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Bible Encyclopedias
Fief, Feod, Feud; Feudalism; Feudal System
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
or These terms relate to the peculiar organization of society in Western Europe during the Middle Ages, and specifically to institutions affecting real estate more profoundly than it has ever been affected by any others - institutions whose influence is still manifest in the language, doctrines, and procedure of law throughout Christendom.
A fief, feod, feud, or fee is-an estate-and, primarily, an estate in land-held of a superior on condition of the faithful discharge of prescribed services, chiefly military. Feudalism denotes the essential character of the organization founded on the basis of such estates, and is frequently employed in a concrete sense -to signify the organization itself and its accompaniments. The Feudal System is the name given to this organization, or to that body of institutions, political and social, established upon the military tenure of land which characterized the rising kingdoms of modern Europe. In the period of its incipient growth, in its maturity, and in its decline, the feudal system, like all other political arrangements, assumed diverse aspects, and assimilated to itself other coincident tendencies, but its identity may be discerned through all its manifold transformations. Its existence has been distributed by Sir Thomas Craig into four periods: I. From the barbarian invasions of the Roman empire to the' reunion of the Frank" monarchy under Dagobert I in 628; II. To the restoration of the Western empire in-the person of Charlemagne in 800; III. To the accession of the Capetian dynasty in France, and of the Franconian line in Germany; IV. From the commencement of the 11th century to the gradual extinction of the polity at different times and in different degrees, in different countries. This division has not been universally accepted, and is open to many objections, but it may be of service. The culminating era of feudalism may be assigned to the times of the first crusade, and to the early ages of chivalry which constituted its bloom and expedited its decay.
An examination of the principles and phenomena of the feudal system will furnish all necessary information in regard to the other terms included in this title so far as these illustrate the religious, moral, and social aspect of Europe during the period over which feudalism extends.
Under the feudal system the whole order of society rested directly on the tenure of land by military service. Territorial possessions were granted by the suzerain, or supreme lord, in consideration of prompt and gratuitous service in war, and participation in his deliberative and judicial courts. Lands were held of the principal lords, or tenants in capite, by the lesser barons, by similar: obligations. By the like service, lands were held by vavassors, knights, and squires. Even the lowest tenure of all, the peculiarly English tenure of socage, frank and villein, was of an analogous character, and secured the cultivation of the lord's domain, and the maintenance of himself, his family, and his retainers, in war and in peace. The system was strictly military in its nature-a uniform organization from the crown to the lowest landholder, establishing a regularly appointed army in scattered strongholds through every part of the country, to insure the support of the whole body politic in arms for the repression of domestic insurrection: and the repulsion of foreign at, tack.
Though such was the feudal system in its definite constitution, it did not, of course, begin in this closely articulated and rigorous form. It assumes much of this aspect even in the Lombard occupancy of Northern Italy in the 6th century; and its general outline may be imperfectly distinguished in the Ostrogothic kingdom of Theodoric (Sartorius, Peuples d' Italie sous les Goths, v, 61). But it had a simpler commencement, and both expanded and modified itself with the changing necessities of, successive generations. It is in its rudimentary types, however, that its essential principles, and its singular adaptation to urgent contemporary needs, can be best detected. Inattention to its humbler beginnings has occasioned numerous controversies with regard to its origin, and rendered the information, accessible on the subject often perplexed, contradictory, and uninstructive.
The vital germ of feudalism is contained in the act of homage-homagium, hominium, hominagium, hominaticum, hominiscum, etc.-the solemn formula by. which a dependent professed himself the man and faithful adherent of a superior, originally of his own selection, and always theoretically so ("Integram et perfectam in se continet fidelitatem," Libri Feudorum ii, vii). The liegeman knelt down, placed his hands between the hands of his intended chief, and took upon himself the obligation of absolute fidelity in certain prescribed relations, so long as his superior performed the corresponding duties: of protection and support. The. con- tract was sealed with a kiss, and confirmed with the sanctions of religion (Galbert, Vie de Charles-le-Bon, de Flandres, ch. eii; Guizot, Mem. pour servir, etc., 7:339-40). The profession of fidelity was ultimately expressed by the following declaration in the presence of the baronial court: " Devenio homo vester de tenemento quod de vobis teneo, et fidem vobis portabo contra omnes gentes, salva fide debita Domino Regi et haeredibus suis" (Bracton, ii, xxxv 8; Libb. Feud.- ii, x). With this declaration should certainly be compared the statement of Procopius in regard to the ancient usage under the Roman empire (De Bello Vandal. ii, 18:vol. i, p. 491).
