In the feudal system all land belonged to the King, and his tenants hold it from him on condition of performing certain services. The tenants-in-chief, holding directly from the king, grant lands to lesser men in their turn, making the grant conditional upon services rendered. In return, the lord would protect his tenants against aggression, just as the king protected him. The services demanded of tenants-in-chief would generally be military, those they exacted from their tenants would usually be manual labour on their lord's estate. The difference was one of degree rather than kind.
The system is based on both old Roman and barbarian ideas, each tenant would take an oath of homage to his lord,
promising him the utmost loyalty in whatsoever he should undertake.
Abbots and Bishops were among the most important tenants, it will be seen that the system held the seeds of many
quarrels between Church and State, At its best, feudalism
stood for the protection of the weak in an age when only too often might was right. It inspired, too, a mutual
loyalty between the lord and his man, between the Barons and their King. The evils of the system were, however,
much more apparent than its merits. The Lords held their own judicial courts and meted out what justice they chose;
on their own estates they had almost absolute power.
Even the "missi' sent out by Charlemagne could do little to combat local oppression. Many of the Barons made
private war between themselves, and built themselves strong castles (using the free labour of their wretched tenants)
from which they could defy the King's authority.
A Provençal baron of the twelfth
century sang:
"I, Sirs, am for war,
Peace giveth me pain,
No other creed will hold me again." ( "A History of Europe," I. L Plunket, p. 123. )
There must have been many who agreed with him, to judge by the fierceness and prevalence of local fighting all
over Europe. Even in England, where feudalism was firmly checked by such strong Kings as William I (1O66 - l087)
and Henry II (1159 - 1189), as soon as a weakling sat upon the throne, its worst elements became at once apparent.
Under the mild King Stephen (1135 - 1154) "every rich man built his castles . . . and when the castles were
made they filled them with devils and evil men. Then took they those whom they supposed to have any goods, both
by night and by day, labouring men and women, and threw them into prison for their gold and silver, and inflicted
on them unutterable tortures nor even did heathen men worse than they . ("The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.")
