vassal

vassal, in feudal society, one invested with a fief in return for services to an overlord. Some vassals did not have fiefs and lived at their lord’s court as his household knights. Certain vassals who held their fiefs directly from the crown were tenants in chief and formed the most important feudal group, the barons. A fief held by tenants of these tenants in chief was called an arriere-fief, and, when the king summoned the whole feudal host, he was said to summon the ban et arriere-ban. There were female vassals as well; their husbands fulfilled their wives’ services.

Under the feudal contract, the lord had the duty to provide the fief for his vassal, to protect him, and to do him justice in his court. In return, the lord had the right to demand the services attached to the fief (military, judicial, administrative) and a right to various “incomes” known as feudal incidents. Examples of incidents are relief, a tax paid when a fief was transferred to an heir or alienated by the vassal, and scutage, a tax paid in lieu of military service. Arbitrary arrangements were gradually replaced by a system of fixed dues on occasions limited by custom.

The vassal owed fealty to his lord. A breach of this duty was a felony, regarded as so heinous an offense that in England all serious crimes, even those that had nothing to do with feudalism proper, came to be called felonies, since, in a way, they were breaches of the fealty owed to the king as guardian of the public peace and order.

The vassals’ rights over the fiefs grew larger and larger in course of time, and soon fiefs became hereditary in the sense that investiture could not be withheld from an heir who was willing to do homage. The rules of inheritance tended to safeguard an undivided fief and preferred the eldest among the sons (primogeniture). This principle was far from absolute; under pressure from younger sons, parts of an inheritance might be set apart for them in compensation (see appanage). Vassals also acquired the right to alienate their fiefs, with the proviso, first, of the lord’s consent and, later, on payment of a certain tax. Similarly, they obtained the right to subinfeudate—that is, to become lords themselves by granting parts of their fiefs to vassals of their own. If a vassal died without heir or committed a felony, his fief went back to the lord (see escheat).