Homage, then, was the pledge of true and loyal service to a superior-liege faith and liege obedience -given in consideration of defence and maintenance promised by the baron (man, par excellence baronem ingenuum," a free man, Lex Salic. xxxi; see Du Cange, Gloss. Med. et Inf. Latin. tit. Baro, who omits in his classical authorities for the word, Petron. Satyr. liii). One man voluntarily became the man of another, and that other became the chief, leader, adviser, patron, and protector of his homager. The vassal originally had, and long retained, the right of formally renouncing the reciprocal obligations contracted by the process of diffidatio, or defiance. By carrying this relation of perfect trust and faithful dependence through all gradations of society till it reached the head of the tribe or nation, the whole feudal hierarchy was: constructed, and all the members of the associated body were linked together in strict military union and subordination.
The principal object of this close correlation of the constituents of society was to maintain the population in a constant state of preparation for war, "with its captains over tens, and its captains over fifties, and its .captains over hundreds, and its captains over thousands." For this purpose the lord granted to his liegeman a definite quantity of land, to be held on condition of rendering a definite amount of service in the wars and other affairs of his chief. In this way, every man within the feudal circle was professed the faithful follower of some lord - except the chief lord of all - the suzerain; and every piece of land was held in fee of some feudal superior. Hence arose the doctrine that the eminent domain of the whole realm belonged to the king, and that all honor, authority, and ownership of the soil descended from him. Hence, too, the maxim of the English law, nulla terra sine domino-no estate in land without its lord. But these deductions were not drawn by the companions of Ataulph the Visigoth, of Clovis the Frank, or of Alboin the Lombard.
The principle of homage and thee principle of' the military tenure of hand are not necessarily though they are usually connected. They have existed separately, but they coalesced in the Middle Ages, and engendered by their conjunction what is so familiar under the name of the Feudal System.
When society was disintegrated by internal discord, misery, and both civil and foreign war; when it was constantly assailed by new hordes of barbarians; when life, and property', the fruits of industry and tranquillity, were continually imperilled by the hazards of the times, the weakness of the government, and the exactions of imperial officials; when there was no longer any faith between man and man, any honesty of dealing, any security or protection against violent or insidious attacks (all which phenomena characterized the declining age of the Western empire and the ensuing centuries; Lactant. Div. Inst. 7:xv; Salvian. De Gubernat. Dei, 4:v- vi, et passim), the social ties' which bind men together snapped like flax in the fire, and the' social organism rotted into incoherent atoms, which were totally deprived of old mutual attractions, and of capacity for continued combination in the ancient forms. In order that men might live together - and together they must live in order to live at all in such times-it was necessary to provide mutual support against aggression, and to establish entire fidelity at least between individual men, so that conjoint resistance might be obtained by reliance on reciprocal support. These wants were satisfied by the feudal relation, which, commencing with the elements of society' reunited them, separately man to man, under pledges of mutual trust, fidelity, and dependence. It provided also for the defence of the soil and the fruits of the soil, nearly the sole productions of such disordered times, by resisting any attack upon the community or its members (Salvian. Ibid. v, viii). Feudalism thus supplied the means of reconstructing society from its very foundations, and of restoring coherence and some degree of security to distracted and dissociated populations. Of course, the scheme was cradled in weakness and imperfection, and grew, through many changes-of feature and fluctuations of fortune, into perfect symetry of form. Of course, long and anxious generations were required to permit the confluence, and full development of arrangements at first local and, obscure. And of course, too, the scheme expanded and became more systematic among an intrusive band of foreign warriors, settled in the midst of a larger and more intelligent population, and menaced from without by new intruders, and it developed itself still further and more predominantly as new -necessities, new temptations, and new opportunities arose.
