"Feudal" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in accordance with these distinctions, the charge of the lunatic being intrusted to the king, and the custody of the idiot and his lands vested in the feudal lord, though eventually, in consequence of flagrant abuses, it was transferred to the Crown in the reign of Edward I. by an Act now lost, which was confirmed by Edward II., 1324. This marks the earliest Act extant (17 Edward II., ...
— Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles • Daniel Hack Tuke
... wine and wassail, schooled in manly exercises, cleanly even to superstition, loyal to age and filial duties; with a manly pride of personal independence that held a debt the next worst thing to a lie; their fondness for social graces, their feudal dignities, their chiefs giving counsel to the king even while submissive to his person, esteeming prowess before praying; their strong ambition, scorning those who scorned toil." Artaxerxes wore ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... France of the brave! France of lost hopes! France of Promethean zeal! Napoleon's France, that bruised the despot's heel Of Europe, while the feudal world did rave. Thou France that didst burst through the rock-bound grave Which Germany and England joined to seal, And undismayed didst seek the human weal, Through which thou couldst thyself and others save— The wreath of amaranth and eternal praise! When every ...
— Toward the Gulf • Edgar Lee Masters
... feudal fashion, with many servants and slaves to do his bidding, and tenants to render him dues, sometimes dwelt Vrederyck Flypse, with his second wife, Catherine Van Cortlandt, and the children left by his first wife, ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... are not less delicately and poetically described than the village life they have left behind in the mother country—the patriarchal rule of an old-fashioned, rather pompous house, over a people retaining the hereditary respect of vassals for their feudal lord; but the view given of Australian society is, in keeping with the relation to it of Richard Delavel and his household, of the ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... almost time lost to discuss the subject—immigration from Europe would stream in at an unprecedented rate, and in a few years, all the old Southern system become entirely a tradition of the past, like that of the feudal chivalry which the present chivalry so ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. VI, June, 1862 - Devoted To Literature and National Policy • Various
... Germany, in the hands of a selfish and conscienceless autocracy, made more successful use of practical Socialism than any other nation in history and even carried efficiency itself to a point of great success. Her close corporation of bureaucratic officials, playing upon the remains of feudal and aristocratic loyalty among the people that have survived the darkness of past centuries as nowhere else among civilized nations, successfully carried through Socialism in many practical ways, just as Morris Hillquit ...
— Socialism and American ideals • William Starr Myers
... When the representatives of themselves and their partners arrived in Carolina in 1670, bringing with them that pompous and preposterous anachronism, the "Fundamental Constitutions," contrived by the combined wisdom of Shaftesbury and John Locke to impose a feudal government upon an immense domain of wilderness, they found the ground already occupied with a scanty and curiously mixed population, which had taken on a simple form of polity and was growing into a ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... stealthy warriors at bay with his musket. At this dangerous outpost Woodcock bravely defended his little family for many years, until quite a community of white people had placed themselves under his protection, and he became a sort of feudal lord, into whose rude castle they might retreat in time of danger. He was a restless spirit, fond of hazardous adventure, to whom civilized life was unendurably tame, and many are the current traditions of his prowess and bloody encounters with the savage aborigines. In 1670 ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... what they are. England is not yet a commercial country in the sense in which that epithet is used for her; and let us still hope that she will not soon become so. She might surely as well be called feudal England, or chivalrous England. If in western civilised Europe there does exist a nation among whom there are high signors, and with whom the owners of the land are the true aristocracy, the aristocracy that is trusted as being best and fittest to rule, that nation is the ...
— Doctor Thorne • Anthony Trollope
... rock, with huts for his followers; and became known directly all over the country as Sir Roger de Rockville, or Sir Roger of the hamlet on the Rock. Sir Roger, no doubt, was a mighty hunter before the lord of the feudal district: it is certain that his descendants were. For generations they led a jolly life at Rockville, and were always ready to exchange the excitement of the chase for a bit of civil war. Without that the country would have grown dull, and ale and venison lost their flavor. ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... very particularly strikes a stranger, and that is the number of antiquities. Already there have been many cycles of population succeeding each other, and passing away and leaving behind them relics. These, standing on into changed times, strike the imagination as forcibly as any pyramid or feudal tower. The towns, like the vineyards, are experimentally founded: they grow great and prosper by passing occasions; and when the lode comes to an end, and the miners move elsewhere, the town remains behind them, like Palmyra in the desert. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... her meadows so green, There's an ancient owd hall to-day may be seen, That wor built in the days of some owd feudal king, Of whom the owd bards delighted to sing. Tho' its splendour's now faded, its greatness was then Known to its foemen as Red Lion's den; 'Neath its armorial shield, an' hoary owd wall, I now see Rebecca o' ...
— Revised Edition of Poems • William Wright
... ages have gathered out the rocks and stones, and built walls of them to terrace up the land. The villages of these peasants, too, are seen every where nestling in the valleys, and clinging to the sides of the hills, while the summits of almost all the elevations are crowned with the ruins of old feudal castles built by barons, or chiefs, or kings, or military bishops of ancient times, famous in history. This picturesque portion of the river, which extends from Bonn, a little above Cologne, to Mayence,—which towns you will readily find on almost any map of Europe,—was ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... "took leave": hence the modern phrase to signify the departure of one person from another, which in feudal times could not be done without leave ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... seen, too, in his political views. The Radical Parson, the upholder of Chartism, was in many ways a strong Tory. He had a great belief in the land-owning classes, and an admiration for what remained of the Feudal System. He believed that the old relation between squire and villagers, if each did his duty, worked far better than the modern pretence of Equality and Independence. Like Disraeli, like Ruskin, and like many other men of high imagination, ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... unvarying succession of revolts, oppression, and bloodshed. In pursuance of their usual system of colonial administration, which strangely contrasted with their domestic policy, they had introduced into the island a sort of modified feudal system, in order to rivet their ascendancy over this remote possession, by the interposition of a class of resident proprietors, whose interest it would be to maintain the dominion of the parent state: but the cavaliers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... position in the political system of that country. In Germany the royal power was less imposing, its prerogatives being divided between the Emperor and a number of small but almost independent vassals, remnants of that feudal system of the Middle Ages which in France and England had been absorbed by the rise of national monarchies. These small principalities explain the weakness of Germany in her relation with foreign powers, ...
