certain powers which in modern
times belong to the officers of government only. A landlord could call
upon his tenants for military service to him, and for the contribution
of money for his expenses; he held a court to decide suits between one
tenant and another, and frequently to punish their crimes and
misdemeanors; in case of the death of a tenant leaving a minor heir,
his landlord became guardian and temporary holder of the land, and if
there were no heirs, the land reverted to him, not to the national
government. These relations which the great landholders held toward
their tenants, the latter, who often themselves were landlords over
whole townships or other great tracts of land with their population,
held toward their tenants. Sometimes these subtenants granted land to
others below them, and over these the last landlord also exercised
feudal rights, and so on till the actual occupants and cultivators of
the soil were reached. The great nobles had thus come to stand in a
middle position. Above them was the king, below them these successive
stages of tenants and subtenants. Their tenants owed to them the same
financial and political services and duties as they owed to the king.
From the time of the Norman Conquest, all land in England was looked
upon as being held from the king directly by a comparatively few, and
indirectly through them by all others who held land at all. Moreover,
from a time at least soon after the Norman Conquest, the services and
payments above mentioned came to be recognized as due from all tenants
to their lords, and were gradually systematized and defined. Each
person or ecclesiastical body that held land from the king owed him
the military service of a certain number of knights or armed horse
soldiers. The period for which this service was owed was generally
estimated as forty days once a year. Subtenants similarly owed
military service to their landlords, though in the lesser grades this
was almost invariably commuted for money. "Wardship and marriage" was
the expression applied to the right of the lord to the guardianship of
the estate of a minor heir of his tenant, and to the choice of a
husband or wife for the heir when he came of proper age. This right
also was early turned into the form of a money consideration. There
were a number of money payments pure and simple. "Relief" was a
payment to the landlord, usually of a year's income of the estate,
made by an heir on obtaining his inher