and laws of the kingdom, and if not, not. The peers of the Kings of Jerusalem, according to the Assizes, might in case of infringement of their rights lawfully refuse allegiance and offer resistance. The clause of the Great Charter stipulating that a committee of twenty-five barons should watch King John's actions, and in case of his breaking his solemn pledges should make war on him and call on all his subjects to do the same, proceeds from the same fundamental assumption. This view was readily extended from the notion of a breach of agreement between the lord and his tenants to a conception of infringement of laws in general. In this way the feudal view could be made a starting-point for the development of a constitutional doctrine. We may notice this in the case of Bracton. In his treatise on the laws of England, written at the time of Simon de Montfort's supremacy, the English judge, instead of urging with the Roman jurists and with his predecessor Glanvill that the sovereign's will has the force of law, states that kings are not above the law, although they have no single human superior (f. 5 v.), and that they ought to be restrained by their peers from breaking the law (f. 34)[1].
The other side of the medal is presented by the duties of vassals in regard to the lord. Close analysis shews that these duties proceed from different sources. There is to begin with a general obligation of fealty, faithful obedience (fidelitas) which is owed by all subjects of the lord without distinction of rank, the rustic subjects (villani) being especially concerned. This obligation evidently had its roots in the relation between sovereign and subject, and in so far represented rather the gradual decay of sovereign power than the purely contractual side of feudalism; but in so much as fealty became a relation between private lords and their subjects, it was related to the feudal nexus and combined in various ways with the kindred notions of homage and investiture. Homage again, which is distinctly contractual, arises essentially from a contract of service. It proceeds directly from the bond created by free agreement between a leader and a follower, the lord (hlaford) and his man. But this contract of service gradually assumed a peculiar form: the personal duties of the servant-retainer are asserted only occasionally, e.g. at a coronation ceremony, when great feudatories are made to present dishes and cups, to lead horses, to superintend the arrangements of the bedroom. As a rule, the central duty of the vassal comes to be his military service, regulated according to a certain number of days, generally forty, or a scutage payment in redemption of the latter. Knight service of this kind shades off almost imperceptibly into so-called military serjeanties, that is, services of archers, of garrison soldiers, etc.
- ↑ "Rex autem habet superiorem, id est Deum, item legem, per quam factus est Rex. Item curiam suam, videlicet comites, barones, quia comites dicuntur quasi socii regis, et qui habet socium, habet magistrum, et ideo si rex fuerit sine freno, i.e. sine lege, debent ei frenum ponere."
