1. Fief holding and Vassalage

2. Fief holding
Begins during a period of major social transition (early 11th century) :
- The French counts’ power was being threatened by the new castellans.
- Knights were appearing in large numbers.
- The Peace of God movement was formed to deal with high levels of violence.
- Banal lordship developed (the castellans’ wielding authority over peasants) as the counts lost power and the old judicial system disappeared.

3. Fief holding
A fief was a lifetime grant with the assumption that the fief holder’s heir would inherit it.

4. Fief holding Fief holding and “feudalism”
“Feudalism has traditionally been understood to refer to a pyramid-like shaping of aristocratic society in the Middle Ages, with the king at the top, holding all the land, and the highest echelon of nobles holding land “in fief” from the king, with the next-highest echelon of nobles holding land from the highest level of nobles, and so on. In fact, this structure, described by

5. Fief holding
political theorists at the major courts in the late 12th and 13th centuries, was in large measure the wishful thinking of medieval kings. In the 12th and 13th centuries, when fief holding grew, many French nobles continued to own, rather than hold, the land they occupied. Not until the end of the 12th century did the French king have enough vassals to make a systematic inventory of his fiefs worthwhile.

6. Fief holding
Fief holding describes relationships among nobles (including the king), not between the nobles and merchants, craftsmen, or peasants

7. Fief holding Bishop Fulbert’s forma fidelitatis (c. 1020)
The forma fidelitatis (literally translated as “the form of fidelity”) was written by Bishop Fulbert of Chartres c. 1020, at the request of the powerful Duke of Aquitaine. This document is the first to formally set forth the terms of fief holding: it describes an alliance between two aristocrats, with the lord granting a fief, a piece of land, to the vassal, who

8. Fief holding
paid no rent but swore not to harm his lord or act against his interests; he also swore to provide his lord with counsel. The lord swore to be faithful to his vassal. This arrangement was beneficial to the lord, who turned a potential enemy or challenger into an ally.
The fact that the Duke had to ask for guidance and the Bishop had to research the issue suggests that this relationship was in its beginning stages of definition and practice.

9. Fief holding
Fief holding declined in the 14th and 15th centuries, replaced by royal “orders” of knighthood devised by kings (e.g., Edward III’s Order of the Garter) to reward loyal service to the king.

10. Vassalage The ceremony of homage
Granting and holding a fief reflected a personal relationship between aristocrats. The vassal received his fief in a ceremony called “homage” (Latin homo, “man”) because the vassal swore to be the lord’s “man.” The form of the ceremony was well established by the 12th century: the vassal knelt before the lord with his hands clasped and raised (or offering a symbolic object like a sword) to make his oaths of fidelity. The lord put his own hands around the vassal’s, raised him up, and kissed him to symbolize their essential equality. By the 12th century the vassal’s obligations were

11. Vassalage
more specifically defined than in Bishop Fulbert’s forma fidelitatis: the vassal had to fight for his lord for 40 days per year, had to help ransom the lord if the latter were captured, and had to help pay for wedding expenses for the lord’s eldest daughter and for the knighting ceremony of the lord’s eldest son. Most lords preferred vassals to pay scutage (a monetary fee) in lieu of military service so that they could hire mercenaries.

12. Vassalage The ceremony of homage in courtly love and prayer
The ceremony of homage became the symbol of the intensely emotional relationship between a man and a woman and of the relationship between a human being and God. The vassal’s kneeling with clasped hands became the customary posture assumed when praying; this kneeling posture is also reflected in the tradition of a man’s getting down on one knee to propose marriage.

13. Vassalage Liege homage
A vassal could be the vassal of more than one lord at the same time, thus creating divided allegiance if his lords fought against one another. The concept of “liege homage” was devised in order to clarify which lord (“liege lord”) would receive the vassal’s service (in reality, determined by the vassal’s identification of the fief most important to him). However, the same problem persisted, with vassals doing liege homage to multiple lords.

14. Vassalage
Vavassour
A vassal might grant some of his fief to a vassal of his own; a vassal of a vassal was called a vavassour (in the French romances, such as the Arthurian romances by Chretien de Troyes, this word can also indicate a member of the petty nobility).

15. Acknowledgments
This presentation is based on pp (Chapter Two, “Nobles and Society”) of the following work:
Bouchard, Constance Brittain. Strong of Body, Brave & Noble: Chivalry & Society in Medieval France. Ithaca and London: Cornell U Press, 1998.