This organization of society with the corresponding tenure of land, is so essential to the maintenance of any degree of social order or public safety in certain conditions of society, that it has presented itself, in some form or other, in analogous circumstances, in widely separated ages and countries. So frequent and so striking is this recurrence, that it suggested to Sir Walter Scott in 1789 an essay, in which he undertook to prove that the feudal system "proceeds upon principles common to all nations when- placed-in a certain situation." Sir Walter s-as delighted is his old age by finding this view illustrated and enforced in colonel Tod's History of Rajahstan (Lockhart, Life of Scott, ch. vi). It contains a considerable amount of truth, but is far from expressing the whole truth.
There are distinct indications of something very like feudalism in ancient Egypt. Approximations to it are found in the early history of China, India, and Persia. Analogies of the same sort may be discovered among the Jews in their early occupation of the Holy Land They' may be suspected in the Spartan constitution; they are very evident in the institutions of Macedon. The principles of feudalism are involved in Plato's ideal state (De Legg.). Time relation of patron and client at Rome was essentially feudal. A semi- feudal organization was adopted by the Saracens in Spain, -and exhibited by the Timariots, or mounted militia, among the Ottoman Turks. It may still be detected among the warlike tribes of Afghanistan, and among the Mongolian tributaries of the Chinese empire. Humboldt recognised it among the Guanches of Teneriffe, and among some of the South-Sea Islanders (Personal Narrative, ch. ii). Other instances might be noted. All show how some arrangement of the kind is inspired or necessitated by appropriate social requirements; they explain the facility with which feudalism was adopted, and its vitality when adopted; but they do not interpret its special forms in mediaeval Europe, nor supply any testimony to the historical origin of the feudal system.
In regard to this origin a wide divergence of opinion has existed. Montesquieu, Guizot, and the generality of recent writers refer feudalism to the voluntary followers and companions-comites-of the Germanic chieftains, who invaded the Roman empire in the 5th and succeeding centuries; but it was never found among those Northern races in their original abodes. Some juridical antiquaries of the 16th century traced it to the patronatus and clientelae of ancient Rome; but these resembled much more nearly the clans of the Scotch Highlands and the septs of Ireland. The better opinion appears to be that the principles and general framework of the system were of later Roman origin, whatever modifications and developments they may have received in the Teutonic kingdoms. This is the view espoused by Franciscus Balduinus (ad Leges Romuli, apud Heineccii Jurispr. Rom. et Att. i, 50), the profound but inconstant jurist of the 16th century. It was entertained by his rival, the greater jurist Cujacius, and favored by Camden in his Britannia and by Du Cange in his wondrous Latin Glossary. It has been reaffirmed, with suitable rectifications, by Sir Francis Palgrave, Lehuerou, Ozanam, and a few recent students of mediaeval archaeology. This view does not conflict with the distinct acknowledgment of Teutonic influences in animating, sustaining, and moulding the feudal elements.
It is impossible to introduce here either the arguments or the evidences by which this conclusion may he confirmed; but it is scarcely necessary to do more then examine the titles Beneficiarius, Emphyteusis, Milites Limitanei, Leati, Culoni, Adscriptitii, Inquilini, in the Corpus Juris Civilis, and the same titles. with the addition of Commendatio, Feudum and its - derivatives, in Du Cange, in order to be assured of its substantial correctness. It may be expedient to corroborate this position by citing the earliest distinct notice in a Latin author of such an organization: "Sola quae, de hostibus capta sunt, limitaneis ducibus et militibus donavit, ita ut eorum ita essent, si heredes illorum militarent, nec unquam ad privatos pertinerent; dicens, attentius eos militarent, si etiam sua rura defenderunt" (Lamprid. Alex. Severus, c. lviii; Cod. Theod. vii,- Xv, ii; Novell. Theod. xxxiv; Cod. Just. xi:lx [lix], 3; Bocking, Notit. Dign. i, 292; ii, 1068*). -To this may be added a significant exposition of the manner in which like arrangements sprung up in the interior of the Roman empire... "Tradunt se ad tuendum protogendumque majoribus, dedititios se divitum faciunt, et quasi in jus eorum ditionemque transcendunt: nec tamen grave hoc aut indignum abitrarer, immo potius gratularer hanc potentum magnitudinem quibus se pauperes dedunt; sipatrocinia ista nsan venderens si quod se humiles dicunt defensare, humanitati tribuerent, non cupiditati" (Salvianus, De Gubernat. Dei, .v. viii). The class technically designated dedititi ultimately. merged into serfdom, it is true, but only by Justinian's edict of 530 (Cod. 7:v); and the term is plainly. metaphorical in Salvian.
