140 History of the English Landed Interest. 



bnry was homage, i.e. a recognition tliat every lord of tlie 

 people was himself a subject of the sovereign. 



Now the Saxon land legislators had held one object only in 

 view, and that was the defence of the lands they had usurped. 

 For this reason they had instituted the Trinoda Necessitas, 

 a military S3'stem which had been crushed by the Norman 

 Conquest. Before it could be replaced there came a menace 

 of Danish invasion. Between the fears of the enemy abroad, 

 and the dangers of hostile risings at home, there arose in the 

 rational breast a sensation of helplessness ^ which gave a 

 free hand to the Conqueror and his military advisers. They 

 proceeded to introduce the polity to which they had been 

 accustomed on the Continent. The old Saxon land legisla- 

 tion had mixed up the wants of the farm with those of the 

 battle. The new system was solely the code of a warlike host. 

 The soil, it is true, had to be cultivated, and the wretched class 

 of socmen was an objectionable necessity, but its profits must 

 be payable in warlike materials, not money. Stout hearts and 

 arms were preferable to thrimsas and live stock in such 

 boisterous times. The soldier tenant was the ideal of 

 feudal polit}^, and the husbandman a small and despised 

 class, with neither political power nor fixity of tenure, the 

 fine for whose life was estimated at so low a sum as to be 

 hardly worth recovering. Did the king want troops, his 

 military tenants flocked to his standard. Did they require 

 arming, the weapons were supplied by his tenants in petit 

 sergeantr}'. Did his strongholds need garrisoning, those who 

 held lands by castle gard manned the walls. Did his roj'al 

 banner lack a bearer, a vassal b}^ grand-sergeantry was ready 

 for the office ; and was a foreign war in hand, the tenants by 

 escuage stepped into the ranks of the embarking host. What 

 the king demanded of his tenants-in-chief, they in their turn 

 demanded of their subfeudarii, adapting, however, the national 

 system to their own individual wants. 



Now, tenure by military service required one qualification 

 only, namely the ability of the tenant to perform the service. 

 Death, of course, prevented this, and it was only natural that 

 * Blackstone, Covwi., bk. II., ch. iv. 



