te proprietors, and that all
their subvassals had the same right of holding in perpetuity. The
estate, however, reverted to the crown if the race of the original
feoffee became extinct, and in cases, also, of felony and treason. When
Alain of Bretagne, who commanded the rear of the army at the battle of
Hastings, and who had received four hundred and forty-two manors, bowed
before the King at Salisbury, at the great council in 1085, and swore to
be true to him against all manner of men, he also brought with him his
principal _land-sittende_ men (land-owners), who also bowed before the
King and became his men. They had previously taken the oath of fealty to
Alain of Bretagne, and engaged to perform all the customs and services
due to him for their lands and tenements. Alain, and his men, were
proprietors, but with very unequal rights. Alain, by his tenure, was
bound to provide for the King as many armed horsemen as the vast extent
of his estates demanded. But all those whom he had enfeoffed, or made
proprietors, upon his four hundred and forty-two manors, were each bound
to contribute a proportionate number. When the free service of forty
days was to be enforced, the great earl had only to send round to his
vassals, and the men were at his command.

By this organization, which was universal throughout the kingdom, sixty
thousand cavalry could, with little delay, be called into the field.
Those who held by this military service had their allotments divided
into so many knights' fees, and each knight's fee was to furnish one
mounted and armed soldier. The great vassals retained a portion of their
land as their demesnes, having tenants who paid rents and performed
services not military. But, under any circumstances, the vassal of the
crown was bound to perform his whole free service with men and horses
and arms. It is perfectly clear that this wonderful organization
rendered the whole system of government one great confederacy, in which
the small proprietors, tenants, and villeins had not a chance of
independence; and that their condition could only be ameliorated by
those gradual changes which result from a long intercourse between the
strong and the weak, in which power relaxes its severity and becomes
protection.

In the ordinance in which the King commanded "free service" he also
says, "we will that all the freemen of the kingdom possess their lands
in peace, free from all tallage and unjust exaction." This, unhappily