Wherever the Teutonic hordes passed the frontiers of the Roman empire, they found the presence or the memory of the Milites Limitanei, whose constitution, traceable beyond the reign of Augustus, accorded with all the essential characteristics of undeveloped feudalism. These military borderers were, indeed, of kindred blood and race, and when they were supplanted or overlaid by new tribes, the institutions were retained, which had been designed as a protection against incursion. This was only the observance of the habitual policy of thee barbarians in regard to the Roman civilization.
As has been already observed, the feudal scheme, like all other imperial forms, was contracted or extended, weakened or strengthened, according to the changes of fortune and social condition which checkered the agitated and anxious periods attending the overthrow of the Western empire. At times it was as much disguised and obscured, as largely recompounded with Teutonic associations, as was the, ever-subsisting Roman jurisprudence during, the same ages. But it survived in spirit and in outline, ready always to multiply its ramifications, and to attain such proportions as contemporaneous necessities might induce. It is thus that its existence and operation so frequently elude regard during the earlier centuries of its growth, and that its origin is so often referred to the late era when it became predominant and universal as the sole corrective of returning anarchy under the feeble successors of Charlemagne.
It is impracticable, within the space at command, to recount and explain the successive transformations of feudalism which culminated in the perfect type of the feudal system in the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries. Its development accompanied and was due to the progressive dissolution and increasing inaptitude of the complex administrative organization of imperial Rome. A distinction of ages and a contradistinction of institutions have been suspected in the succession of the terms munera, beneficia, and feuda; and feudalism has been restricted to the period when the last of these designations prevailed. Munera is supposed to represent estates at will; beneficia, estates for life; and feuda, estates of inheritance. It has been assumed that feudalism could not properly be said to exist until benefices became hereditary. But the essence of feudalism does not reside in the duration of the estate but in the nature, and especially in the obligation of the tenure. Moreover, the contrasted terms may be in some measure concurrent with, but they do not denote, such diversities of duration. Munera is a generic term applied to all honors, dignities, offices, and donations. There was no such clear line of demarcation, in meaning or in time, as Montesquieu and others imagine, between estates for life and estates heritable. Such precision was entirely foreign to the habits and the dispositions of those troubled but practical ages. Life estates were conceded in Germany as late as 1378. The commencement of hereditary feuds is often referred to Hugh Capet, in 947. Montesquieu assigns it to the reign of Charles the Bald, in 877. But such tenures are found under Louis le Debonnaire in 814; and in the form of beneficia they were customary under the Roman empire. Estates in perpetuity are mentioned under the name of beneficia as early as 759 (Ratpert, Casus S. Galli, § 2, apud Pertz, Mon. Germ. Hist. ii, 63; comp. S. Anskarii Vita S. Willehadi, § 8; Ibid. p. 382). But, in order to ascribe a purely Germanic origin to feuds, beneficia and feuda have been represented as diverse institutions. They are used as convertible terms throughout the Book of Feuds. " Feudum idem cum beneficia,"' says Du Cange (s.v., p. 258, cal.). King Alfonso the Wise, of Castile, declares in Las Siete Partidas: "Feudo es benefecio que da el senor a algun home, porque se torna su vasallo, et le fece homenage de serle leal. E tomo este nombre de fe que debe siempre guardar el vasallo al senor." The term fuedum is a barbarous, and probably hybrid compound, whose first employment Hallam assigns to a constitution of Robert I of France in 1008, though: it is found in a constitution; of somewhat doubtful authenticity, of Charles the Fat, in 884. Were there no fiefs antecedent to the introduction of this name? If there were, then beneficia are fiefs. If there were not, then fiefs are the same things as beneficia. The confusion has proceeded from the fantastic derivation of Feod, from the supposed Teutonic word Fe, represented by the Anglo-Saxon Fea, Feoh, fee, and the Scandinavian od, odh, property. Unfortunately, feudalism was a late and very