assessors of the tribunals)[1]. The long-standing rivalry between ecclesiastical institutions and their advocates was ultimately composed by the intervention of the Crown when the latter grew strong. If we turn to consider the relations between the lord and his vassals, we shall naturally find that they differ greatly from the relations established at the present time between the sovereign and his subjects. In the case of the privileged holders of fiefs, however small, the tie which united them with their suzerain being one not of general subordination but of limited obligation, the view that the general will has to prevail over the particular and can impose rules of conduct upon it did not hold good. Noble vassals, ecclesiastics possessed of fiefs, and townsmen as members of municipal corporate bodies were as regards their lords bound to abstain from certain acts and to perform certain duties. A systematic treatment of this kind of contractual relation may be found in a letter of Bishop Fulbert of Chartres to the Duke of Aquitaine (eleventh century)[2]. The duties which he enumerates are derived more especially from the oath of fealty, which accompanied the homage ceremony and was distinct from the fealty of the base and non-privileged population to be mentioned later on.
The negative duties of the faithful vassal are indicated by the following terms: incolume, tutum, honestum, utile, facile, possibile. The Benedictine editors of Fulbert's work have explained these expressions to mean that the vassal undertakes not to assail his lord, not to reveal his secret, not to endanger the safety of his castles, not to wrong him in his judicial power, honours and possessions or to put obstacles in his way which would render what he undertakes difficult or impossible. On the positive side the vassal is bound to give his lord advice and aid (consilium, auxilium). From the positive obligations of consilium and auxilium various concrete duties are derived. The principal form of advice (consilium) tendered to the lord by his men consists in their obligation to attend his court. Every lord had a court of his own, but not every court of this kind was competent to judge all cases. A feudal distinction has to be drawn in this respect between cases arising from the feudal nexus and cases of delegated public jurisdiction. These latter comprised chiefly criminal cases classified, as already pointed out, under the heads of high and low justice. The privilege of giving sentence in them and of exercising the fiscal exactions connected with them accrued only to those among the feudal lords who had obtained the corresponding franchises through express grant or by force. They were called seigneurs justiciers in France. The more numerous class of ordinary lords held courts if they had tenants of fiefs, and vassals and villein subjects under them. These feudal courts took cognizance of all processes as to land distributed by the lord to his dependents, but also
