remain in the hands of the Christians, and that every one of that religion should have liberty to perform his pilgrimage to Jerusalem unmolested.

§ 17. There remained, after the truce, no business of importance to detain Richard in Palestine; and the intelligence which he received, concerning the intrigues of his brother John, and those of the King of France, made him sensible that his presence was necessary in Europe. As he dared not to pass through France, he sailed to the Adriatic; and, being shipwrecked near Aquileia, he put on the disguise of a pilgrim, with the purpose of taking his journey secretly through Germany. At Vienna his expenses and liberalities betrayed the monarch in the habit of the pilgrim, and he was arrested by orders of Leopold, Duke of Austria (Dec. 20, 1192), who had served under Richard in Palestine, and had been disgusted by some insult of that haughty monarch. The emperor, Henry VI., required the royal captive to be delivered to him, and detained him in a castle in the Tyrol. The English learned the captivity of their king from a letter which the emperor sent to Philip, King of France.* The news excited the greatest indig

nation in England; and it seemed incredible that the champion of the cross should be treated with such indignity. Philip hastened to profit by the circumstance, and formed a treaty with John, of which the object was the perpetual ruin of Richard. Philip, in consequence, invaded Normandy, but was driven out of the province with loss; and John was equally unsuccessful in his enterprises in England. The justiciaries, supported by the general affection of the people, provided so well for the defense of the kingdom, that John was obliged, after some fruitless efforts, to conclude a truce with them.

§ 18. Meanwhile the high spirit of Richard suffered in Germany every kind of insult and indiguity. He was even produced before the diet of the empire at Worms, and accused by Henry of many crimes and misdemeanors (May 20, 1193); but Richard, whose spirit was not broken by his misfortunes, after premising that his dignity exempted him from answering before any jurisdiction, except that of Heaven, yet condescended, for the sake of his reputation, to justify his conduct before that great assembly; and his spirit and eloquence made such impression on the German princes, that they exclaimed loudly against the conduct of the emperor. The Pope also threatened him with excommunication; and Henry at last agreed to restore Richard to his freedom for the sum of 150,000 marks, about 300,000 pounds of our

*The well-known story of the discovery of Richard's place of confinement by his page singing a song under his window rests on no historical authority, and owes its origin to a French romance of the 13th century.

A.D. 1192-1194.

CAPTIVITY OF RICHARD.

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present money, of which 100,000 marks were to be paid before he received his liberty, and 67 hostages delivered for the remainder. His escape was very critical; for Henry, having determined to violate the treaty for the sake of farther advantages, gave orders that Richard should be pursued and arrested. But the king, making all imaginable haste, had already embarked at the mouth of the Scheldt, and was out of sight of land when the messengers of the emperor reached Antwerp. As soon as Philip heard of the king's deliverance from captivity, he wrote to his confederate John in these terms: Take care of yourself; the devil is broken loose. The joy of the English was extreme on the appearance of their monarch (1194), who had suffered so many calamities, who had acquired so much glory, and who had spread the reputation of their name into the farthest East, whither their fame had never before been able to extend. The barons, in a great council, confiscated, on account of his treason, all Prince John's possessions in England; and they assisted the king in reducing the fortresses which still remained in the hands of his brother's adherents.

§ 19. Richard, having settled every thing in England, passed over with an army into Normandy, being impatient to make war on Philip, and to revenge himself for the many injuries which he had received from that monarch. Yet the incidents which attended these hostilities were mean and frivolous; and the war, frequently interrupted by truces, was continued till within a short period of Richard's death. Richard was wounded in the shoulder with an arrow while besieging the castle of Chalus, belonging to his vassal Vidomar, Viscount of Limoges, who had refused to surrender a treasure which he had discovered. The castle was taken, and all the garrison hanged, except the archer, Bertrand de Gourdon, who had wounded Richard, and whom the king reserved for a more deliberate and more cruel execution. The wound was not in itself dangerous, but the unskillfulness of the surgeon made it mortal; he so rankled Richard's shoulder in pulling out the arrow, that a gangrene ensued; and that prince was now sensible that his life was drawing toward a close. He sent for Gourdon, and asked him, "Wretch, what have I ever done to you to oblige you to seek my life?" "What have you done to me?" replied coolly the prisoner;" you killed with your own hands my father and my two brothers, and you intended to have hanged myself. I am now in your power, and you may take revenge by inflicting on me the most severe torments; but I shall endure them all with pleasure, provided I can think that I have been so happy as to rid the world of such a nuisance." Richard, struck with the reasonableness of this reply, and humbled by the near approach of death,

