162 FEUDAL SYSTEM on in the houses of the great by persons receiv- ing lands upon these conditions. The feudal system was exclusive in its spirit. In strict- ness, a person not noble by birth could not pos- sess a fief, though there were occasional excep- tions to this rule, which increased as the aris- tocratical spirit declined. Three descents were necessary to remove fully the stain of ignoble blood. Children born of an ignoble mother, in lawful wedlock, were looked upon as of ille- gitimate origin. The higher clergy, as prelates and abbots, were feudal nobles. Ecclesiastical tenants came within the scope of feudal duty. Below the gentle classes were the freemen and the serfs. The former were dwellers in char- tered towns, and were destined to have an im- portant part in destroying the feudal system ; and in England, the yeomanry, to whose exis- tence that country owed its leading place in the military system of Europe, were also among the freemen. The serfs, or villeins, were among the most abject of mankind, and were despised and maltreated because they had been degraded and injured. In some countries a distinction was made between villeins and serfs, the latter being compelled to perform the vilest labors, and thoroughly enslaved, while the condition of the former was not so harsh, their payments and duties being defined. Probably at no time in the world's history have the mass of the people been so badly treated as during the ex- istence of the feudal system ; and many of those customs and opinions that still impede the growth of the people in knowledge and happi- ness in several countries, are but relics of that system, and yet continue to do its work. There were several causes for the decline of feudalism. The two extremes of society were alike interested in its destruction, and continu- ally sought it : the king, feebly grasping a scep- tre that was scarcely more than a fool's bau- ble ; and the squalid people, who were treated by the ruling classes with less consideration than they bestowed upon beasts of chase. The growth of the institution of chivalry, which was one of the children of feudalism, was inju- rious to the system whence it sprung. The feudal system had much to do with the crusades, and it was probably the only state of society in which those expeditions could either have been undertaken, or have been renewed from tune to time during nearly 200 years ; yet they worked most injuriously to it, and helped to prepare the way for its fall. The growth of the towns, the increase of commerce, the develop- ment of the commercial spirit, the acquisition of military knowledge by the people in several countries, scientific inventions and discoveries, and the application of gunpowder to the uses of war, aided its downfall. In France it failed utterly as a bulwark against the English inva- sions of the 14th century, which rapidly accel- erated its fate. It might have remained pow- erful during the first century of the Valois kings had it not proved totally Unequal to the busi- ness it claimed as peculiarly its own, that of FEUERBACH defending the soil its members owned, and the country they governed. See Sismondi, His- toire des francais and Histoire des republiques italiennes; Guizot, Histoire generale de la ci- vilisation en France and Histoire generale de la civilisation en Europe; Michelet, Histoire de France ; Hallam, " Europe during the Middle Ages;" Bell, "Historical Studies of Feudal- ism " (London, 1852) ; and Lacroix, " Manners, Customs, and Dress during the Middle Ages, and during the Renaissance Period " (transla- ted from the French, London, 1874). FEl EKBAdl. I. Paul Johann Anselm, a Ger- man jurist, born in Jena, Nov. 14, 1775, died in Frankfort, May 29, 1833. He studied law at Jena, and became professor of feudal law there in 1801, of criminal and civil law at Kiel in 1802, and at Landshut in 1804. In 1805 he was ap- pointed to prepare a civil code for Bavaria, in 1808 became privy councillor, in 1814 a judge at Bamberg, and in 1817 president of the court of appeals at Anspach. While there he under- took to investigate the story of Kaspar Hauser, without much regard to the sovereign families thought to be compromised in the matter. He was the author of many standard law books. Of these, the Lehrbuch des gemeinen in Deutsch- land gultigen peinlichen Rechts (1801) is one of the highest authorities on the subject of crimi- nal law in Germany. II. Lndwig Andreas, a Ger- man philosopher, son of the preceding, born in Landshut, July 28, 1804, died near Nuremberg, Sept. 12, 1872. He studied theology and phi- losophy at Heidelberg and Berlin, and became a tutor at the university of Erlangen in 1828, but retired into private life soon after, occupying himself solely with literary labors. In 1844 he delivered a brief course of lectures at the uni- versity of Heidelberg. He subsequently retired to a small village in Franconia, where he di- rected an industrial establishment, and devoted his leisure hours to literary pursuits. The lat- ter part of his life was passed in poverty, and a subscription for his benefit was raised not long before his death. Among his works (a collection of which has been published in 10 vols., Leipsic, 1846-'66) the following are the most important: Abalard und Eeloise (Ans- pach, 1833) ; Geschichte der neuern Philoso- phic von Bacon von Verulam ~bis Spinoza (1 863) ; Darstellung, EntwicTcelung und KritiTc der Leibniz 1 schen Philosophic (1837) ; Pierre Bayle (1838) ; Das Wesen des Christenthums (Leip- sic, 1841 ; English translation by Mrs. Lewes, London, 1854) ; Das Wesen der Religion (2d ed., 1849); and Gottheit, Freiheit und UnsterUich- Iceit (1866). Feuerbach transformed the He- gelian doctrine into naturalism. The leading principle of his philosophy is the identification of God with the idealized essence of man, or the deified essence of nature. His own statement is: "My theory may be condensed in two words : nature and man. That being which, in my opinion, is the presupposition, the cause of existence of man, is not God a mysterious, vague, indefinite term but nature. On the
