CHAP. XXVI.: Changes in the Fiefs.

THE same changes happened in the fiefs, as in the allodia. We find by the capitulary In the year 757. art. 6. Baluzius’s edition, page 181. ^†1285 of Compeigne, under king Pepin, that those who had received a benefice from the king, gave a part of this benefice to different bondmen; but these parts were not distinct from the whole. The king revoked them when he revoked the whole; and at the death of the king’s vassal, the rear-vassal lost also his rear-fief; and a new beneficiary succeeded, who likewise established new rear-vassals. Thus it was the person, and not the rear-fief, that depended on the fief; on the one hand, the rear-vassal returned to the king, because he was not tied for ever to the vassal; and the rear-fief returned also to the king, because it was the fief itself, and not a dependance of it.

Such was the rear-vassalage, while the fiefs were during pleasure; and such was it also while they were for life. This was altered when the fiefs descended to the next heirs, and the rear-fiefs the same. That which was held before immediately of the king, was held now mediately; and the regal power was thrown back, as it were, one degree; sometimes two, and oftentimes more.

We find in the books Book i. chap. 1. ^†1286 of fiefs, that though the king’s vassals might give away in fief, that is, in rear-fief,

to the king, yet these rear-vassals, or petty vavasors, could not give also in fief; so that whatever they had given, they might always resume. Besides, a grant of that kind did not descend to the children like the fiefs, because it was not supposed to have been made according to the feudal laws.

If we compare the situation in which the rear-vassal-age was at the time when the two Milanese senators wrote that book, to what it was under king Pepin, we shall find that the rear-fiefs preserved At least in Italy and Germany. ^†1287 their primitive nature longer than the fiefs.

But when those senators wrote, such general exceptions had been made to this rule, as had almost abolished it. For if a person Book i. of fiefs, chap. 1. ^†1288 who had received a fief of a rear-vassal, happened to follow him upon an expedition to Rome, he was intitled to all the privileges of a vassal. In like manner, if he had given money to the rear-vassal to obtain the fief, the latter could not take it from him, nor hinder him from transmitting it to his son, till he returned him his money: in fine, this rule Ibid. ^†1289 was no longer observed by the senate of Milan.