— Chips From A German Workshop. Vol. III. • F. Max Mueller
... enterprises in question were prevented. The adoption of a registry was refused, on the alleged ground of its inconsistency with the French institutions of the province, and no measure to attain this desirable end in a less obnoxious mode, was prepared by the leaders of the Assembly. The feudal tenure was supported, as a mild and just provision for the settlement of a new country; a kind of assurance given by a committee of the Assembly, that some steps should be taken to remove the most injurious incidents of the seignorial ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... to this subject to relate that, a year or two before, a mode of trial had been abolished which, though long disused, by some curious oversight had still been allowed to remain on the statute-book. In the feudal times either the prosecutor or the prisoner, in cases of felony, had a right to claim that the cause should be decided by "wager of battle;" but it was an ordeal which, with one exception in the reign of George II., ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... by Mr. Veitch that he had at length found a purchaser for my house; and, after getting myself served heir to my father before the Court of the Canongate, and paying a large arrear of feu-duty to that venerable corporation, in which I had to recognise my feudal superior, I got myself as surely dissevered from the Coal-hill as paper and parchment could do it, and pocketed, in virtue of the transaction, a balance of about fifty pounds. As nearly as I could calculate on what the property had cost us, from first to last, ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... covered with ivy, a fountain and good-sized basin in the middle of the courtyard, and a big clock over the door—sometimes they stand in a moat, one goes over a drawbridge with massive doors, studded with iron nails and strong iron bolts and chains which defend the entrance, making one think of old feudal days, when might was right, and if a man wanted his neighbours property, he simply took it. Even some of the smaller chateaux have moats. I think they are more picturesque than comfortable—an ivy-covered house with a ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... mountains opposite mercifully hid from view. But Karl had no time in which to consider the thoughts of his passengers. He had his orders. If achievement were in the metal he intended to carry them out. The feudal castles of old Bosnia passed in stately review, Maglaj, Usora, clinging leech-like to their inaccessible peaks, grim sentinels of the vista of years, frowning at the roaring engine of modernity which ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... her life that the feeling she suffered under, and manifested, was very easily appeased. Harry promised to ask the Gainsboroughs to her funeral. Addie Tristram's conscientious scruples were entirely laid to rest; with a sigh of peace she settled herself to die. It was the feudal feeling, Harry decided, which insisted that the family must not be ignored; it did not deny their humble position, or the gulf that separated them from the succession. Yet he was vaguely vexed, even while he agreed to ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... praise as the fittest person to be entrusted with the government of Ulster. On the 15th of October 1604 Chichester was appointed lord-deputy of Ireland. He announced his policy in a proclamation wherein he abolished the semi-feudal rights of the native Irish chieftains, substituting for them fixed dues, while their tenants were to become dependent "wholly and immediately upon his majesty." Tyrone and other Irish clan chieftains resented this summary interference with their ancient ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... see the loves of Theseus and Hippolyta combined with the Gothick mythology of fairies. Shakespeare, indeed, was not the only violator of chronology, for in the same age Sidney, who wanted not the advantages of learning, has, in his Arcadia, confounded the pastoral with the feudal times, the days of innocence, quiet, and security, with those of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... crossed a blade with him; and it is to my credit that I am living to brag of it. He was king's-man and I was queen's-man during the Douglas wars—young fellows both, that feared neither fire nor steel; and we had some old feudal quarrels besides, that had come down from father to son, with our seal-rings, two-harided broad-swords, and plate-coats, and ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... the characters assigns the tenth, or perhaps the ninth century as its date. It is said to contain, in the Latin tongue, several episodes of Norwegian history, relating to important facts hitherto unknown, and which throw much light on feudal tenures, holdings, superstitions, omens, &c., which have been handed down to our day, with their origin involved in obscurity, and on the darkness of the centuries that preceded the introduction of Christianity into Norway. Has ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 191, June 25, 1853 • Various
... as to write a letter in Spanish, which he carefully translated for Janice's benefit, to the cacique, or mayor, really the "feudal lord" of La Guarda, asking his good offices for "my very good friends," as he ...
— The Mission of Janice Day • Helen Beecher Long
... was to be baptized, he stood its godfather; whenever any God's truth was to be crucified, he led on those who passed by reviling and wagging their heads. Whenever these oppressors revived some old feudal wrong, Nicholas backed them in the name of Religion; whenever their nations struggled to preserve some great right, Nicholas crushed them in the name of Law and Order. With these pauper princes his children intermarried, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... disappearing altogether in accordance with the views of the new monarch. Titles and dignities were to be restored; court formalities and ceremonials were being revived, and new ones instituted. The old nobility, sprung from the feudal system, and dating, as some of them did, from the Crusades, having been swept away by the revolutionary storm, their places were to be supplied, as supporters of the throne, by a new race of men. During this period of transition and ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... fear," writes Hannah More, on hearing of this dinner, "I shall secretly triumph in the success of my fraud, if it has contributed to bring about any intercourse between the Abbey of Fulham and the Castle of Otranto, it sounds so ancient and so feudal! But among the things which pleased you in the episcopal domain, I hope the lady of it has that good fortune; she is quite a model of a pleasant wife. Now, I am acquainted with a great many very good wives, who are so notable and so manageable, that they make a man every thing ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... upon those who were not gentlemen, whilst proffering the most high-flown compliments to those who were. In France, too, this broad distinction of ranks told upon the military strength of the crown. The fighting force of the French king was his feudal array of armour-protected cavalry, composed entirely of gentlemen, and aiming at deciding battles in the old fashion by the rush of horsemen. If foot soldiers were brought at all into the field they were, for the most part, ill armed and ill ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... with times When love-thralled minstrels chaunted rhymes At feast, in feudal hall,— And peasant churls, a saucy crew, Fantastic o'er their wassail grew, Forgetful of ...
