Moreover, for like reasons and in like manner, churches, monasteries, and cities became members of the Feudal System. They granted out their vast possessions as fiefs, and thus became suzerains and lords. Bishops and abbots became the heads of great bands of retainers, and led military expeditions, like temporal chiefs. On the other hand, these same monasteries and towns, as a means of security and protection, did homage to some powerful lord, and thus came in vassalage to him.
In this way were Church and State, all classes of society from the wealthiest suzerain to the humblest tenant, bound together by feudal ties. Everything was impressed with the stamp of Feudalism.
Classes of Feudal Society.—Besides the nobility, or the landed class, there were under the Feudal System three other classes, namely, freemen, serfs or villeins, and slaves. These lower classes made up the great bulk of the population of a feudal state. The freemen were the inhabitants of chartered towns, and in some countries the yeomanry, or small farmers, who did not hold their lands by a regular feudal tenure. The serfs, or villeins, were the laborers who cultivated the ground. The peculiarity of their condition was that they were not allowed to move from the estate where they lived, and when the land was sold they passed with it just like any fixture. The slaves constituted a still lower class made up of captives in war or of persons condemned to bondage as a penalty for crime. These chattel slaves, however, almost disappeared before the thirteenth century, being converted into the lowest order of serfs, which was a step toward freedom.
Castles of the Nobles.—The lawless and violent character of the times during which Feudalism prevailed is well shown by the nature of the residences of the nobles. These were strong stone fortresses, usually perched upon some rocky eminence, and defended by moats and towers. France, Germany, Italy, Northern Spain, England, and Scotland, in which countries the Feudal System became most thoroughly developed, fairly bristled with these fortified residences of the nobility. One of the most striking and
