y he had granted
him, and, on the other hand, that the vasal should be faithful to the
lord and defend him against all his enemies. This obligation on the
part of the vasal was called his _fidelitas_ or fealty; and an oath of
fealty was required, by the feodal law, to be taken by all tenants to
their landlord, which is couched in almost the same terms as our
antient oath of allegiance[a]: except that in the usual oath of fealty
there was frequently a saving or exception of the faith due to a
superior lord by name, under whom the landlord himself was perhaps
only a tenant or vasal. But when the acknowlegement was made to the
absolute superior himself, who was vasal to no man, it was no longer
called the oath of fealty, but the oath of allegiance; and therein the
tenant swore to bear faith to his sovereign lord, in opposition to all
men, without any saving or exception: "_contra omnes homines
fidelitatem fecit_[b]." Land held by this exalted species of fealty
was called _feudum ligium_, a liege fee; the vasals _homines ligii_,
or liege men; and the sovereign their _dominus ligius_, or liege lord.
And when sovereign princes did homage to each other, for lands held
under their respective sovereignties, a distinction was always made
between _simple_ homage, which was only an acknowlegement of
tenure[c]; and _liege_ homage, which included the fealty
before-mentioned, and the services consequent upon it. Thus when
Edward III, in 1329, did homage to Philip VI of France, for his ducal
dominions on that continent, it was warmly disputed of what species
the homage was to be, whether _liege_ or _simple_ homage[d]. With us
in England, it becoming a settled principle of tenure, that _all_
lands in the kingdom are holden of the king as their sovereign and
lord paramount, no oath but that of fealty could ever be taken to
inferior lords, and the oath of allegiance was necessarily confined to
the person of the king alone. By an easy analogy the term of
allegiance was soon brought to signify all other engagements, which
are due from subjects to their prince, as well as those duties which
were simply and merely territorial. And the oath of allegiance, as
administred for upwards of six hundred years[e], contained a promise
"to be true and faithful to the king and his heirs, and truth and
faith to bear of life and limb and terrene honour, and not to know or
hear of any ill or damage intended him, without defending him
therefrom." Upon which