partial innovation among both Anglo-Saxans and Scandinavians, while the term Feudum springs up along the Rhine; and the Anglo-Saxon Feoh is congenerous to the Latin pecus-pecorris if not borrowed from it. The fe in Fe-od, the Spanish and Provencal fe, the modern French foi, the Scotch feu, are apparently nothing but contractions of the Latin fide or Italian fede. "Feudum, credo, a fide, quia vox ex Italia in Gersaniasm venit. Et ante saeculum xii feuda in Germania et apud omnes Francos beneficia appellabantur" (Leibnitz, Collect. Etymolog. Opp. ed. Dutens, tom. 6:Pt. ii, pa 58, 59). " Nulla autem investitura debet ei fieri, gui fidelitatem facere recusat, qeum a fidelitate feudum dicatur vel a fide" (Libb. Feud. ii, iii, 3; compare vii). This derivation of the term Feod is, singularly corroborated by the use of the word "truage" in Sir Thomas Malory's Morte d'Artur: "And thus Sir Marhans every day sent unto king Marke for to pay the truage which was behind of seven years, or else to find a knight to fight with him for the truage" (pt. ii, ch. 4:Romance of Sir Tristrem).
It is indubitable that feudal tenures long existed in the midst of Roman fundi and possessiones, and of Germanic allodial estates; it is also unquestionable that these were gradually absorbed or transmuted into feudal tenements, for the conversion of allodial into feudal holdings is illustrated by ample documentary evidence; and it is also certain that this feudalization of the land was not completed till the times when the word- feuda comes into use. But this will not justify the juridical distinctions which have been proposed, nor sanction the alleged derivation of Feod, nor sustain the Germanic origination of the tenure. The designation of Feod may well leave been devised as a counterpart to allodh; but the generally received etymology of allodh is very unreliable, and strong arguments may be adduced for referring it to the same source as the common English word lot. This question, however, cannot be examined here. (Compare Kemble, The Saxons in England, bk. i, ch 4:vol. i, p. 90, 91, with Procopius, De Bell. Vandal. i, v, in regard to the κλῆροι Βανδίλων .)
In the 10th and 11th centuries the feudal system acquired its widest extension, assumed its full, symmetrical form, and engrossed nearly all the functions of government, judicature, police, war, and industrial organization. It constrained and overshadowed the attenuated framework of the Roman administrative constitution (which, however, coexisted with it), and adapted itself to it by making the king the feudal suzerain of the nation the emperor, the supreme temporal head of Christendom. Everything accepted a feudal complexion and a feudal structure "nothing but did suffer a sea-change." The process of government, the public revenue, the offices of state, the modes of jurisdiction, the command in war, the ecclesiastical constitution, the municipal arrangements, the guilds and corporations of arts and trades, the occupations of rural, mining, and other industry, were all feudalized. Everything rested on homage, fealty, and the military tenure of land, or was assimilated to the forms springing from that basis. As in the Russian empire, all office or authority is invested with a military character and designation, so everything under the feudal system adopted a feudal type. To this cause we must attribute the ecclesiastical baronies which arose during the period, and also the priestly warriors, the fighting abbots, and the knightly bishops, who inspire such surprise and disgust during the Middle Ages. The Roman Church, with the pope at its head, was the spiritual empire, rivalling and co-ordinate with the secular empire of Germany, and contending for a loftier supremacy. The ecclesiastical organization became baronial and feudal throughout all its provinces and dioceses, as the counterpart and counterpoise of the feudal kingdoms, and duchies, and counties, under the acknowledged but disregarded suzerainty of the holy Roman empire. No other scheme, no idea inconsistent with the prevailing scheme, could be entertained among populations saturated with feudalism, and environed with its universal atmosphere. How thoroughly the Church had accepted the general feudalization is shown by an allocution of pope Innocent II to the Lateran Council, April 20, 1139: "The pontifical throne is the source of all ecclesiastical authority and dignity; so that every such office or dignity is to be received at the hands of the Roman pontiff as a feoff of the Holy See, without which enfeoffment no such office can be lawfully exercised or enjoyed" (quoted by Greenwood, Cathedra Petri, bk. 12:ch. i).
