The same changes happened in the fiefs as
in the allodia. We find by the Capitulary of Compigne,
[176]
under King
Pepin, that those who had received a benefice from the king gave a part
of this benefice to different bondmen; but these parts were not distinct
from the whole. The king revoked them when he revoked the whole; and at
the death of the king's vassal, the rear-vassal lost also his rear-fief:
and a new beneficiary succeeded, who likewise established new
rear-vassals. Thus it was the person and not the rear-fief that depended
on the fief; on the one hand, the rear-vassal returned to the king
because he was not tied for ever to the vassal; and the rear-fief
returned also to the king because it was the fief itself and not a
dependence of it.
Such was the rear-vassalage, while the fiefs were during pleasure;
and such was it also while they were for life. This was altered when the
fiefs descended to the next heirs, and the rear-fiefs the same. That
which was held before immediately of the king was held now mediately;
and the regal power was thrown back, as it were, one degree, sometimes
two; and oftentimes more.
We find in the books of fiefs
[177]
that, though the king's vassals
might give away in fief, that is, in rear-fief, to the king, yet these
rear-vassals, or petty vavasors, could not give also in fief; so that
whatever they had given, they might always resume. Besides, a grant of
that kind did not descend to the children like the fiefs, because it was
not supposed to have been made according to the feudal laws.
If we compare the situation in which the rear-vassalage was at the
time when the two Milanese senators wrote those books, with what it was
under King Pepin, we shall find that the rear-fiefs preserved their
primitive nature longer than the fiefs.
[178]
But when those senators wrote, such general exceptions had been made
to this rule as had almost abolished it. For if a person who had
received a fief of a rear-vassal happened to follow him upon an
expedition to Rome, he was entitled to all the privileges of a
vassal.
[179]
In like manner, if he had given money to the rear-vassal to
obtain the fief, the latter could not take it from him, nor hinder him
from transmitting it to his son, till he returned him his money: in
fine, this rule was no longer observed by the senate of Milan.
[180]