— The Baron's Yule Feast: A Christmas Rhyme • Thomas Cooper
... efficient remedies had been prescribed. Russian reformers had merely to study and apply the conclusions at which these eminent authorities had arrived, and their task would be greatly facilitated by the fact that they could operate on virgin soil, untrammelled by the feudal traditions, religious superstitions, metaphysical conceptions, romantic illusions, aristocratic prejudices, and similar obstacles to social and political progress ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... under the King. This is a vast and fertile continent, and those who hold it for him will surely receive vast estates. Any one of us may be as great a feudal lord as Sir ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... far more delightful surely it is to see such qualities in all their pristine strength—for civilisation has not weakened, nor ever will weaken them—without that alloy of fierceness and ferocity which was inseparable from them in the turbulence of feudal times. They are now indeed a peaceful people; severe as are the hardships of their condition, they are, in the main, contented with it; and nothing short of necessity can dissever them from their dear mountains. We devoutly trust that there need be no more forced emigration—that ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... passed. Lately, the same Mikado has made a royal progress through the country, meeting the principal men in each district, and travelling in view of the entire population, so rapidly have manners changed in Japan. When the Mikado was elevated to supreme power, the feudal system, which had existed up to that time, was abolished, and we now see no more of the Samuri, or two-sworded men, or of the Daimios, the petty princes who formerly promenaded the streets in gorgeous dresses, accompanied by their military retainers. ...
— Round the World • Andrew Carnegie
... Fyshe quite carelessly. "All these fellows are." (Mr. Fyshe generally referred to the British aristocracy as "these fellows.") "Land, you know, feudal estates; sheer robbery, I call it. How the working-class, the proletariat, stand for such tyranny is more than I can see. Mark my words, Furlong, some day they'll rise and the whole thing will come ...
— Arcadian Adventures with the Idle Rich • Stephen Leacock
... we found the traces of Soma's handiwork with an axe, and guided by these signs we hurried forward. The ground rose gradually toward the centre of the island, where columns of basalt loomed like the towers of feudal castles against the pure Venetian blue of the tropical sky. But the sky was visible only for moments that were far removed from each other. The crawling vines that overran the trees made an impenetrable barrier against the sunlight, and most of the time we were stumbling along in a mysterious ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... since his coming to Bulgaria, has steadily aimed at the conquest and annexation of neighboring countries with the view of forming for himself an extended state. In this idea Bulgaria has been developed by him on lines de facto tending toward creating rather a feudal domain than a free, modern constitutional state. He encouraged a large number of political parties which could be easily played one against another, duplicating somewhat the Hapsburg principle as applied ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... terrace, and casement, is filled with company, representatives of the historic families of Lucca, the Manfredi, Possenti, Navascoes, Bernardini, dal Portico, Bocella, Manzi, da Gia, Orsetti, Ruspoli—feudal names dear to native ears. The noble marquis, or his excellency the count, lord of broad acres on the plains, or principalities in the mountains, or of hoarded wealth at the National Bank—is he not Lucchese also to the backbone? And does he not delight in the festival ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot
... Gentleman moved, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal. It showed, at least, that a Custom was not impossible to ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... England and sent into the colony. There was nothing in the moral atmosphere of the colony inimical to the spirit of bondage that was manifest so early in the history of this people. England had always held her sceptre over slaves of some character: villeins in the feudal era, stolen Africans under Elizabeth and under the house of the Tudors; Caucasian children—whose German blood could be traced beyond the battle of Hastings—in her mines, factories, and mills; and vanquished Brahmans in her Eastern possessions. ...
— History of the Negro Race in America From 1619 to 1880. Vol 1 - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George W. Williams
... England were the central feature of feudal society. They were the outward and visible sign of that system. M. Guizot in his History of Civilisation says, "It was feudalism which constructed them; their elevation was, so to speak, the declaration of its triumph." On the Continent they were ...
— English Villages • P. H. Ditchfield
... plant colonies in New Netherland. A brisk trade in furs developed, but though the Company grew rich, the colonists were not satisfied. The agriculturists along the Hudson had the benefit of a fertile soil and a genial climate, but they operated their farms under a feudal land system which allowed an overlord to take most of their surplus produce. Moreover, the Dutch governors were autocratic, and the settlers had little voice in the government of the colony. Loyalty to Holland waned as the Dutch saw their English neighbors thriving under less restrictive laws ...
— Problems in American Democracy • Thames Ross Williamson
... Julius Ludovici. Illustrated. A romance of chivalry in feudal times, setting forth the adventures of a youthful knight who seeks his fortunes in the world. ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... irresistible at the head of his numerous vassals, because their duty obliged them to war, and they performed this duty with pleasure. The next day saw this formidable power vanish like a dream, because this fierce undisciplined people had no patience, and the time of the feudal service was contained within very narrow limits. It was therefore easy to find a number of persons at all times ready to follow any standard, but it was hard to complete a considerable design which required a regular and continued movement. This enterprising ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... be possessed by a witch; a power which, as it was not derived from a natural source, could not easily be held in check by natural restraints: neither chains nor dungeons could bind it down or confine it. You might load the witch with irons, you might bury her in the lowest cell of a feudal prison, and still it was believed that she could send forth her imps or her spectre to ravage the fields, and blight the meadows, and throw the elements into confusion, and torture the bodies, and craze the minds, of any who might be the ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... the geyser's throat. Sputtering steam is visible above the cone, the water below boils like a cauldron, and scalding hot, the eruption becomes terribly violent, belching forth clouds of smoke-like steam, and hurling rocks into the air as though a mortar of some feudal stronghold had been discharged. The stupendous column of hot water is veiled in spray as it mounts towards heaven. Boiling water is flowing in brooks to the Firehole River, which is soon swollen to a foaming torrent washing away the bridges below. ...
— The Harris-Ingram Experiment • Charles E. Bolton
... was a man of large landed property. He had raised his corps very much from his own estate and neighbourhood, and was a sort of feudal chieftain. He has been educated like a native, though the son of a Colonel in the ...
— A Political Diary 1828-1830, Volume II • Edward Law (Lord Ellenborough)
... associated as they are with manifestations of exquisite feeling and power in other directions. The porches of Bourges, Amiens, Notre Dame of Paris, and Notre Dame of Dijon, may be noted as conspicuous in error: small models of feudal towers with diminutive windows and battlements, of cathedral spires with scaly pinnacles, mixed with temple pediments and nondescript edifices of every kind, are crowded together over the recess of the niche into a confused fool's cap for the saint below. Italian ...