By this process, infinitely diversified, though ever essentially the same, society was slowly reconstructed and re-edified through long generations of anarchy, wretchedness, and foreign peril from new swarms of ruthless assailants. The elements and forces of a new civilization were thus collected and harmonized, and were recombined into a uniform and coherent system on. the simple basis of fidelity -between man-and man. Ancient paganism had died out, and universal scepticism had supervened before the new religious faith which was to regenerate the world had been accepted by minds still largely tainted with heathenism. All human trust had been betrayed and dissipated; all social ligaments had been corroded or ruptured; all dependence upon government, law, and public force had been deceived and outraged; and yet - consentaneously with the introduction of a new religious creed, and of fresh races to maintain that creed (Salvian. De Gubernat. Dei; Augustine,- Civitas Dei) - the seeds of a renovated social union were sprouting in the dust and ashes of the dissolving empire, and grew up in the midst of violence and disorder:
"Per damna, per Cae les, ab ipso Ducit opes animumque ferro."
This new growth, from its earliest development, protected life and property, rendered industry possible once more, sustained or revived languishing hope, defended the shattered relics of the old civilization from the ruin of interminable swarms of ever increasing barbarians, disciplined communities in habits of obedience and order, renewed the culture of the soil, reorganized the nations, and inaugurated a new series of the ages by introducing loyal faith between lord and vassal, and the honorable protection of the weak by the powerful. The political renovation thus ran parallel with the spiritual transmutation, deriving life and encouragement from it even when resisting its influence, and confirming its dominion even while contaminating its morality by the infection of worldly interests and passions. Though the feudal order never realized in practice the ideal which its function suggests - what human institution has ever done this though sore blemishes at all times stained its actual manifestations, yet the strong but rare eulogies bestowed upon it are fully justified by the inestimable services' which it rendered to the nations during the millennial agony of humanity. High, indeed, must be the merits which provoke a concert of praise from such antipodes as Montesquieu and De Maistre, and make the former proclaim his conviction that '"the feudal system was the best- constituted government that ever existed upon earth;" and the latter declare that "feudalism was the most perfect institution that the universe has seen." The criminations which have been so bitterly, and not altogether unjustly, directed against the feudal spirit, are applicable to its decline, when it had rendered its incomparable service to mankind, and had become an embarrassment and a tyranny amid the enlarging industry, the augmented intelligence, and the ampler aspirations which its long duration had cherished and trained.
Montesquieu boasted of closing his discussion of feudalism where others commenced, yet he mistook or overlooked its true antecedents and characteristics. From this notice nearly everything has been excluded which is repeated in familiar or accessible authors; nor has the associated topic of serfs and serfdom been noticed, as it presents an occasion for extended and independent consideration.
From Blackstone, Robertson, Hallam, etc., may be learned the habitual organization of nations during the maturity of the feudal system. From authors of a like character may be pleasantly ascertained the romantic and other aspects of those memorable developments of feudalism, the Crusades and Chivalry-" a gilded halo hovering round decay." — From similar sources may be drawn all needful information in regard to the various species of feuds or fees, and to what are called feudal incidents. These incidents attached to every fief, and consisted of, 1. Reliefs; 2. Fines on alienation; 3. Escheats; 4. Aids; 5. Wardship; 6. Marriage (Hallam, Hist. Middle Ages, ch. ii, pt. i; Blackstone, Comm. bk. ii, ch. v; Robert (du Var), Hist. de la Class Ouvriere, liv. 4:ch. vi; liv. v, ch. i-iv). These servitia, or burdens, varied somewhat at different times and in different countries; they were incidental rather than essential to feudalism, and most of them accompanied the early Roman clientela. Their exposition, therefore, is not indispensable in a summary appreciation of the general characteristics and operation of the feudal system.
