Fealty: Love, Loyalty, and Choice in Feudalism

Fealty: A Voluntary Compact

Medieval vassal swearing an oath of fealty to a lord

Unlike the modern state’s valuing of obedience, Dante believed the ability to choose is “the greatest gift God gave to man and the thing most valued by God.” If we told a peasant in the Middle Ages we were entrusting our children’s education, our form of governance, and our economic decisions to people we had never met and often voted against, they would think we in the West had gone mad; and they would be correct.

Lords advertised their customs and land openings to encourage new vassals, and word of mouth also spread, notifying the people of good lords and arrangements. This atmosphere created a competitive market that was beneficial to peasants and vassals. Feudal Europe was highly decentralized; thus, they had hundreds of options to vote with their feet and choose the lord and arrangement of their preference. Significant social movements occurred as young adults travelled the countryside and moved to towns searching for a new lord. A peasant chose a lord out of personal bonds and a desire for regional customs and protection. Because loyalty was to a lord and perhaps his house, kings and realms came and went. A strong leader could maintain a dynasty while a weaker ruler’s realm would vanish.

A Frankish law declared, “Every freeman shall accept whatever senior he wishes in our kingdom, from among us and our faithful subjects.” A 9th-century English law read “Each free man in our kingdom shall choose a lord, from us or our faithful, such a one as he wishes.” Entire towns travelled great distances to take oaths to King Edward the Elder–many already had lords but would rather swear to Edward. They saw a better opportunity, a better lord, a better protector. After Athelstan died in 939, the Northumbrians held no blind obedience to his “territory,” they found a better circumstance for themselves by taking the Viking lord Anlaf of Dublin as king. King Alfred was so famous people from distant realms and different ethnicities willingly flocked to him to take him as their lord. In the medieval epic Beowulf, men chose him out of loyalty and love. This sort of voluntary compact was common. Historians Tierney and Sidney observe, “One was born into a kin, one chose a lord.“

We see the compact reciprocal nature of the personal bond in The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Recorded in AD 1014 we read “The fleet all chose Knute for king; whereupon advised all the counsellors of England, clergy and laity, that they should send after King Ethelred; saying, that no sovereign was dearer to them than their natural lord, if he would govern them better than he did before. Then sent the king hither his son Edward, with his messengers; who had orders to greet all his people, saying that he would be their faithful lord…Then was full friendship established, in word and in deed and in compact, on either side.“

Vassals choose their lords out of their own free will. Historian Régine Pernoud declared the feudal system was “the only society in the world in which men’s relationships with each other have been based on mutual loyalty.” When Little John made a vow to Robin Hood, he stated, “Here is my hand. And my heart goes with it.” The personal arrangements were mutual, creating personal bonds. Van Dun says “Medieval talk about masters and servants (even serfs) is fundamentally different from Roman or modern talk about them.” Friendship and love were a prerequisite of homage. The following is an example of an oath given to a lord. “By the Lord before whom this sanctuary is holy, I will to N. be true and faithful, and love all which he loves and shun all which he shuns, according to the laws of God and the order of the world.” Leon Gautier wrote, “The bonds of feudalism were stronger than family ties. The Lord was greater than a father, and a vassal was more than a son.” Professor and historian Andrew Willard Jones wrote “The vassal-lord relationship, was, in the ideal, an extension of kintype relations to those without blood ties.” A good lord is like a father to his subjects and feudal bonds were similar to father-son and kinship ties.

The Role of Loyalty in Feudal Society

Feudalism was based on fealty and loyalty derived from choice, love, and attachment. Recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, we read “To them, no kinsmen was more loved than their lord.” Anglo-Saxon scholars Lee and Solopova described their love of the lord; “Their loyalty to the king is the most important thing to them. These oaths of loyalty, found also in other Old English poems, were key to the relationship of the lord and his retainers in Anglo-Saxon society.” C. S. Lewis opined the deepest emotions of the Middle Ages were “the mutual love of warriors…and the affection between vassals and lords.” When the French crusader Count Stephen wrote home to his wife Adele, he made sure to share his love for her and his children with all his vassals back home. He also reminded his wife, now in charge, to “do your duty as you ought to your children and your vassals.” Stephen’s letter implies he loves his wife most but also his vassals, who seem to him an extension of his family.
King Alfred believed the closest he could come to heaven on earth was from the friendships he formed in the Mead Halls with his vassals. The feasting, drinking, tales, gifts, and oaths produced bonds they were willing to die for. Alfred was like Beowulf to his vassals, “a prince well-loved, followed in friendship, not fear.” To the vassal, serving your lord in battle was a privilege, an honour; in other words, submission was not subjugation. Vassals were eager to fight for their lord even if they did not have a close bond – his lord’s banner represented his family, his customs, his community, and his way of life, and all he held most precious, and he was willing to fight and die for them. Fighting for your lord was being part of a locality where everyone knew each other in a close-knit community and had personal relationships with the lord and combat only strengthened feudal bonds.

