is given of it. In 1022, William the Pious, Count of Angouleme,
before starting for a pilgrimage to Rome, made his three brothers, who
were his vassals, swear to live in honourable peace and good friendship.
But, notwithstanding their oath, two of the brothers, having invited the
third to the Easter festivities, seized him at night in his bed, put out
his eyes so that he might not find the way to his castle, and cut out his
tongue so that he might not name the authors of this horrible treatment.
The voice of God, however, denounced them, and the Count of Angouleme,
shuddering with horror, referred the case to his sovereign, the Duke of
Aquitaine, William IV., who immediately came, and by fire and sword
exercised his right of _marque_ on the lands of the two brothers, leaving
them nothing but their lives and limbs, after having first put out their
eyes and cut out their tongues, so as to inflict on them the penalty of
retaliation.

The right of sporting or hunting was of all prerogatives that dearest to,
and most valued by the nobles. Not only were the severest and even
cruellest penalties imposed on "vilains" who dared to kill the smallest
head of game, but quarrels frequently arose between nobles of different
degrees on the subject, some pretending to have a feudal privilege of
hunting on the lands of others (Fig. 27). From this tyrannical exercise of
the right of hunting, which the least powerful of the nobles only
submitted to with the most violent and bitter feelings, sprung those old
and familiar ballads, which indicate the popular sentiment on the subject.
In some of these songs the inveterate hunters are condemned, by the order
of Fairies or of the Fates, either to follow a phantom stag for
everlasting, or to hunt, like King Artus, in the clouds and to catch a fly
every hundred years.

The right of jurisdiction, which gave judicial power to the dukes and
counts in cases arising in their domains, had no appeal save to the King
himself, and this was even often contested by the nobles, as for instance,
in the unhappy case of Enguerrand de Coucy. Enguerrand had ordered three
young Flemish noblemen, who were scholars at the Abbey of "St. Nicholas
des Bois," to be seized and hung, because, not knowing that they were on
the domain of the Lord of Coucy, they had killed a few rabbits with
arrows. St. Louis called the case before him. Enguerrand answered to the
call, but only to dispute the King's right, and to claim the