The Truce of God | Page 2

was one thing on the west, and quite another on the east
of the Rhine. In general it was, as Stubbs described it ("Constitutional
History." Vol. 1, pp. 255, 256), "a regulated and fairly well graduated
method of jurisdiction, based on land tenure, in which every lord, king,
duke, earl or baron protected, judged, ruled, taxed the class next below
him; ... in which private war, private coinage and private prisons took
the place of the imperial institutions of power." Land, "the sacramental
tie" then, "of all relations," and not money, was the chief wealth of
those ages. For services rendered, therefore, fiefs or landed estates were
the reward. Feudalism thus rested on a contract entered into by the
nation represented by the king, which let out its lands to individuals
who paid the rent not only by doing military service, but by rendering
such services to the king as the king's courts might require. The bond
was frequently extremely loose, and it was hard then to say which of
the two was in reality the stronger, the feudal lord or the technically

lower, but sometimes in reality stronger, vassal.
The feudal lord was bound to support his vassal, and in return, had a
right to expect his help in the hour of danger. The feudal lord owed his
vassals justice, protection, shelter and refuge. If certain privileges,
claimed by the feudal lord, were onerous, the vassal was not without
some guarantee that he would be shown fair play; for it was evident
that unless in some way rights and obligations were fairly well
balanced, and there was a fair return for service rendered, the whole
system would soon crumble to pieces.
The "system," if it can be called one, was, as we have said, by no
means perfect, but it bridged the historic gap which stretches between
the fall of the Carolingian power and the full dawn of the Middle Ages.
It saved Europe from anarchy. Its blessings cannot be denied. It helped
to foster the love of independence, of self-government, of local
institutions, of communal and municipal freedom. The vassal that lived
under the shadows of the strong towers of a feudal lord did not look
much further beyond, to the king in his palace or in his courts of justice,
for protection. He found it closer at home. The vassal, moreover, began
to think of his own rights and privileges, to value them and to ask that
they be enforced. The idea of right and law, one of the most deeply
engraved in the Christian conscience in the Middle Ages, grew and
developed. The barons were the first to claim these rights; gradually the
whole nation imitated them. Even when they claimed them, primarily
for themselves, the whole nation participated sooner or later in their
blessings. The Barons of Runnymede were fighting the battles of every
ploughboy in England when they wrenched Magna Charta from King
John.
Although many a feudal lord was a proud and hard-driving master, yet
the vassal and the serf knew that there were limits which his lord dared
not transgress; that the very spirit of his "caste", for such to a certain
extent was the social rank to which the feudal lord belonged, would not
tolerate any too flagrant a violation of his privileges. A bond of united
interests was found between feudal noble and his vassal. They were
found side by side in war; their larger interests were the same in peace.
Loyalty, honor, fidelity took deep root in the society which they
represented.
As the aristocracy of feudalism was founded, not on wealth or money,

but on land tenure, one of the most stable titles to prestige and authority
found in history, there was in the underlying concept of society in those
days a feeling of stability and permanency, which for a time made
feudalism, in spite of its flaws, a bulwark of order. It fostered even a
strong family spirit. Baron, count or earl, behind the thick ramparts of
his castle, lived a patriarchal life. He was, with his retainers and
men-at-arms, his chaplains, to watch over his spiritual needs, his wife
and children and vassals, dependent upon him for protection and safety,
impelled by every sense of honor, duty and chivalry to make them feel
that he was their sword and buckler. They were closely knit to him.
There was a patriarchal bond between them. Family spirit grew strong
and, under the teaching of the Church, it became pure.
Feudalism had its flaws. It was strictly an aristocratic institution. It
fostered the spirit of pride and bore harshly at times upon the serf and
the man of low degree. But its harsher features were softened by the
teachings of the Church. When it was at its height, voices of Popes