Authorities. — To give a list of authorities for such topics as Fief, Feudalism, Feudal System, would require the enumeration of volumes sufficient for an extensive library. It may suffice to note here some of the principal works connected with the subject, a few of which have been already referred to, and most of which have never been seen by the writer:- -Codex Theodosianus (ed. Gothofredus); Corpus Juris Civilis (ed. Gothofredus); Basilica (ed. Heimbach); Baluzii Capitularia - a more complete and satisfactory edition is found in Pertz, Monumenta Hist. Germ.; Libri -Feudorum, cum commentatione J. Cujacii; Foucher, Assizes de Jerusalem; Beugnotm Assizes de Jerusalen (very instructive extracts from this text are given in Cantu, Hist. Universelle, vol: 9:append. A); Lespeyres, Entstehung u. ilteste Bearbeitung der Libb. Feudorum; Marculfi Formulare; Beaumanoir, Coustumes de Beauvosiis; Houard, Coutumes Anglo-Normandes; Loysel, Institutions Coutunieres; Alteserra, Origines Feudorum; Caravita, Prselectiones Feodales; Cragius, De Fcudis; Dalrytmple, History of Feudal Property; Boehmer, Principia Juris Feudorum; Salvaing, L' Usage des Fiefs; Brussel, Usage General des Fiefs; Jenichen; Thesaua us Juris Feudalis; Turgole, Traite de la Seigneurie Faodale Universelle, Guyot, Des Fiefs; Institutions Feudales; Winspeare, Abusi Feudali; Gebauer, Origines Feodi; Le Fevre, De l'Origine des Firfs; De Gaillardon, Scenes de la Vie Flodale au xiii Siecle; Gallafid, Traite du Franc-Alieu; La Boulaye, Hist. du Dro;t Fancier en Occident; Lehuerou, Institutions Mironingiennes et Carolingieznnes; Bocking, Notitia Dignitatum Utriusque Imperii; Meyer, Esprit, Origine, et Progres des Institutions Judiciaires; Allen, On the Royal Prerogative; Spence, Inquiry into the Origin of the Laws and Institutions of Modern Europe, Equitable Jurisprudence of the Court of Chancery, vol. ii Savigny, Hist. du Droit Romain; Mortreuil, Hist. du Droit Byzanti,; Du Cange, Glossarium Med. et Inf. Latinitatis; Du Bos, Hist. Crit. de la Monarchie Francaise; Boulainvilliers, Mem. Hist. sur l'Etat de Franc; Mablv, Observations sur l'Histoire de France; Mademoiselle De Lezardiere, Theorie des lois politiques de la Monarchie Francaise; Montlosier, Deuteronomy 1 a. Monarchie Francaise; Montesquieu, Esprit des Lois, liv. 30, 31; Guizot, Hist. de la Civilisation en Europe; Hist. de, la Civ. en France; Ozanam, La Civilisation au Cinquieme Siecle; Etudtes Germaniques; Blackstone, Comentaries on the Laws of England; Robertson, Life of the Emperor Charles V; Lyttelton, History of Henry II, King of England; Hallam, History of the Middle Ages; and Supplement; Kemble, The Saxons in England; Palgrave, The English Commonwealth; Hist. of Normandy and England; St. Palayc, Histoire de la Chevalerie; St. Marie, Diss. Hist. sur la Clevalerie. (G. F. H.)
These files are public domain.
McClintock, John. Strong, James. Entry for 'Fief, Feod, Feud; Feudalism; Feudal System'. Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/tce/f/fief-feod-feud-feudalism-feudal-system.html. Harper & Brothers. New York. 1870.
