Feudal System. 31 
cient right to hunt and fish freely over the territory of 
the Mark. 
While in this way the freedom of the communal own- 
ers was undermined, the institution of banforests had 
nevertheless its value in that it led to forest protection, 
restriction in forest use and restriction in clearing, all, to 
be sure, merely for the benefit of the chase. Special offi- 
cers to guard the rights of the king, forestarti, chosen 
from the free and freedmen, and also superior officers, 
forestmasters, were instituted, to adminster the chase 
and enforce the restrictions which went with it. 
Gradually with the loss of property rights there came 
also a change in the political rights of the markers or 
commoners, the large barons interfering with their self- 
government, assuming for themselves the position of 
Obermiarker, appointing the officials, issuing strict forest 
ordinances to regulate the cutting of wood, and finally 
the original right which every commoner had of supply- 
ing himself with wood material, became dependent upon 
permission in each case and his title to ownership became 
doubtful. 
Undoubtedly also through the influence of Roman in- 
stitutions with which the Franks under their Merovin- 
gian kings came into close contact, there arose that social 
and political institution which became finally known as 
the feudal system. By the grants of lands which the 
kings made out of their own estates to their kinsmen and 
followers with the understanding that they would be 
faithful and render service to their masters, a peculiar 
relationship grew up, based on land tenure, the land so 
granted being called a fief or feud,-and the relationship 
being called vassality or vassalage, denoting the personal 