ordered Gourdon to be set at liberty and a sum of money to be given him; but, unknown to the monarch, the unhappy man was flayed alive, and then hanged. Richard died on the 8th of April, 1199, in the tenth year of his reign, and the 42d of his age. He left no issue behind him.

The most shining parts of this prince's character are his military talents. No man, even in that romantic age, carried personal courage and intrepidity to a greater height; and this quality gained him the appellation of the lion-hearted, cœur de lion. He passionately loved glory, chiefly military glory; and as his conduct in the field was not inferior to his valor, he seems to have possessed every talent necessary for acquiring it. Of an impetuous and vehement spirit, he was distinguished by all the good as well as the bad qualities incident to that character; he was open, frank, generous, sincere, and brave; he was revengeful, domineering, ambitious, haughty, and cruel, and was thus better calculated to dazzle men by the splendor of his enterprises, than either to promote their happiness or his own grandeur by a sound and well-regulated policy. King Richard was a passionate lover of poetry-there even remain some poetical works of his composition; and he bears a rank among the Provençal poets, or Troubadours, who were the first of the modern Europeans that distinguished themselves by attempts of that nature.

A. THE ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITU

TION.

in the possessions won with their swords they found new cares devolve upon them, and the necessity of a new system of polity. Having 1. The feudal system.-While the barba-abandoned their life of wandering and brigous tribes which overran Europe after the fall of the Roman empire were wandering from clime to clime in search of subsistence, every individual claimed an equal share of liberty; and thus, when Charles the Simple inquired of the Northmen what title their leader bore, they replied, "None, we are all equally free." But when they were settled

andage, it became necessary not only to cultivate the land for a subsistence, but to be prepared to defend it both against the attempts of the ancient possessors to regain, and of fresh swarms of wanderers to seize it. Still retaining their military character, and ignorant alike of systems of finance and the expedient of a standing army, each man held

CHAP. VII.

ANGLO-NORMAN CONSTITUTION.

himself in readiness to obey the call to service in the field. The superior officers, who held large territories directly from the prince, were bound to appear with a proportionate number of followers; and these followers held their lands from their immediate lord on the same condition. Thus, as Dr. Robertson observes, “a feudal kingdom was properly the encampment of a great army; military ideas predominated, military subordination was established, and the possession of land was the pay which the soldiers received for their personal service." The possessions held by these tenures were called fiefs, or beneficia. The vassal who held them was not only bound to mount his horse and follow his lord, or suzerain, to the wars, but also to assist him with his counsel, and to attend as an assessor in his courts of justice. More special and definite services were-to guard the castle of his lord a certain number of days in the year; to pay a certain sum of money when his suzerain's eldest son was made a knight, and his eldest daughter was married; and to contribute to his ransom in case he was taken prisoner in war. In return for these services the lord was bound to afford his vassal protection in case of his fief being attacked; while the defense of each other's person was reciprocal. The natural consequence of this was the system called "subinfeudation," by which the immediate holder parceled out portions of his fief to others on the same conditions of tenure by which he held it himself. These sub-tenants owed to him the same duties which he owed to his lord, and he held his own court of justice, in which he exercised jurisdiction over his vassals. The few lands that remained free, that is, which were not bound to render service to a superior lord, or suzerain, though liable to burdens for the public defense, were called alodial in contradistinction to feudal.

