the course of time fiefs became hereditary. Lands were also sometimes
usurped or otherwise obtained by subjects, who thereby became feudal
lords. By a process called "subinfeudation," lands were granted in
parcels to other men by those who received them from the king or
otherwise, and by these lower landholders to others again; and as the
first recipient became the vassal of the king and the suzerain of the
man who held next below him, there was created a regular descending
scale of such vassalage and suzerainty, in which each man's allegiance
was directly due to his feudal lord, and not to the king himself. From
the king down to the lowest landholder all were bound together by
obligation of service and defence; the lord to protect his vassal, the
vassal to do service to his lord.

These are the essential features of the social system which, from its
early growth under the later Carlovingians in the ninth century, spread
over Europe and reached its highest development in the twelfth century.
At a time midway between these periods it was carried by the Norman
Conquest into England. The history of this system of distinctly Frankish
origin--a knowledge of which is absolutely essential to a proper
understanding of history and the evolution of our present social
system--is told by Stubbs with that discernment and thoroughness of
analysis which have given him his rank as one of the few masterly
writers in this field.)


Feudalism had grown up from two great sources--the _beneficium_, and the
practice of commendation--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil
by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any amount of
extension in the methods of dependence.