— The Stones of Venice, Volume I (of 3) • John Ruskin
... foundation of the ethical side of ownership is the primitive impulse of possession, that ownership which led to wife-capture, to feudal castles, to accumulation of things, and to-day is expressed by the man who prefers to have his steak cooked in his own kitchen ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards
... Queen's Coronation, which took place on the 28th of June. It was, like the "Half Crownation" of William IV., a much plainer affair than that of George the Magnificent, the walking procession of all the estates of the realm, and the banquet in Westminster Hall, with all the feudal services thereunto belonging, being wholly dispensed with. The day began badly, with a cold shower about 8 a.m., but it cleared off, and the sun shone out fitfully, throughout the time the ceremony occupied—the head of the procession ...
— Gossip in the First Decade of Victoria's Reign • John Ashton
... FRANCE IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 3 Extent at the Accession of Francis I. 3 Gradual Territorial Growth 4 Subdivision in the Tenth Century 5 Destruction of the Feudal System 5 The Foremost Kingdom of Christendom 6 Assimilation of Manners and Language 8 Growth and Importance of Paris 9 Military Strength 10 The Rights of the People overlooked 11 The States General not convoked 12 Unmurmuring Endurance of the ...
— The Rise of the Hugenots, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Henry Martyn Baird
... is a retort in which the power of strong men is evaporated, where their vitality is exhausted, and their wills enfeebled. Government offices are part of a great scheme for the manufacture of the mediocrity necessary for the maintenance of a Feudal System on a pecuniary basis—and money is the foundation of the Social Contract. (See Les Employes.) The mephitic vapors in the atmosphere of a crowded room contribute in no small degree to bring about a gradual ...
— Melmoth Reconciled • Honore de Balzac
... as the "Farmer Duke," from his love of agriculture and rural pursuits, though he was a D.C.L. and F.R.S. and possessed the feudal dignity of Lord Lieutenant of Middlesex. His father had been Prime Minister; but the son made no effort to shine in politics and contented himself with developing the resources of his estates and adding to ...
— The Portland Peerage Romance • Charles J. Archard
... wash his spears," saying that he was but half a king until he had done so. The Natal Government, however, invariably replied that he was on no account to do anything of the sort. This shows the inconveniences of possessing a complimentary feudal hold over a savage potentate, the shadow of power without the reality. The Governor of Natal could not in decency sanction such a proceeding as a war of extermination against the Swazis, but if it had occurred without his sanction, the Swazis would have suffered no doubt, but the Zulu ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... mediaeval times, and recognizes this most strongly, by placing over fifty of these great geniuses and luminaries, popes, bishops, and saints of the Catholic Church, in the Comtist Calendar, under the sixth and seventh months dedicated to St. Paul or Catholicism, and Charlemagne or Feudal Civilization respectively. We should thank the followers of Comte for thus bringing to our notice what we might be liable to occasionally forget in ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley as a Philosopher and Reformer • Charles Sotheran
... we might obtain an oblique and surreptitious view of a small portion of the castle walls. This suggestion led us to inquire (of each other) to what degree of baseness it is allowed to an enlightened lover of the picturesque to resort, in order to catch a glimpse of a feudal chateau. One of our trio decided, characteristically, against any form of derogation; so she sat in the carriage and sketched some object that was public property, while her two companions, who were not so proud, trudged up a muddy ascent which formed a kind of ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... which came from money, and political success. For the first he had a practical deference that was as profound as his wishes for its enjoyments; and for the last he felt precisely the sort of reverence, that one educated under a feudal system, would feel for a feudal lord. The first, after several unsuccessful efforts, he had found unattainable by means of matrimony, and he turned his thoughts towards Annette, whom he had for some months held in reserve, in the event ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... lands, whilst the yearly sacrificial feasts were supported by a tax gathered from the people. Each chief reigned supreme within his own jurisdiction, and could take life or confiscate property at will. At given periods these feudal rulers met to discuss affairs of importance, or to promulgate laws for the better government of the community; but they had no written laws, or any general accepted body of lawgivers, hence, as may easily be supposed, constant differences of opinion existed, which per force was settled ...
— A Girl's Ride in Iceland • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... Ypres from a feudal tower on an island until it became a great fortress can be traced in a very interesting volume of maps and plans published by M. Vereecke in 1858, as a supplement to his Histoire Militaire d'Ypres. It shows the first defensive works, those erected by Vauban, the state of the fortifications ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... forbidding—it was jungle, beloved jungle. To his right there spread a panorama of the lower reaches of the Valley of Jad-ben-Otho, with its winding streams and its blue lakes. Gleaming whitely in the sunlight were scattered groups of dwellings—the feudal strongholds of the lesser chiefs of the Ho-don. A-lur, the City of Light, he could not see as it was hidden by the shoulder of the cliff in which the ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... Keen, commercial New York was gone. Here, people talked of politics and the land. The men who came into Williamsburg on horseback or in their high coaches were owners of great plantations, where they lived as patriarchs, and feudal lords. The human stock was purely British and the personal customs and modes of thought of the British gentry had ...
— The Shadow of the North - A Story of Old New York and a Lost Campaign • Joseph A. Altsheler
... were there from the Parliament House of Edinburgh, a score of dusty gowns, accustomed to sweep the lobbies of the Courts of Session, gathered the sand of the burgh street, and in their midst walked the representatives of that old feudal law at long-last ostensibly abandoned, and of the common law of the land. Argyll was in a demure equivalent for some Court costume, with a dark velvet coat, a ribbon of the Thistle upon his shoulder, a sword upon his haunch, and for all his sixty-six years ...
— Doom Castle • Neil Munro
... those stupid trade-regulations which in England, and on the continent of Europe, hamper so annoyingly the movement of commerce, and complicate so vexatiously the relations between employers and employed. Few of these relics of feudal-age policy exist in the United States: a master takes as many apprentices as he pleases, perfectly regardless of anything his journeymen may think or say to the contrary. He believes, and not without reason, that while he pays them ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 428 - Volume 17, New Series, March 13, 1852 • Various
... over the whole surface of the globe.'' "The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.'' Feudal relations became fetters: "They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder. . . . A similar movement is going on before our own eyes.'' "The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... 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 ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... of 1848 brought about the new Hungarian Constitution, and put an end to feudal government. Light penetrated into the darksome streets of the Ghetto, and through the windows opened to receive the Messiah, a saviour entered proclaiming liberty and equality to the downtrodden ...
