CHAP.II. tenures till the restoration of Charles II. In PART II. France, the fiefs of noblemen were very unjustly FEUDAL exempted from all territorial taxation; though the SYSTEM. tailles of later times had, strictly speaking, only superseded the aids to which they had been always liable. This distinction, it is well known, was not annihilated till that event which annihilated all distinctions, the French revolution. It is remarkable, that, although the feudal system established in England upon the conquest broke in very much upon our ancient Saxon liberties; though it was attended with harsher servitudes than in any other country, particularly those two intolerable burthens, wardship and marriage; yet it has in general been treated with more favour by English than French writers. The hardiness with which the ancient barons resisted their sovereign, and the noble struggles which they made for civil liberty, especially in that Great Charter, the basement at least, if not the foundation, of our free constitution, have met with a kindred sympathy in the bosoms of Englishmen; while from an opposite feeling, the French have been shocked at that aristocratic independence, which cramped the prerogatives, and obscured the lustre, of their crown. Yet it is precisely to this feudal policy, that France is indebted for that which is ever dearest to her children; their national splendour and power. That kingdom would have been irretrievably dismembered in the tenth century, if the laws of feudal dependence had not preserved its integrity. Empires of un FEUDAL wieldy bulk, like that of Charlemagne, have CHAP.II. several times been dissolved by the usurpation of PART II. provincial governors, as is recorded both in ancient history and in that of the Mahometan dynasties SYSTEM. in the east. What question can there be, that the powerful dukes of Guienne or counts of Toulouse would have thrown off all connexion with the crown of France, when usurped by one of their equals, if the slight dependence of vassalage had not been substituted for legitimate subjection to a sovereign? It is the previous state of society under the grand-children of Charlemagne, which we must always keep in mind, if we would appreciate the effects of the feudal system upon the welfare of mankind. The institutions of the eleventh century must be compared with those of the ninth, not with the advanced civilization of modern times. If the view that I have taken of those dark ages is correct, the state of anarchy, which we usually term feudal, was the natural result of a vast and barbarous empire feebly administered, and the cause, rather than effect of the general establishment of feudal tenures. These, by preserving the mutual relations of the whole, kept alive the feeling of a common country and common duties; and settled, after the lapse of ages, into the free constitution of England, the firm monarchy of Franve, and the federal union of Germany. The utility of any form of polity may be esti- General esmated, by its effect upon national greatness and timate of the advantages PART II. FEUDAL CHAP.II. security, upon civil liberty and private rights, upon the tranquillity and order of society, upon the increase and diffusion of wealth, or upon the general tone of moral sentiment and energy. The feudal constitution was certainly, as has been observed already, little adapted for the defence of a mighty kingdom, far less for schemes of conquest. and evils resulting from the feudal system. But as it prevailed alike in several adjacent countries, none had any thing to fear from the military superiority of its neighbours. It was this inefficiency of the feudal militia, perhaps, that saved Europe during the middle ages from the danger of universal monarchy. In times, when princes had little notion of confederacies for mutual protection, it is hard to say, what might not have been the successes of an Otho the Great, a Frederic Barbarossa, or a Philip Augustus, if they could have wielded the whole force of their subjects whenever their ambition required. If an empire equally extensive with that of Charlemagne, and supported by military despotism, had been formed about the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, the seeds of commerce and liberty, just then beginning to shoot, would have perished; and Europe, reduced to a barbarous servitude, might have fallen before the free barbarians of Tartary. If we look at the feudal polity as a scheme of civil freedom, it bears a noble countenance. To the feudal law it is owing, that the very names of right and privilege were not swept away, as in Asia, by the desolating hand of power. The tyranny which, on every favourable moment, was CHAP.II. breaking through all barriers, would have rioted PART II. without controul, if, when the people were poor FEUDAL and disunited, the nobility had not been brave and SYSTEM. free. So far as the sphere of feudality extended, it diffused the spirit of liberty, and the notions of private right. Every one, I think, will acknowledge this, who considers the limitations of the services of vassalage, so cautiously marked in those law-books which are the records of customs, the reciprocity of obligation between the lord and his tenant, the consent required in every measure of a legislative or a general nature, the security, above all, which every vassal found in the administration of justice by his peers, and even (we may in this sense say) in the trial by combat. The bulk of the people, it is true, were degraded by servitude; but this had no connexion with the feudal tenures. The peace and good order of society were not promoted by this system. Though private wars did not originate in the feudal customs, it is impossible to doubt, that they were perpetuated by so convenient an institution, which indeed owed its universal establishment to no other cause. And as predominant habits of warfare are totally irreconcileable with those of industry, not merely by the immediate works of destruction which render its efforts unavailing, but through that contempt of peaceful occupations which they produce, the feudal system must have been intrinsically adverse to the accumulation of wealth, and the improve CHAP.II. ment of those arts, which mitigate the evils or PART II abridge the labours of mankind. FEUDAL But as the school of moral discipline, the feudal SYSTEM. institutions were perhaps most to be valued. Society had sunk, for several centuries after the dissolution of the Roman empire, into a condition of utter depravity; where, if any vices could be selected as more eminently characteristic than others, they were falsehood, treachery and ingratitude. In slowly purging off the lees of this extreme corruption, the feudal spirit exerted its ameliorating influence. Violation of faith stood first in the catalogue of crimes, most repugnant to the very essence of a feudal tenure, most severely and promptly avenged, most branded by general infamy. The feudal law-books breathe throughout a spirit of honourable obligation. The feudal course of jurisdiction promoted, what trial by peers is peculiarly calculated to promote, a keener feeling and readier perception of moral as well as of leading distinctions. And as the judgement and sympathy of mankind are seldom mistaken, in these great points of veracity and justice, except through the temporary success of crimes, or the want of definite standard of right, they gradually recovered themselves, when law precluded the one, and supplied the other. In the reciprocal services of lord and vassal, there was ample scope for every magnanimous and disinterested energy. The heart of man, when placed in circumstances which have a tendency to excite them, will seldom be deficient in such sentiments. No occasions could be more favourable, than the protection of a |