Likewise, the lord loved and was willing to die for his people. The great king Saint Louis IX of France stated, “As God died for the love he bore his people, so did the king put his body in peril, and that several times, for the love he bore to his people.” In modern times our government is both impersonal and forced upon us. When born, we receive a social security number and are subject to our rulers regardless of our consent. One system is centred on love and choice, and the other is unfeeling and based on subjugation.

Even in the case of many serfs who were “tied to the land” via obligations (either by choice or as freed slaves—and who benefited from their lord’s protection and land), their ancestors initially chose their lord and customs. Between the ages of 14-20, you were considered to have reached adulthood and had the choice to go off on your own. Searching for an opportunity in the towns, trying a trade, finding a new lord, a plot of land, a monastery, going on a pilgrimage, joining the Church, going on crusade, or perhaps staying on the manor and inheriting your father’s obligations. In the serfs’ families, it may be the eldest son inherited his father’s commitments. In contrast, the second son moved to a town or city. His daughter joined a nunnery, and his third son chose a new lord in a distant realm. Similarly, a vassal was duty-bound to his lord to fulfil certain obligations as long as he chose to receive the inheritance and maintain the obligations. Those vassals who inherited land freely gave fealty to their lord for their inherited fiefs. Free peasants maintained their ability to move and choose a lord.

Feudal Hierarchy and Reciprocal Obligations

Feudal Hierarchy

In a feudal hierarchy, the top tier consisted of the noble households, followed by powerful lords who may be autonomous from the crown or prominent landholding vassals of the nobility. The third tier consists of lesser lords, knights, and manor lords. Finally, the “bottom” of the hierarchy represents a mix of peasants and serfs.

In the feudal hierarchy, each “level” of lords owed certain obligations to those above them for the land their lord gifted them. Like the significant fief holders (second tier) who owed service to the king for their lands, their vassals (often knights – third tier) owed obligations to them. Most people in the feudal hierarchy both had lords and were lords of one another. At times even peasants and serfs had those below them as well as multiple lords above them. Even kings had lords, often another more powerful king. Remember, because a lord was of a higher tier, it does not mean he was more powerful military-wise or even owned more land and vassals.

In exchange for the obligations vassals owed to their lords, in response, the lords protected the people under them, maintained justice and law, and distributed land to non-landowners or increased their holdings. But their main function was to protect their people from harm. An example of a lord in battle comes from Raymond of Toulouse. A contemporary wrote, “Amidst all this, the Count was fighting constantly at the rear and ever defending his people. He was never the first, but always the last, to encamp, and though the others went to rest at midday or evening, the Count often did so at midnight or cockcrow.” Geoffrey Greymantle is also an example of a proper lord: “He glowed with a special serenity, mercy flourished in him; he cultivated a special generosity, opposed his enemies fiercely, and protected his people vigorously, all of which things befit the best of princes.” When Geoffrey spoke with the nobles who were afraid to face the invading Danes, he stated, “How does the lord differ from the serf, the noble from the commoner, the rich man from the poor, the knight from the footman, unless the advice of we who watch over them is of some good, unless our aid protects them?“

The giving of homage and the acceptance of a lord benefited both “levels” of the interaction. Tierney and Painter write, “The lord and his vassals were partners in the fief, and what affected its welfare was of interest to all.” The vassal received gifts, land, power, and prestige, elevating his position. The lord gained vassals to fight under his banner and received other military, agricultural, or financial benefits. It advanced not one but both parties; both gained from the arrangement. When the king of Norway took on new vassals, he “enriched all men who were inclined to enter into friendly accord with him both with fiefs and money and gave them greater power than they had before.” In the 12th century, Ranulf of England wrote “Indeed the bond of fealty inherent in lordship and homage must be mutual so that a man owes as much to the lord on account of homage as the lord owes to him on account of lordship, except in reverse.” Feudal bonds were not a system of oppression or conflicting interests; they exalted everyone involved.

In 1106 men came to the bishop of Hamburg asking to take him as lord. The bishop wrote a charter of an agreement demonstrating how such arrangements benefited both parties. He wrote, “These men came to us and earnestly begged us to grant them certain lands in our bishopric, which are uncultivated, swampy, and useless to our people. We have consulted our subjects about this and, feeling that this would be profitable to us and our successors, have granted their request.” The lord Bishop gained both payments and agricultural products from the arrangement.

