itance. There were three
generally acknowledged "aids" or payments of a set sum in proportion
to the amount of land held. These were on the occasion of the
knighting of the lord's son, of the marriage of his daughter, and for
his ransom in case he was captured in war. Land could be confiscated
if the tenant violated his duties to his landlord, and it "escheated"
to the lord in case of failure of heirs. Every tenant was bound to
attend his landlord to help form a court for judicial work, and to
submit to the judgment of a court of his fellow-tenants for his own
affairs.

In addition to the relations of landlord and tenant and to the power
of jurisdiction, taxation, and military service which landlords
exercised over their tenants, there was considered to be a close
personal relationship between them. Every tenant on obtaining his land
went through a ceremony known as "homage," by which he promised
faithfulness and service to his lord, vowing on his knees to be his
man. The lord in return promised faithfulness, protection, and justice
to his tenant. It was this combination of landholding, political
rights, and sworn personal fidelity that made up feudalism. It existed
in this sense in England from the later Saxon period till late in the
Middle Ages, and even in some of its characteristics to quite modern
times. The conquest by William of Normandy through the wholesale
confiscation and regrant of lands, and through his military
arrangements, brought about an almost sudden development and spread of
feudalism in England, and it was rapidly systematized and completed in
the reigns of his two sons. By its very nature feudalism gives great
powers to the higher ranks of the nobility, the great landholders.
Under the early Norman kings, however, their strength was kept in
tolerably complete check. The anarchy of the reign of Stephen was an
indication of the natural tendencies of feudalism without a vigorous
king. This time of confusion when, as the contemporary chronicle says,
"every man did that which was good in his own eyes," was brought to an
end by the accession to the throne of Henry II, a man whose personal
abilities and previous training enabled him to bring the royal
authority to greater strength than ever, and to put an end to the
oppressions of the turbulent nobles.

*7. The Period of the Early Angevin Kings, 1154-1338.*--The two
centuries which now followed saw either the completion or the
initiation of most of t