RDEN. That no momentous affairs could be transacted without their
consent and advice was in GENERAL esteemed the great security of their
possessions and dignities: but as they reaped no immediate profit from
their attendance at court, and were exposed to great inconvenience and
charge by an absence from their own estates, every one was glad to
exempt himself from each PARTICULAR exertion of this power; and was
pleased both that the call for that duty should seldom return upon
him, and that others should undergo the burden in his stead. The
king, on the other hand, was usually anxious, for several reasons,
that the assembly of the barons should be full at every stated or
casual meeting: this attendance was the chief badge of their
subordination to his crown, and drew them from that independence which
they were apt to affect in their own castles and manors; and where the
meeting was thin or ill attended, its determinations had less
authority, and commanded not so ready an obedience from the whole
community.

The case was the same with the barons in their courts, as with the
king in the supreme council of the nation. It was requisite to
assemble the vassals, in order to determine by their vote any question
which regarded the barony; and they sat along with the chief in all
trials, whether civil or criminal, which occurred within the limits of
their jurisdiction. They were bound to pay suit and service at the
court of their baron: and as their tenure was military, and
consequently honourable, they were admitted into his society, and
partook of his friendship. Thus, a kingdom was considered only as a
great barony, and a barony as a small kingdom. The barons were peers
to each other in the national council, and, in some degree, companions
to the king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of
barony, and companions to their baron [i].
[FN [i] Du Cange, Gloss. in verb. PAR Cujac. Commun. in Lib. Feud.
lib. I. tit. p. 18. Spellm. Gloss. in verb.]

But though this resemblance so far took place, the vassals, by the
natural course of things, universally, in the feudal constitutions,
fell into a greater subordination under the baron, than the baron
himself under his sovereign; and these governments had a necessary
and infallible tendency to augment the power of the nobles. The great
chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was commonly allowed to
fortify, lost, in a great measure, his connexion or acquai