— Stories by Foreign Authors: German • Various
... occasional, and, for the most, the servants stayed at "The Flutes"—partly because the pay was good, and partly because the very reiteration of Trojan supremacy gave them a feeling of elevation very pleasant to their pride. In accordance with all true feudal law, you lost your own sense of birth and ancestry and became in a moment a Trojan; for Smith, Jones, and Robinson this ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... to carry in 1848, of course altered nothing in that old chartered condition of Hungary. We transformed the peasantry into freeholders, and abolished feudal incumbrances. We replaced the political privileges of aristocracy by the common liberty of the whole people; gave to the people at large representation in the legislature; transformed our municipalities into democratic corporations; introduced equality before the law for the whole people ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... enjoys after childhood in this blest age, so philosophic, free, and enlightened to a miracle, but far removed from the ardent dreams and soft credulity of the world's youth. Sometimes I think I would give all our gains for those times when young and old gathered in the feudal hall, listening with soul-absorbing transport to the romance of the minstrel, unrestrained and regardless of criticism, and when they worshipped nature, not as high-dressed and pampered, but as ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... from Virginia, compelled to organize their county under the name of the Romanist, Anne Arundel, unfurled the standard of the Commonwealth, reddened with a tyrant king's blood, against the invading army of Lord Baltimore, and, shouting "God is our strength: fall on, men!" annihilated feudal Maryland, never to revive; and, after King William's similar revolution in England, "Providence town" took his queen sister's name, Annapolis, like Princess Anne across ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... assisted in, or at least countenanced, the attack recently made on Holyrood House by Stewart, Earl of Bothwell; and Huntly was commissioned to arrest Murray and bring him to trial. Murray, apprehended at Donibristle (or Dunnibirsel), his mother the Lady Doune's house, refused to surrender to his feudal enemy the Earl of Huntly, and the house was fired. Murray, after remaining behind the rest of his party, rushed out and broke through the enemy, but was subsequently discovered (by the plumes on his headpiece, ...
— Ballads of Mystery and Miracle and Fyttes of Mirth - Popular Ballads of the Olden Times - Second Series • Frank Sidgwick
... Empire—to the preservation of the integrity of the French territory—to the defence of the Emperor, of the laws of the Republic, and of the property which they have made sacred—to combat by all the means which justice, reason, and the laws authorise every attempt to reestablish the feudal system; in short, swear to concur with all your might in maintaining liberty and equality, which are the bases of all our ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... seen many fine places since then, but I do not remember to have seen a landscape more beautiful in its peculiar English character than that which I now gazed on. It had none of the feudal characteristics of ancient parks, with giant oaks, fantastic pollards, glens covered with fern, and deer grouped upon the slopes; on the contrary, in spite of some fine trees, chiefly beech, the impression conveyed was, that ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... might recall a remote half feudal, half patriarchal age, when, under the smoky rafters of his antique hail, some warlike thane sat, with kinsmen and dependants ranged down the long board, each in his degree. Here, doubtless, Ragueneau, the Father Superior, held the place of honor; and, for chieftains scarred ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... the old feudal fortress floated side by side the flags of France and of the Holy See. Beside the ruins rose, sharply defined and well detached against the summer sky, the colossal statue of Urban II. upon its lofty pedestal of ...
— France and the Republic - A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces - During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 • William Henry Hurlbert
... against anthropomorphic idolatry, which was, as we have seen, the secret of Darwin's success, had been accompanied by a revolt against the conventional respectability which covered not only the brigandage and piracy of the feudal barons, but the hypocrisy, inhumanity, snobbery, and greed of the bourgeoisie, who were utterly corrupted by an essentially diabolical identification of success in life with big profits. The moment Marx shewed that ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... principle, united many persons and families with either of these great parties which seemed most likely to subserve their private ambitions. The feudal system was nearly extinct in form, but its spirit was still alive. The nobles who had long held sway in some of the provinces of France desired to hold them as distinct and separate governments, and to transmit them as an inheritance to their children. This motive often determined ...
— Voyages of Samuel de Champlain, Vol. 1 • Samuel de Champlain
... once Labour is freed — or rather when once it frees itself — from the thraldom, of the old Feudal system, and finally from the fearful burden of modern Capitalism — when once it can lift its head and see the great constructive vision of the new society which awaits it — then surely it will perceive that all the great ...
— NEVER AGAIN • Edward Carpenter
... crowned with dense woodlands, surround us and form a beautiful setting of green for the town, which has come down from the fantastic days of the Norman Conquest without any drastic or unseemly changes, and thus has still the compactness and the romantic outline of feudal times. ...
— Yorkshire Painted And Described • Gordon Home
... manor and there was the cabin. Each head of the house was a potentate in his own domain—an absolute ruler of a principality as marked as in feudal times, without the despotism of the ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... throne,[31] and there receives the ubbidienza or homage of all the cardinals present, who in turn kiss His right hand covered with the cope. This ceremony which takes place at all solemn offices, except on good friday, and at masses for the dead, bears some resemblance to the old homage of feudal times[32]. ...
— The Ceremonies of the Holy-Week at Rome • Charles Michael Baggs
... servants will develop what we have learned to call a morality of masters and a morality of slaves. This was essentially the code of the feudal system. We have survivals of such a group morality in our code of the gentleman, which in England still depreciates manual labor, although it has been refined and softened and enlarged to include respect for other than military ...
