C ON TlIK INl'UKNCK OF TliUDALISM, 



fall, — and that fall, gradual as it was, could not be accomplished 

 without leaving behind it some traces of the system deeply engiaven 

 upon the habits or manners of our people, and stamped in almost 

 every institution of our country. 



The system of feudalism, was a system of gradual subordination 

 and dependance, originating in beneficiary grants of land by the 

 northern conquerors of Europe to their officers and soldiers upon the 

 express condition of protection on the one hand, and service on the 

 other; and that condition with v\l the fruitful incidents of power or 

 convenience, was ultimately ramified in all the relations of life, — and 

 when the Norman Conqueror introduced it fully into England, (for 

 it was not unknown even in the times of the Saxons) his division of 

 the land, excbisive of his royal demesnes, into sixty thousand 

 knights' fees implanted it irrevocably there. 



In this partition William exhibited his usual sagacity, in thereby 

 gratifying and rewarding his companions in conquest, and embodying 

 a militia for the national defence. The creation of the order of 

 the greater barons and other the immediate tenants of the crown, 

 the lesser knights' fees carved by them out of their extensive original 

 grants, and the subinfeudation by these latter among inferior vassals; 

 each tenant as he was called rendering homage, suit and sei-vice to 

 the lord of whom he directly held, who in his turn was under the 

 same conditions to the sovereign as paramount lord, all combined 

 to fonn a gradation of classes mutually dependant on each other for 

 protection and reciprocal semce, but all subservient and under 

 fealty to that sovereign, the creator and head of that compact, the 

 fountain of honour, the protector, leader, and ruler of them all. By 

 the tenns of that compact, the sovereign could summon these his 

 military tenants into the field at a moment's notice ; each lord in 

 capite or mesne, each tenant mediate or immediate being bound to 

 attend at the hazard of forfeiting his estate in defauft. 



The ransom of the lord's person When needed ; the feudal incidents 

 of aids to him in war, or on the knighting of his son, or the marriage 

 of his eldest daughter ; of payment of reliefs on the assumption of 

 an inheritance ; of yielding the primer seisins or first fruits of the 

 inheritance ; of the lord's right to the wardship of an heir and the 

 receipt of his income during his minority, and of giving the hand in 



