Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 5).

Date:: 1830-33

Credit: Encyclopaedia Americana: a popular dictionary of arts, sciences, literature, history, politics and biography, brought down to the present time : including a copious collection of original articles in American biography : on the basis of the seventh edition of the German Conversations-Lexicon (Volume 5). Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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immediate abbots constituted the second; the lay-princes, dukes, landgraves, mar- graves, and immediate counts, the third; those barons, or rich landed proprietors, who owed fealty to no one, but yet, on account of their limited riglits or posses- sions, were the vassals of the emperor, the fourth ; those freemen who stood in the same relation to the princes, the fifth; the vassals of the former and the servants of the i)rinces, the sixth ; and the possessors of small fiefs, the seventh. This arrange- ment corresponds to the Italian division into principes, capitanei, valvasores inajores, valvasores minores, valvasini and soldcdi; the English into lords, esquires and free- holders ; the Spanish grandees {ricos hom- bres, rich men), escuderos, hidalgos; and the Frencli pairs, barons, ecuyers and val- vasseurs. The title ecuyers, escuderos, es- quires, however, belongs rai her to chival- ry, (q. V.) Besides these ranks, after some centuries, the order of citizens was formed, as being included under no one of tliein. The spirit of the feudal system, grounded on the prevalence of landed ])roperty, was necessarily foreign to cities, which owed their origin to industry and personal property, and founded thereon a new soit of power. Hence we see them almost always involved in open hostilities and contests with the nobility. The prin- ciples of die feudal laivs (the name given to the system of rights and obligations existing between feudal lords and vassals) were developed and established by the Lombard lawyers of the 12th century. The collection of feudal laws and customs, which is appended to the Roman code under the title of libri feudorum (fiefs are called feiula, in opposition to allodia, originally, estates gained by lot; feudum is from the ancient fe, a reward, and ode, a possession), has become the code of feu- dal law over half of Europe. In the north of Germany, Denmark, Prussia, Poland, &c., the old German feudal code still obtains, which differs from the Lom- bard code chiefly in not acknowledging the right of collateral relations, as such, to succeed to a fief; and in grounding the right of feudal succession, not on descent ti-om the first jjossessor of die fief, but only on community of possession ; so that divisions destroyed t'ae right of inherit- ance. In place of this community, simi- lar force has been given, since the 12th century, Mn tlie above-mentioned coun- ti'ies, to a merely fonnal union, instituted in the first investiture, and preserved and renewed in all cases of division or death Joint investiture). The feudal goveru- ' 9* ment, at a period when a spirit of inde- pendence and of opposition to despotism was abroad in the land, was well suited to put into the hands of one governor, as supreme feudal lord, the reins of the na- tional power, to be employed against foreign enemies without endangering do- mestic freedom. But as every humau institution bears in itself the germ of de- cay, the purity and influence of feudal relations was diminished ; and the strength of the national government declined amidst a spirit of disaffection and sedition, which became univei-sal, when nobles began to perceive that the feudal government was not naturally dependent on kings, but kings on it. Indeed, the sovereigns had no other security for their subjection than the feudal oath, and the menaces of pun- ishment, which the khig had not the abiU- ty to carry into effect, as his power was divided in most of his states, eitiier by investiture or by the usurpations of the princes. Thus the vassals of the crown in Germany, Italy, and the oldest districts of France, succeeded in depriving the king of almost all power, even of the ex- ternal honor of royalty; and never, in the two first countries, and in France only after the extinction oif the great baronial families, could he succeed in establish- ing a new authority, independent of the feudal power; while the Britons alone, from the disputes of the kings and the vassals, have been able to establish their present government, with an equal regard to the |)rivileges of both. As tJie im- proveuients in the art of war had brought about a total change in modern times, and the feudal militia had been entirely su- })crseded by tiie standing armies, the feudal government had no means of re- taining its authority, but by die feudal services of a civil character. The feudal sj'steiu is a relic of the past, too useless and inconvenient, and too much opjwsed to the princi])les of the modem laws of equality to be any longer maintained. Feudal service is no longer demanded, be- cause it has ceased to be useful. It has, been, and still is, the great 'task of the present age in Europe, to overthrow the feudal system—an order of things which grew out of times of barbarity and dis- order, and rested on principles and cir- cumstances which no longer exist. Yet there are, particularly among the Germans, visionjiry men, who, seduced by the glow- ing descrii)tions of old ballads, or the fine structure of a Gothic cathedral, tell us, that the feudal times were the very model of an age of honor and religion. It is

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