— The Ethics of Coperation • James Hayden Tufts
... This emphasis is justified because of its importance to civilization and therefore to the United States. Peace is jeopardized by the few and not by the many. Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power. The world has witnessed similar eras—as in the days when petty kings and feudal barons were changing the map of Europe every fortnight, or when great emperors and great kings were engaged in a mad scramble for colonial empire. We hope that we are not again at the threshold of such an era. But if face it we must, then ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin D. Roosevelt • Franklin D. Roosevelt
... riche about him. He did not wear a ring or scarf-pin, his watch-chain was simple and inconspicuous enough for a school-boy—and he was worth three million pounds, with a palace building in Park Lane and a feudal castle in Wales leased for a period of years. There was nothing greatly striking in his carriage; indeed, he did not make enough of his height and bulk; but his eye was strong and clear, his head was powerful, and his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... two, threw down the cards and swung away to talk a moment with this one, listen a moment where those two spoke of hushed matters. Always when he came near he was accorded deference. There was nothing sacred from Courtrey of the Stronghold, seated like a feudal place at the north head of Lost Valley, no conversation so private that he could not come in ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... dusk came on and the firelight brightened in the gathering gloom, he would take up his guitar, and to the accompaniment of a few slight chords sing me a quaint old French chanson of the feudal times; or an Arab chant picked up in the tent or the Nile boat; or a Spanish ballad, half love-song, half litany, learned from the lips of a ...
— Monsieur Maurice • Amelia B. Edwards
... this monarchical principle was embodied in the form of military power, was based upon feudal loyalty, and was associated with the noble ideals, but somewhat reckless practices, of mediaeval chivalry. The victories of Egbert and Alfred the Great transformed the Heptarchy into a substantial English Kingdom. The military skill of William ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... not so much the Church as Teutonic customs and the development of the feudal system, with the masculine and military ideals it fostered, that was chiefly decisive in fixing the inferior position of women in the mediaeval world. Even the ideas of chivalry, which have often been supposed to be peculiarly favorable to women, so far as they ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... cannot keep the vassals in the field longer than their feudal obligations compel them to stay, unless I pay and feed them; which might be done readily enough, for two or three months. But the war may last for years, and I must reserve my means, and strength, ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... its religious communities may possess, were obtained either from the Crown of France, and therefore secured by treaty, or by the legacies of individuals, or by purchase. The island of Montreal was obtained by purchase; the rights are merely seignorial, or feudal, and yield to the seigneurs L8,000 ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... you pass from the royal Tuileries, or the luxurious streets beyond the Rue de Rivoli, to the Senate of the emancipated People, and the gloomy and desolate grandeur of the Faubourg St. Germain, in whose venerable haunts the impoverished descendants of the old feudal tyrants, whom the birth of the Senate overthrew, yet congregate;—the ghosts of departed powers proud of the shadows of great names. As the English outcast paused midway on the bridge, and for the first time lifting his head from his bosom, gazed around, there ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... name to the compounding of the word 'chateau' with that of 'Briant,' the family style of its original lord, the old feudal fortress is now a ruin, but the castle, built by Jean de Laval, Governor of Brittany under Francis I, is in good repair. An inscription giving the date of the completion of the new chateau as 1538 is above ...
— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence
... part which the clerical vote may have played throughout Europe in supporting military systems. I do not even find anything about the sacred cause of democracy, the resolve of a self-governing people to put an end to feudal rule. Instead I discover a soldier-boy who obeys and keeps silent, and who, in his inmost heart, is in the grip of terrors both of body and soul. Poor, pitiful soldier-boy, marking yourself with crosses, performing genuflexions, mumbling magic formulas ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... enthusiasm, the fatherland, and humanity; if our hearts are pure, and our souls steadfast and patient, the genius inspired to interpret our aspirations, and bear to heaven our ideas and our sufferings, will not be wanting. Let these statues stand. The noble monuments of feudal times create no desire to return to ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... theologum. The heart makes the theologian. Every race, every civilization, either has a new revelation of its own or a new interpretation of an old one. Democratic America, has a different humanity from feudal Europe, and so must have a new divinity. See, for one moment, how intelligence reacts on our faiths. The Bible was a divining-book to our ancestors, and is so still in the hands of some of the vulgar. The Puritans went to the Old Testament for their laws; the Mormons go ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... it seemed to Clarissa, who grew a little nervous about this visit among strangers, in a great strange house, as it came nearer. She had seen the outside of the Castle very often: a vast feudal pile it seemed, seen across the bright river that flowed beneath its outward wall—a little darksome and gloomy at the best, Clarissa had thought, and something too grand to make a pleasant habitation. She had never seen the inner quadrangle, ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... Elizabeth's day, especially as they were desirous of emulating the achievements of Spain. And lastly it may be noticed that English and Spanish conditions of intellectual life, if we shut our eyes to the religious differences, were very similar at this time. Both countries had replaced a shattered feudal system by an absolute and united monarchy. Both countries owed an immense debt to Italy, and, in both, the Italian influence took a similar form, modified on the one hand by humanism, and on the other by feelings of patriotism, if not ...
— John Lyly • John Dover Wilson
... us to Durham, a place of which Mr. Thrale bade me take particular notice. The bishop's palace has the appearance of an old feudal castle, built upon an eminence, and looking down upon the river, upon which was formerly thrown a drawbridge, as I suppose, to be raised at night, lest ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... to this unexpected outburst, so unlike her cousin's usual language; but the charm was broken by its ending with the tremendously long name of Enguerrand, which always made her laugh, it was in such perfect harmony with the feudal pretensions of the Monredons and ...
— Jacqueline, v2 • Th. Bentzon (Mme. Blanc)
... goods of the world. In times of violence, every eminent person must fall in with many opportunities to approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's name that emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages, rattles in our ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out of fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and in the moving crowd of good society the men of valor and reality are known and rise to their natural place. The competition ...
— Essays, Second Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... placed ours in the foreground of the scene; I made them leading actors in this tragedy, wherever I endeavored to represent the three kinds of ambition by which we are influenced, and with them the beauty of self-sacrifice to a noble ideal. A treatise on the fall of the feudal system; on the position, at home and abroad, of France in the seventeenth century; on foreign alliances; on the justice of parliaments or of secret commissions, or on accusations of sorcery, would not perhaps have been read. But ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... of the Preadamite worlds. Its fossil remains might now and then excite curiosity. But it was as impossible to put life into the old institutions as to animate the skeletons which are imbedded in the depths of primeval strata. It was as absurd to think that France could again be placed under the feudal system, as that our globe could be overrun by Mammoths. The revolution in the laws and in the form of government was but an outward sign of that mightier revolution which had taken place in the heart and brain of the people, and which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of London still stands to show us how London was defended in the old feudal days; but Tower Bridge, the bridge which crosses the river at that point, is a modern bridge, built in 1894. The name Cripplegate still remains, and the story it has to tell us is that in the Middle Ages there stood outside ...
