people who feed thereon, distributes to his subalterns, often but a shade
beneath him in power, portions of his estate, getting the use of their
faithful swords in return. Vavasours subdivide again to vassals,
exchanging land and cattle, human or otherwise, against fealty, and so
the iron chain of a military hierarchy, forged of mutually interdependent
links, is stretched over each little province. Impregnable castles,
here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom, dot the level
surface of the country. Mail-clad knights, with their followers, encamp
permanently upon the soil. The fortunate fable of divine right is
invented to sanction the system; superstition and ignorance give currency
to the delusion. Thus the grace of God, having conferred the property in
a vast portion of Europe upon a certain idiot in France, makes him
competent to sell large fragments of his estate, and to give a divine,
and, therefore, most satisfactory title along with them. A great
convenience to a man, who had neither power, wit, nor will to keep the
property in his own hands. So the Dirks of Holland get a deed from
Charles the Simple, and, although the grace of God does not prevent the
royal grantor himself from dying a miserable, discrowned captive, the
conveyance to Dirk is none the less hallowed by almighty fiat. So the
Roberts and Guys, the Johns and Baldwins, become sovereigns in Hainault,
Brabant, Flanders and other little districts, affecting supernatural
sanction for the authority which their good swords have won and are ever
ready to maintain. Thus organized, the force of iron asserts and exerts
itself. Duke, count, seignor and vassal, knight and squire, master and
man swarm and struggle amain. A wild, chaotic, sanguinary scene. Here,
bishop and baron contend, centuries long, murdering human creatures by
ten thousands for an acre or two of swampy pasture; there, doughty
families, hugging old musty quarrels to their heart, buffet each other
from generation to generation; thus they go on, raging and wrestling
among themselves, with all the world, shrieking insane war-cries which no