered justice to them, imposed taxes, &c., and himself was subject to none but of his own free will. Everything leads me to suppose that, in origin and principle, the right of coining money belonged to the possessor of the fief as well as to his suzerain. It is true, this right was doubtless only exercised by the possessors of considerable fiefs, and it was not long before it was vested in them alone; but in principle, and, saving the feudal duties, the equality of rights between the vassal and the suzerain, in the interior of domains, appears to me complete.

And not only was the independence of the vassal who had fulfilled his feudal duties complete, but he also had rights over his suzerain, and the reciprocity between them was real. The lord was bound not only to do no wrong to his vassal, but to protect, to maintain him, towards and against all in possession of his fief, and all its rights. We read in the Coutume de Beauvaisis:

"We say, and it is according to our custom, that as the man owes faith and loyalty to his seigneur by reason of his homage, the seigneur owes the same to his man. Yet in thus saying that the seigneur owes as much faith and loyalty to his man as the man to his seigneur, it is not to be understood that the man is not bound to much obedience and many services which the seigneur does not owe to his men, for the man is bound to attend the summons of his seigneur, and to execute his judgments, and to obey his reasonable commands, and serve him as I have before said. And in all these things the seigneur is not bound to his man. But the faith and loyalty of the seigneur to his man should extend to this; that the seigneur take care that no one do his man wrong, and that he treat him debonairly and justly, and that he so guard and defend him to the utmost of his power that no one do him injury. And in this manner the seigneur may keep faith towards his man, and the man towards his seigneur."

We are now acquainted with the relations between vassals and their suzerain; I have just placed before you the system of their reciprocal rights and duties. This, however, is but

Beaumanoir, c. 61, p. 311.

a first portion of the feudal society. To understand it in its whole, it remains for us to examine-1. What relations the vassals of one sovereign had among themselves. 2. What guarantees presided over the relations both of the vassals among themselves, and between the suzerain and the vassalf that is to say, how, in fact, their reciprocal rights and duties were secured. This will be the subject of our next lecture.

TENTH LECTURE

Continuation of the view of the organization of the feudal society-Relations which the vassals of the same suzerain had among themselves— Political guarantees of the feudal society-In what political guarantees generally consist-Disputes among vassals-Disputes between a vassal and his suzerain-Feudal courts, and judgment by peers-Means of securing the execution of judgments-Inefficiency of feudal guarantees -Necessity under which each possessor of a fief was placed of protecting and doing justice to himself-True cause of the extension and long duration of the judicial combat and of private wars.

In order to give a clear idea of the relations of the possessors of fiefs among themselves, I have extricated those relations from every foreign element, from every complex fact; I have presented them under their most simple form; I have reduced feudal society to a suzerain surrounded by a certain number of vassals, possessors of fiefs, of the same nature, of the same rank. I have shown what relations were formed between the chief and the members of this little society, what principles presided over their formation, what obligations resulted from them. We have thus arrived at a clear and complete view of the system of reciprocal rights and duties of the vassals and of the suzerain. Let us in the present lecture first Occupy ourselves with the relations which the vassals of one suzerain had between themselves. This is evidently the second element of that limited and simple association to which we have confined ourselves.

The vassals of one suzerain established around him, upon the same territory, invested with fiefs of the same rank, were designated in the middle ages by a word which has remained in the language of modern times-by the word pares, peers. I know no other word from the tenth to the fourteenth