— Stories That Words Tell Us • Elizabeth O'Neill
... people of the lesser principality. The real kingdom of the English never existed before the days of Eadward the Elder, and scarcely before the days of William the Norman and Henry the Angevin. As to the kingdom of England, that was a far later invention of the feudal lawyers. ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... entirely without means of admission for light; lying, at great depth, immediately beneath that portion of the building in which was my own sleeping apartment. It had been used, apparently, in remote feudal times, for the worst purposes of a donjon-keep, and, in later days, as a place of deposit for powder, or some other highly combustible substance, as a portion of its floor, and the whole interior of a long archway through which we reached it, were carefully sheathed with copper. The door, ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... at work behind all this, I found it was in the life of one young man, a simple, holy life burning with a passion for Jesus. In this life could be found the kindling of the tender flames burning so hotly in these young hearts. He was a young American officer engaged, by the feudal lord of the province, to teach military tactics and English. He dared not teach Christianity; that would have meant instant dismissal. So for two years he lived the message, so simply and lovingly that he won the love of his pupils. Then they came Sundays to his house to hear him ...
— Quiet Talks on Following the Christ • S. D. Gordon
... blow struck upon the bell in that tower of the Lion began the tolling for the passing away of the feudal system, and began the joy- peal, or carillon, for whatever deserves joy, in that of our modern liberties, whether of action or ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... long billowing hills and vales, much of their surface densely wooded, but with wide spaces under cultivation and even greater tracts of a sort of heath-land very wild in aspect and conjuring up pictures of outlaws' camps and the clash of battling feudal days. Hard by had resided of old a warden of the marches, and the ruins of his stronghold might still be seen on the crest ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... happier in a partially cleansed state?" said Mr. Red House. And Mrs. Red House, who is my idea of a feudal lady in a castle, said, "Oh, come along, let's go and partially clean ourselves. I'm dirtier than anybody, though I haven't explored a bit. I've often noticed that the more you admire things the more they come ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... At this feudal summons I turned, and spied the Bashaw elbowing his way towards me through the Fleet Street crowd, his hat and tie askew and his big face a red beacon of goodwill. He fell on my neck, and ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... sugar." We were led into the dining-hall, a long airy apartment, provided with benches and tables, and from thence into a most splendid kitchen, high, vaulted, and receiving air from above, a kitchen that might have graced the castle of some feudal baron, and looked as if it would most surely last as long as men shall eat and cooks endure. Monks of San Hiplito! how many a smoking dinner, what viands steaming and savoury must have issued from this noblest of kitchens to your refectory ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... in Lower Canada is still in part based upon the old French feudal system. There are still 'seigneurs' who hold lands, and have 'censitaires' or tenants, paying fee-rent in produce, services, and money. It is true that a law has been passed enabling a fixed commutation, in money, of these seigneurial rights; but I ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... districts of Scotland. The family of Hogg claimed descent from Hougo, a Norwegian baron; and the poet's paternal ancestors at one period possessed the lands of Fauldshope in Ettrick Forest, and were followers, under the feudal system, of the Knights of Harden. For several generations they had adopted the simple occupation of shepherds. On the mother's side, the poet was descended from the respectable family of Laidlaw,—one of the oldest in Tweeddale, ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume II. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... Tybar, "what the devil does it matter what a bloated robber minds, anyway? That's the way to look at me, Sabre. Trample me underfoot, my boy. I'm a pestilent survivor of the feudal system, ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... able to lay hold of a tower, and collect around him a band of followers, he invariably exacts this tribute from strangers; just as in our middle ages of Europe was done by the same class of persons in countries where feudal institutions prevailed. The petty barons were the shaikhs of ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Pope; the three great orders of angels in heaven, as real as the three great orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, on earth; and the whole system of spheres, each revolving within the one above it, and all moving about the earth, subject to the primum mobile, as real as the feudal system of western Europe, subject to ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... (Vol. ii., p. 464.).—A. A. will find, from Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. ii. p. 135., that in feudal times a husband had the power of protecting his lands from the wife's claim to dower, by endowing her, ad ostium Ecclesiae, with specific estates to the exclusion of others; or, if he had no lands at the time of the marriage, by an endowment ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 77, April 19, 1851 • Various
... acaadamy." Well might Boswell say that they were "so totally different that a good understanding is scarcely possible." Beside disliking Paoli and Johnson, Lord Auchinleck cared nothing for some of Boswell's strict feudal notions, had the bad taste to give his son a step-mother, and to be as unlike him as possible in the matter of good spirits. Scarcely anything could interfere with the judge's cheerfulness, while Boswell was always falling into depressions about nothing in particular and perhaps indulging ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... prepared for him by the system of society, and which seem to impose the alternative to resist or to avoid it.... It is for Englishmen to consider, not for us; we only say, Let us live in America, too thankful for our want of feudal institutions.... If only the men are employed in conspiring with the designs of the Spirit who led us hither, and is leading us still, we shall quickly enough advance out of all hearing of others' censures, out ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... village of the Middle Ages constitutes a distinct type of rural community. A consciousness of mutual dependence between the owner of the land and the peasants who were his serfs produced a feudal system in which the landlord undertook to furnish protection and to permit the peasant to use portions of his land in exchange for service. Strips of fertile soil were allotted to the village families for cultivation, ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... command the Neapolitan army. Sir William Hamilton, however, writing on the 26th of October, was more accurate in saying that the Emperor only advised the King "to act openly against the French at Malta, as he would certainly support him;" for, Naples having a feudal claim upon the island, action there could be represented as merely resistance to aggression. In consequence of this misunderstanding, great confusion ensued in the royal councils when a courier from Vienna brought word, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... great a strain at first in Europe. The bones of the Three Kings, by the way, made the fortune of the cathedral. They were the greatest religious card of the Middle Ages, and their fortunate possession brought a flood of wealth to this old Domkirche. The old feudal lords would swear by the Almighty Father, or the Son, or Holy Ghost, or by everything sacred on earth, and break their oaths as they would break a wisp of straw: but if you could get one of them to swear by the Three Kings of Cologne, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... prove an original Celtic origin for Cinderella? Scarcely. It remains to be proved that this introductory part of the story with helpful animal was necessarily part of the original. Having regard to the feudal character underlying the whole conception, it remains possible that the earlier part was ingeniously dovetailed on to the latter from some pre-existing and more archaic tale, perhaps that represented by the Grimms' One Eyed, Two Eyes, and Three Eyes. The possibility ...
