We have observed that Charles the Bald ordained that when the possessor
of a great office or of a fief left a son at his death, the office or
fief should devolve to him. It would be a difficult matter to trace the
progress of the abuses which thence resulted, and of the extension given
to that law in each country. I find in the books of fiefs,
[191]
that
towards the beginning of the reign of the Emperor Conrad II, the fiefs
situated in his dominions did not descend to the grandchildren: they
descended only to one of the last possessor's children, who had been
chosen by the lord:
[192]
thus the fiefs were given by a kind of
election, which the lord made among the children.
In the seventeenth chapter of this book we have explained in what
manner the crown was in some respects elective, and in others hereditary
under the second race. It was hereditary, because the kings were always
taken from that family, and because the children succeeded; it was
elective, by reason that the people chose from among the children. As
things proceed step by step, and one political law has constantly some
relation to another political law, the same spirit was followed in the
succession of fiefs, as had been observed in the succession to the
crown.
[193]
Thus the fiefs were transmitted to the children by the right
of succession, as well as of election; and each fief became both
elective and hereditary, like the crown.
This right of election
[194]
in the person of the lord was not
subsisting at the time of the authors
[195]
of the book of fiefs, that
is, in the reign of the Emperor Frederick I.