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connection or acquaintance with the prince, and added every day new force to his authority over the vassals of his barony. They received from him education in all military enterprises; his hospitality invited them to live and enjoy society in his hall; their leisure, which was great, made them perpetual retainers on his person, and partakers of his country sports and amusements; they had no means of gratifying their ambition but by making a figure in his train; his favor and countenance was their greatest honor; his displeasure exposed them to contempt and ignominy; and they felt every moment the necessity of his protection, both in the controversies which occurred with other vassals, and, what was more material, in the daily inroads and injuries which were committed by the neighboring barons. From these causes not only was the royal authority extremely eclipsed in most of the European states, but even the military vassals, as well as the lower dependents and serfs, were held in a state of subjection from which nothing could free them but the progress of commerce and the rise of cities, the true strong-holds of freedom.

2. Feudalism in England.—The introduc tion of feudalism was one of the principal changes effected in England by the Conquest. The king became the supreme lord of all the land; whence Coke says, "All the lands and tenements in England in the hands of subjects are holden mediately or immediately of the king; for in the law of England we have not properly allodium." (Coke upon Littleton, i., 1.) Even the Saxon landholders who were not deprived of their lands were brought under the system of feudal tenure, and were subjected to services and imposts to which they were not before liable; but most of the manors were bestowed upon the Normans, who thus held immediately of the The ceremony by which the vassal ac- king, and were hence called Tenants in Caknowledged his feudal dependence and ob-pite or Tenants in chief. But though the Anligations was called homage, from homo, a glo-Saxon thane was reduced to the condition man, because the vassal became the man of of a simple freeholder, or franklin, and though his lord. Homage was accompanied with an the Norman lord perhaps retained a certain cath of fealty on the part of the vassal, and portion of his estate as demesne land, yet the investiture on the part of the lord, which was latter had no possessory right in the whole, the conveying of possession of the fief by and the estate was not therefore so profitable means of some pledge or token. Homage to him as might at first sight appear. The was of two kinds, liege and simple. Liege tenant-in-chief was bound to knight service, homage (from Lat. ligare, Fr. lier, to bind) or the obligation to maintain, 40 days in the not only obliged the liege man to do personal field, a certain number of cavaliers completeservice in the army, but also disabled him ly equipped, raised from his under-tenants. from renouncing his vassality by surrender- Even religious foundations and monasteries ing his fief. The liege man took the oath of were liable to this service, the only exception fealty on his knees without sword and spurs, being the tenure of frankalmoign, or free and with his hands placed between those of alms. Every estate of 20 pounds yearly his lord. The vassal who rendered simple value was considered as a knight's fee, and homage had the power of finding a substitute was bound to furnish a soldier. The tenantsfor military service, or could altogether lib-in-chief appear from Domesday-Book to have erate himself by the surrender of his fief. In amounted, in the reign of William the Consimple homage the vassal took the oath stand-queror to about 1400, including the numerous ing, girt with his sword and with his hands at liberty.

The aristocratical nature of feudalism will readily be inferred from the preceding deacription. The great chief, residing in his country-seat, which he was commonly allowed to fortify, lost in a great measure his

ecclesiastical foundations. The number of mesne lords, or those holding fiefs not directly from the king, was about 8000.

There were peculiarities in the feudal system of Normandy itself which were introduced by William into England. According to the generally received principle of feuds,

the oath of the vassal was due only to the lord of whom he immediately held. But William, as already related, exacted the oath of fealty from all the landowners of England, as well those who held in capite as the under-tenants. In doing this he seems to have been guided by the custom of Normandy, where the duke had immediate jurisdiction over all his subjects." Hence William's power was much greater than that of the feudal sovereigns of the Continent, and the constitution approached more to an absolute despotism. The great fiefs of England did not, like those of France, date their origin in a period when the power of the vassal who received them was almost equal to that of the sovereign who bestowed them; but being distributed on the same occasion, and almost at the same time, William took care not to make them so large as to be dangerous to himself; for which reason also the manors assigned to his followers were dispersed in different counties. Hence the nobles in England never attained that pitch of power which they possessed in Germany, France, and Spain; nor do we find them defying the sovereign's jurisdiction, as was very common in those countries, by the right of carrying on private wars among themselves.

