SECTION I.

 

The Feudal System

When nations subject to despotic government make conquests, these serve only to extend the dominion and the power of their master. But armies composed of freemen conquer for themselves, not for their leaders. The people who overturned the Roman empire, and settled in its various provinces, were of the latter class. Not only the different nations that issued from the north of Europe, which has always been considered as the state of liberty, but the Huns and Alans who inhabited part of those countries, which have been marked out as the peculiar region of servitude, enjoyed freedom and independence in such a high degree as seems to be scarcely compatible with a state of social union, or with the subordination necessary to maintain it. They followed the chieftain who led them forth in quest of new settlements, not by constraint, but from choice; not as soldiers whom he could order to march, but as volunteers who offered to accompany him. They considered their conquests as a common property, in which all had a title to share, as all had contributed to acquire them. In what manner or by what principles, they divided among them the lands which they seized we cannot now determine with any certainty. There is no nation in Europe whose records reach back to this remote period; and there is little information to be got from the uninstructive and meager chronicles compiled by writers ignorant of the true end, and unacquainted with the proper objects of history.

This new division of property, however, together with the maxims and manners to which it gave rise, gradually introduced a species of government formerly unknown. This singular institution is now distinguished by the name of the Feudal System; and though the barbarous nations which framed it, settled in their new territories at different times, came from different countries, spoke various languages, and were under the command of separate leaders, the feudal policy and laws were established, with little variation, in every kingdom of Europe. This amazing uniformity had induced some authors to believe that all these nations, notwithstanding so many apparent circumstances of distinction, were originally the same people. But it may be ascribed with greater probability, to the similar state of society and of manners to which they were accustomed in their native countries, and to the similar situation in which they found themselves on taking possession of their new domains.

As the conquerors of Europe had their acquisitions to maintain, not only against such of the ancient inhabitants as they had spared, but against the more formidable inroads of new invaders, self-defence was their chief care, and seems to have been the chief object of their first institutions and policy. Instead of those loose associations, which, though they scarcely diminished their personal independence, had been sufficient for their security while they remained in their original countries, they saw the necessity of uniting in more close confederacy, and of relinquishing some of their private rights in order to attain public safety. Every free man, upon receiving a portion of the lands which were divided, bound himself to appear in arms against the enemies of the community. This military service was the condition upon which he received and held his lands; and as they were exempted from every other burden, that tenure, among a warlike people, was deemed both easy and honorable. The king or general who led them to conquest, continuing still to be the head of the colony, had, of course, the largest portion allotted to him. Having thus acquired the means of rewarding past services, as well as of gaining new adherents, he parceled out his lands with this view, binding those on whom they were bestowed to resort to his standard with a number of men in proportion to the extent of the territory which they received, and to bear arms in his defence. His chief officers imitated the example of the sovereign, and, in distributing portions of their lands among their dependents, annexed the same condition to the grant. Thus a feudal kingdom resembled a military establishment, rather than a civil institution. The victorious army, cantoned out in the country which it had seized, continued ranged under its proper officers, and subordinate to military command. The names of a soldier and of a freeman were synonymous. Every proprietor of land, girt with a sword, was ready to march at the summons of his superior, and to take the field against the common enemy.

But though the feudal policy seems to be so admirably calculated for defence against the assaults of any foreign power, its provisions for the interior order and tranquility of society were extremely defective. The principles of disorder and corruption are discernible in that constitution under its best and most perfect form. They soon unfolded themselves, and, spreading with rapidity through every part of the system, produced the most fatal effects. The bond of political union was extremely feeble; the sources of anarchy were innumerable. The monarchical and aristocratical parts of the constitution, having no intermediate power to balance them, were perpetually at variance, and justling with each other. The powerful vassals of the crown soon extorted a confirmation for life of those grants of land, which being at first purely gratuitous, had been bestowed only during pleasure. Not satisfied with this, they prevailed to have them converted into hereditary possessions. One step more completed their usurpations, and rendered them unalienable.

With an ambition no less enterprising, and more preposterous, they appropriated to themselves titles of honor, as well as offices of power or trust. These personal marks of distinction, which the public admiration bestows on illustrious merit, or which the public confidence confers on extraordinary abilities, were annexed to certain families, and transmitted like fiefs, from father to son, by hereditary right. The crown vassals having thus secured the possession of their lands and dignities, the nature of the feudal institutions, which though founded on subordination verged to independence, led them to new, and still more dangerous encroachments on the prerogatives of the sovereign. They obtained the power of supreme jurisdiction, both civil and criminal, within their own territories; the right of coining money; together with the privilege of carrying on war against their private enemies, in their own name, and by their own authority.

The ideas of political subjection were almost entirely lost, and frequently scarce any appearance of feudal subordination remained. Nobles who had acquired such enormous power, scorned to consider themselves as subjects. They aspired openly at being independent: the bonds which connected the principal members of the constitution with the crown, were dissolved. A kingdom, considerable in name and in extent, was broken into as many separate principalities as it contained powerful barons. A thousand causes of jealousy and discord subsisted among them, and gave rise to as many wars.

Every country in Europe, wasted or kept in continual alarm during these endless contests, was filled with castles and places of strength erected for the security of the inhabitants; not against foreign force, but against internal hostilities. A universal anarchy, destructive, in a great measure, of all the advantages which men expect to derive from society, prevailed. The people, the most numerous as well as the most useful part of the community, were either reduced to a state of actual servitude, or treated with the same insolence and rigor as if they had been degraded into that wretched condition. The king, stripped of almost every prerogative, and without authority to enact or to execute salutary laws, could neither protect the innocent, nor punish the guilty. The nobles, superior to all restraint, harassed each other with perpetual wars, oppressed their fellow-subjects, and humbled or insulted their sovereign. To crown all, time gradually fixed and rendered venerable this pernicious system, which violence had established.

Such was the state of Europe with respect to the interior administration of government from the seventh to the eleventh century. All the external operations of its various states, during this period, were of course extremely feeble. A kingdom dismembered, and torn with dissension, without any common interest to rouse, or any common head to conduct its force, was incapable of acting with vigor. Almost all the wars in Europe, during the ages which I have mentioned, were trifling, indecisive, and productive of no considerable event. They resembled the short incursions of pirates or banditti, rather than the steady operations of a regular army.

Every baron, at the head of his vassals, carried on some petty enterprise, to which he was prompted by his own ambition or revenge. The state itself, destitute of union, either remained altogether inactive, or if it attempted to make any effort, that served only to discover its impotence. The superior genius of Charlemagne, it is true, united all these disjointed and discordant members, and forming them again into one body, restored to government that degree of activity which distinguishes his reign, and renders the transactions of it, objects not only of attention but of admiration to more enlightened times. But this state of union and vigor, not being natural to the feudal government, was of short duration. Immediately upon his death, the spirit which animated and sustained the vast system which he had established, being withdrawn, it broke into pieces. All the calamities which flow from anarchy and discord, returning with additional force, afflicted the different kingdoms into which his empire was split. From that time to the eleventh century, a succession of uninteresting events; a series of wars, the motives as well as the consequences of which were unimportant, fill and deform the annals of all the nations in Europe.

To these pernicious effects of the feudal anarchy may be added its fatal influence on the character and improvement of the human mind. If men do not enjoy the protection of regular government, together with the expectation of personal security, which naturally flows from it, they never attempt to make progress in science, nor aim at attaining refinement in taste or in manners. That period of turbulence, oppression, and rapine, which I have described, was ill suited to favor improvement in any of these.

 

The Dark Age