Inaugural Address. v 
in their own District, to the Chieftain whocould do them 
the most good or the most injury, (1) and, when they con- 
quered Gaul, they took possession of the country as a band 
of independent clans,(2) Their first object was to seture 
their new acquisitions, and with this view, the leaders distri- 
buted among the soldiery, the lands which they had conquer- 
ed, with acondition of continued military service annexed 
to the Grant, an idea which appears to have been suggested 
by the peculiar situation in which they were placed, and to 
have been put in practice, as the best means of furnishing 
that immediate mutual assistance, which was indispensably 
necessary for the defence and preservation of their conquest. 
Large districts or parcels of land were accordingly allotted 
to the Chieftains and to the superior Officers, who were cal 
led Leuds (Lords or Seigneurs) (3) and their allotments» 
which were called feuda (fiefs or fees) were subdivided among 
the inferior officers and soldiers upon the general condition, 
that the possessor should do service faithfully, both at home 
and abroad to him, ty whom they were given.(4) Every 
feudatory was, therefore, bound, when called upon, to de- 
fend his immediate superior, from whom he had received, 
and of whom he held, his estate: that superior to de- 
fend his superior, and so upwards to the Prince, while, on the 
other hand, the Prince and every Seigneur was equally bound 
to defend his vassals or dependants, who held their estates of 
him, so that the duty of the whole was severally and recipro- 
cally to defend the conquest they had made together, and 
every part of it-(5) This singular Institution, which is now 
called the feudal system, by degrees became general in France, 
and, by the new division of property which it occasioned, 
with the peculiar maxims and manners to which it gave rise, 
gradually introduced a species of laws before unknown, 
The 
(1) Dalrymple’s Essay on the Feudal System, p. 5. 
(2) ibid. 3 6. r . ee 
(3) Dalrymple, p. 11. Loyseau des Seigneuries, §60 & 61, cap. 1. 
(4) Loysean des Seigneuries, cap. 1. §62 to 66. 
3 Wright on Tenures, p. 8, 