age of England, ed. by Courthope, p. xviii.). This passage is quoted as a clear exposition of a difficult question; but there is reason to believe that the lesser barons were sometimes summoned, and particularly when taxes were to be imposed; for as the crown had only the right to exact from its immediate tenants the customary feudal aids, it became necessary, when the crown needed any extraordinary aid, to summon all the chief ten ints in order to obtain their consent to the imposition. It was once disputed with great acrimony whether the Commons or representatives of counties and boroughs formed a part of the Great Council; but it is now universally acknowledged that they were not admitted into it till the reign of Henry III., and that the tenants alone of the crown composed that supreme and legislative assembly under the Anglo-Norman kings.

right to it. 4. On occasions when money was not to be demanded, but alterations made in the law, some of these second barons, or tenants in chief, were at least occasionally summoned, but whether by strict right or usage does not fully appear. 5. The irregularity of passing over many of them when councils were held for the purpose of levying money, led to the provision in the Great Charter of John by which the king promises thatthey shall be summoned through the sheriff on such occasions; but the promise does not extend to any other subject of parliamentary deliberation." (Middle Ages,

Mr. Hallam has summed up the constitution of this national assembly down to the reign of John as follows: "1. The Norman kings explicitly renounced all prerogative of levying money on the immediate military tenants of the crown without their consent given in a great council of the realm; this immunity extending also to their sub-tenants and dependents. 2. All these tenants in 3. The Great Council or Parliament.- chief had a constitutional right to attend, The supreme legislative power of England and ought to be summoned; but whether was lodged in the king and the Great Coun- they could attend without a summons is not cil of the realm, called Commune Concilium manifest. 3. The summons was usually diRegni, and also Curia Regis, and at a later rected to the higher barons, and to such of a time Parliament. The Great Council was second class as the king pleased, many being attended by the archbishops, bishops, and omitted for different reasons, though all had principal abbots, and also by the Greater a Barons. "The great tenants of the crown were of two descriptions-those who held by Knight Service in Capite, and those who held also in Capite by Grand Sergeantry, so called, says Littleton, from being a greater and more worthy service than Knight Serviceattending the king not only in war but in his court... To both descriptions of tenants the word BARON, in its more extended sense of a lord of the manor, was applicable; but the latter only, those who held of the king by Grand Sergeantry, held their lands per Baroniam, and were the King's Barons, and as such possessed both a civil and crim-iii., p. 213.) inal jurisdiction, each in his Curia Baronis, or Court Baron, while the Lesser Barons had only a civil jurisdiction over their vassals. To both ranks alike pertained the service of attending the sovereign in war with a certain number of knights, according to the number of Knights' Fees holden of the Crown; and to those who held per baroniam was annexed the duty also of attending him in his Great Councils, afterward designated Parliaments; for it was the principle of the feudal system that every tenant should attend the court of his immediate superior, and hence it was that he who held per baroniam, having no superior but the crown, was bound to attend his sovereign in his Great Council or Parliament, which was in fact the Great Court Baron of the Realm" (Nicolas, Historic Peer

See Howard, Ane. Lois des Francais, i. p. 196, sp. Thorpe; Lappenberg's Anglo-Norman Kinge, p. 95. Comp. Hallam, Middle Ages, vol i., p. 168.

Under the Conqueror and his sons it was customary to assemble such councils at the three great festivals of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and on other occasions when needed. It does not, however, appear probable that such a council should have assembled so frequently in any large numbers, and though its existence indicates some limitation of the royal prerogative in the matter of legislation, yet it can not be determined how far its assent was necessary to the making of laws.

4. Legislation. There was, indeed, little or no legislation under the early Norman kings; for the charters and other acts which they passed were rather confirmations of ancient privileges than new enactments. Even in Normandy itself there seems to be no trace previous to the conquest of England; the law of Norse jurisprudence, nor of états nor courts,

seems to have lain in the breast of the sov.