— More English Fairy Tales • Various
... of his country's subsequent decay. "There was one happy epoch in which Spain reached the summit of her greatness—that of the Reyes Catolicos, Don Fernando V. and Dona Isabel I. Under their reign were united the sceptres of Castilla, Aragon, Navarra, and Granada; the feudal system disappeared—it had never extended far into the eastern limits of the kingdom—the abuses in the Church were in great measure reformed, the administration of the kingdom with the magnificent reign of justice began to be consolidated, in the Cortes the powerful voice of the people was ...
— Spanish Life in Town and Country • L. Higgin and Eugene E. Street
... along Thames Street; they were always in danger of fire—in 962, in 1087, in 1135, the greater part of the City was burned to the ground. They lived in plenty: there was work for all: they had their folk mote—their City parliament—and their ward mote—which still exists: they had no feudal lord to harass them: as for the dirt and mud and stench of the narrow City streets, they cared nothing for such things. They were free: and they were well fed: and they were ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... Those who would not be subdued he killed or maimed. He made new laws, took from the peasants their odal estates, and declared all land to be the king's property. Many of the conquered people rebelled against his rule and his strict feudal laws, and some of his provinces had to be conquered twice over. But with every year he came nearer to his goal, and those who opposed him only brought about their ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... were held of the king or other person as lord at a certain rent. The term is of less practical importance in the English than in the Scottish system, where it held an important place in the practice of conveyancing, real property having been generally divided into feudal-holding and burgage-holding. Since the Conveyancing (Scotland) Act 1874, there is, however, not much distinction between burgage tenure and free holding. It is usual to speak of the English burgage-tenure as a relic of Saxon freedom resisting the shock of the Norman ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... kingdom down to the first partition of 1772, but like other towns in Poland it had for centuries been inhabited and municipally governed mainly by Germans and Jews. For Poland was a kingdom which prolonged feudal conditions into the eighteenth century; it was a nation of serfs and landlords, and its commerce and industry, and therefore its towns, had been left for German and Jewish immigrants to develop. The corridor to the sea with most of Posen was eventually given to Poland, ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... hour had struck he stood up and took leave of his desk and of his fellow-clerks punctiliously. He emerged from under the feudal arch of the King's Inns, a neat modest figure, and walked swiftly down Henrietta Street. The golden sunset was waning and the air had grown sharp. A horde of grimy children populated the street. They stood or ran in the roadway or ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... Victorian era, like a Georgian caricature; still inhabiting a turreted castle romantically out of repair, infested with ragged parasites: still believing in high living and deep drinking: still receiving the reverence if not the rent of a feudal tenantry, and the affection of a horsey and bibulous countryside. When in liquor there was nothing the O'Keeffe might not do except pay off his mortgages. "He looked like an elephant when he put his trousers on wrong—you know elephants have their knees the wrong way," Eileen ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Honor was, and would continue to be, an institution dear to the French heart, this one was not so, and needed an apology; for his imperial nobility had never been taken seriously or kindly by the people, who could not draw the nice distinction between a feudal and an imperial aristocracy. Even in the first steps of his enterprise he was made to feel the need of caution, and it was by statute, after all, not by decree, that the whole matter was finally regulated. So curious ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... those topsy-turvy mixtures of all places and ages which only this jumbled century of ours has witnessed; it impressed me deeply. Here was this Indian prince, a feudal Rajput chief, living practically among his vassals in the Middle Ages when at home in India; yet he said 'I am a Merton man,' as Harold himself might have said it; and he talked about cricket as naturally as Lord Southminster talked about the noble quadruped. The oddest part of it all ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... left except the old castle on his property at Galway, his manorial rights, and the unbounded attachment and devotion of the wild tenants, who looked upon him as their feudal chieftain, felt convinced that he had no resource but to escape from his numerous creditors, who would not hesitate to put him in durance, and whose impatience had been with difficulty restrained until the death of the admiral. ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... into the great rush-strewn hall, where were none of the comforts which had begun to grow common among the gentry, but a feudal gauntness and bareness, and pointed to the bench in the great chimney; and when he had sat down, filled up a horn noggin and set it on the bench beside him, and set a great black jack of leather beside ...
— The Secret Rose • W. B. Yeats
... castle defending the approach to the Cite. Tradition traced its existence back to Roman times, and in the 18th century one of the rooms in the great tower was still called the chambre de Cesar. The jurisdiction was that of the provostship (prevote) and viscountship of Paris, which was certainly of feudal origin, probably going back to the counts ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... Lady of the Oder for the use of her people. Here was one man's oath against another's. Moreover, and even if his sentence were legal (which he denied), it could be revised and quashed by the Viscount of Beziers, as feudal lord of Ambialet, and to him he appealed. Nevertheless they whipped him; and the casks they broached, and having tasted the stuff, let ...
— Merry-Garden and Other Stories • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... obmutescentes, sergentare valeant. They quoted the statutes of Henry I. of England, cap. 53: Surge signo jussus. Taciturnior esto. Hoc est esse in captione regis. They took advantage especially of the following description, held to form part of the ancient feudal franchises of England:—"Sous les viscomtes sont les serjans de l'espee, lesquels doivent justicier vertueusement a l'espee tous ceux qui suient malveses compagnies, gens diffamez d'aucuns crimes, et gens fuites et forbannis.... et les doivent si vigoureusement ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... warlike aspect which Germany has preserved. It seems that the gentle soil of Ausonia was unable to support the fortifications and citadels which bristle in northern countries. Rarely is a Gothic edifice or a feudal castle to be met with here; and the monuments of the ancient Romans reign alone triumphant over Time, and the nations by whom ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael |
