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marriage. The lord of the fief was the guardian of the heir during his minority; he had the custody of his person and his lands, without rendering any account of the use made of the profits. In the case of a male, the guardianship continued till the minor arrived at the age of twenty-one; in the case of a female, it terminated at the age of fourteen, when the young lady could marry, and her husband do suit and service for her. But before she attained that age, her lord could offer her in marriage to whom he pleased, provided it was without disparagement or inequality of rank; and if she refused the alliance, she had to forfeit from her estate just so much as the person to whom her hand had been of. fered would have given for the match. The penalty was still more severe if she married without the baron's consent: for, in that case, a fine, equal to double what an alliance with her was valued at, was exacted by her ruthless sovereign. In addition to all this, the feudal lord in England extended his authority over the daughters of all his vassals, not allowing any of them to be married but on condition of the payment of a certain sum; so that marriages yielded him an abundant harvest of revenue.

These incidents were, obviously, oppressive to no small degree. They fell with especial weight on the immediate tenants of the crown; and so intolerable were the exactions of royalty, so rapacious and unjust was the whole of the regal administration, from William to John, that, at length, the sys

tem could be endured no longer; and though, singly, the English barons might be weak, united, they formed an effectual breakwater against the proud surges of monarchical oppression, and obtained the grand palladium of English liberty, the great charter. That venerable instrument materially modified the feudal demands, limiting reliefs to a certain sum, restraining the wastes committed by guardians in chivalry, forbidding the disparagement of female wards in matrimony, and securing widows from compulsory marriages. Beside these special provisions, in reference to feudal claims, the principles of our constitution which are there laid down, such as the habeas corpus, trial by jury, and the neces sity of the people's consent to their own taxation, tended to modify the working of feudalism; in short, they struck at its vital principle, drained out its very life blood, and left it slowly to expire. The charter was admirably contrived; its principles were slowly developed. "Its effect," says Mackintosh," was not altogether unlike the grand process by which nature employs snows and frosts to cover her delicate germs, and to hinder them from rising above the earth, till the atmosphere has acquired the mild and equal temperature which insures them against blights."

Feudalism is a system which has borne a conspicuous part in the civilization of Europe. It has left a visible impression on the laws and habits of our own country. We find its remains, we feel its

lingering power in various directions. The lawyer traces its influence on our jurisprudence; the statesman sees its impress on our constitution; the antiquary recognizes its relics in many of our customs; and the philosopher detects its spirit as an element in the mass of society, which has not yet lost all its power. As the disintegrated portions of primary rocks may be discovered in recently formed strata—as fragments of ancient structures may be sometimes seen wrought up in buildings of modern date; so portions of the feudal system may be discovered in our present laws and institutions, and may be seen staring forth in the political and social fabric of the present day.

SECTION IV.

ESTIMATE OF THE EFFECTS OF FEUDALISM.

Certain evils often attributed to feudalism did not

spring from it. For instance, slavery was not its offspring, nor indeed an integral part of it. The lord and the vassal were the parties who formed the feudal relationship; and though the latter was not a freeman, according to our views, he was not a slave, but had certain personal and social rights, which his lord was bound to respect and preserve. Slavery of an abject kind existed in Europe long before the feudal system appeared. It existed in the free republic of Rome; in Greece, too, the cradle of liberty; and while Athens knelt at the shrine of

freedom, and poets, and philosophers, and orators, were her ministering priests, there were thousands of slaves within the narrow limits of Attica. The Germans had slaves; the Saxons had slaves—all Europe had slaves. Feudalism found slavery in existence, and attached it to itself. The system was not inimical to it, but it did not create the evil.

In relation to the social disorders of the middle ages, the insecurity of property, the personal dangers, the robberies and cruelties which prevailed, it may be remarked, that the feudal system, if it did not quench them, did not kindle them; and if, in some cases, it should appear that the system fanned them into greater violence, it also appears that, in other cases, it checked their operation. The state of society, at the commencement of the feudal era, was most deplorable. It was disorganized and dissolved. The Roman empire was shattered to pieces. Monarchy made some abortive attempts to mould the scattered fragments of the social fabric into form, but failed. The kingdom of Charlemagne shone like a meteor, and vanished. The church sunk in ignorance and corruption. The religious power almost entirely left it. The times were awful. Men's hearts failed them because of fear. The moral heavens blazed with strange portents, and many cried, "The end of all things is at hand." Amidst all this disorder, the feudal principle was developing itself; on this scene of social strife and

misery it had to work; this was the theatre of its operation, the field of its career; and when it terminated its course, it certainly left Europe better than at the beginning.

Mr. Hallam has shown that feudalism accomplished two great political results. In Germany, it stood in the way of the ambitious designs of an Otho and a Barbarossa, and prevented the establishment of a great empire,-a powerful despotism, crushing the seeds of commerce and liberty, and retarding, perhaps for ages, the progress of civilization. In France, it prevented the dismemberment of the monarchy, and its reduction into a number of petty and despotic sovereignties; for "who can doubt that some of the counts of France would have thrown off all connexion with the crown, if the slight dependence of vassalage had not been substituted for legitimate subjection to a sovereign ?”

As to its moral influence, it cannot be denied that feudalism nurtured fidelity and gratitude. It also inspired a sense of honour-far different, indeed, from a sense of duty, especially as it exists in a Christian's mind, and having in it much of lofty pride-yet it may be justly observed, "Was it not much that such honour could be felt, and its dictates obeyed in so tumultuous an age ?" "Every thing is to be measured according to its times."* And further, there can be little doubt that, in the interior

* British Quarterly Review, vol. i. 255.

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