When a vassal owed military service to his lord, it was generally for 40 days. This could be spent on campaign or garrisoning a castle (with food and beer provided by the lord.) However, many forms of obligations were given. Each area would vary in governance based on their arrangements or the people’s customs. The higher up the hierarchy, the more common it was you would owe military service. The further down the hierarchy, the more likely your obligation would involve agricultural produce.

Looking at Anglo-Saxon England, we discover many folklands based on kinship groups. Often these lands were granted by the king to a loyal Thane. In return for protection, these lands had obligations ranging from a percentage of produce to repairing bridges and fortifications, while only the Thane owned military service. And even though the king granted the land, he could not remove the people from it without their permission; it was both the king’s and the people’s land (so long as both sides fulfilled their obligations). The inhabitants were loyal to the Thane but were governed by their unwritten laws. In these vast territories, families owned and lived wholly autonomously outside the agreed obligations. They were the owners of their production and property with no direct manor lord delegating his land or property to them. Marc Morris wrote, “For centuries the rural economy had remained essentially unchanged. Great lords— kings, ealdormen, bishops and abbots—held vast estates, extending over dozens or even hundreds of square miles. Within these wide areas, people lived in settlements that were spread out and scattered—isolated hamlets, or clusters consisting of a few adjacent farmsteads. The farmers owed renders of produce to their overlord, or sometimes rent, but beyond that, their existence was essentially free and independent.”

At times, homage was given to an overlord not because obligations were due or imposed on the vassal but to demonstrate who the land’s original owner was. As a result, it often became an honorary oath of loyalty rather than a reciprocal obligatory agreement. Further, the land was not the only gift parcelled out; it could be something as small as hunting or fishing rights or the right to collect tolls. Sometimes the only obligation attached to a large section of land was willingness to be summoned to the lord’s councils. Other times, when lords gave large tracts of lands to churches and monasteries, they would ask for nothing but prayers or the saying of Masses in their name. Some lords granted land to their vassals without any conditions or requirements attached. For example, they might gift land to a vassal out of loyalty, diplomacy, or religious reasons. In this manner, bishops and monks became independent lords of extensive holdings after receiving gifts from particularly devout nobility and other lords.

Other times land was not gifted but taken by the vassal. Powerful vassals would renounce their fief back to their lord, only to then claim it as their own through force. Other times, land gifted to loyal subjects by a king eventually became autonomous as central power withdrew and weakened. Generations later, their descendants acted as if the long-deceased overlord had never given the land, and even used their power to challenge the king’s current successor. They treated the land as if it were their own, untouched by a distant and feeble king. The overlord had to wage war to retain the land he initially gave the vassal. Even if successful, he had likely invested far more than he gained. And even vassals who remained loyal proved to be hard to control. Vassals could also take multiple lords and inherit more land, becoming more powerful than their original lord.

Seemingly originating in England during the 12th and 13th centuries, in response to these actions, through marriages, kings began to influence who inherited land to ensure the loyalty of holders. Rightly, he wanted to hold them to the original obligations connected to the oaths and land he initially gave them away for. This left the typical peasant with more liberty to marry as he desired than some of the powerful vassals.

The Evolution of Land Ownership and Fealty

Excluding most (but not all) serfs, regardless of which level in the hierarchy you were, landholding from your lord, in theory, amounted to somewhere between being a property owner and a modern tenant, the former being the more dominant stance. In theory, the land was considered both the lord’s and the vassal’s, but in practice, it was generally considered the vassal’s property. Especially since the land had likely been handed down the vassal’s lineage for multiple generations, the lord who originally parcelled out the land had passed away generations previous. Professor Dorsey Armstrong says the vassals’ “goods were treated as their property.” Historian Susan Reynolds explained, “Nobles and free men thought of their inheritance simply as theirs. In so far as they recognized obligations as incumbent on their property, they thought of them as obligations of an honourable sort, which should not be increased without their consent and which did not imply any diminution of their rights. They…thought of any services they owed as a personal obligation, irrespective of their property.”

Further, completely autonomous land held independent of a “higher” lord by peasants, monasteries, and churches was far more widespread than commonly believed. Durant wrote, “Large sectors of Europe’s peasantry remained unfeudalized.” Many peasants held enough land to support their families independently of an overlord. As a result, Tolkienesque Shires made up of small villages, monasteries, and homesteads, dotted the landscape of medieval Europe. Plenty of villages and homesteads lived “off the grid” or even semi-nomadic lives made easy by the decaying roads, low populations, lack of governmental regulations, little to no police enforcement, and overall lack of centralized power. Many of these areas would best be described as anarchies where no, or almost no, cohesive structure of government existed. Due to the nature of Scandinavian settlements and its rural societies and “feudal aristocracy” ruling from the 10th to 13th century, local anarchism prevailed in many areas, and only Denmark, according to Professor David Whitton, had a form of “recognizable” government.