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Ferdinand of Portugal, just become Count of Flanders by marriage with Jeanne, the heiress of the crusading Count Baldwin, the emperor Baldwin of the new Latin empire, had at the moment of his accession been made the victim of Philip Augustus's ceaseless policy of absorbing the great fiefs in the crown, and had lost the two cities of Aire and St. Omer.
The Counts of Maurienne in the kingdom of Burgundy had collected in their hands a variety of fiefs east of the Rhone extending from Geneva on the north over into the borders of Italy to Turin on the south until they commanded all the best passes of the western Alps. The reigning count, Humbert, had as yet no son.
Venice being at the time in trouble with the Turk, and more anxious than ever to conciliate France and the Pope, was compelled to swallow her reluctance and submit with the best grace she could assume. Accordingly she dispatched her ambassadors to Rome to convey her obedience to the Pope's Holiness, and formally to communicate the news that she withdrew her protection from the proscribed fiefs.
And with them all the Frenchmen of the east, who had been either expelled from their lands, or were in fear of expulsion. With them, too, was a great army of mercenaries, ruffians from all France and Flanders, hired to fight for a certain term, on the chance of plunder or of fiefs in land. Their brains were all aflame with the tales of inestimable riches hidden in Ely.
And she accosted them with smiling face and clad them in robes of honour, augmenting the fiefs of the high officials and giving largesse to the levies; wherefore all the people loved her and offered up prayers for the long endurance of her reign, doubting not but that she was a man.
For the rest, sirs, I hope none here will deny my right to confer the fiefs of the crown upon the faithful followers who are around me, and ready to perform the usual military service, in the room of those who have wandered to foreign Countries, and can neither render homage nor service when called upon."
This bachelor was the young Sire Jehan de Sacchez, cousin of the Sieur de Montmorency, to whom, by the death of the said Jehan, the fiefs of Sacchez and other places would return, according to the deed of tenure. He was twenty years of age and glowed like a burning coal; therefore you may be sure that he had a hard job to get through the first day.
Of course here the economic side of the question played a great part. The ecclesiastical potentates and those favourable to them dreaded the spread of Protestantism in view of the secularization of religious domains and fiefs.
To confront this oppression and these acts of usurpation, Luther would not have men wait for a Council. As for these impositions and taxes, he says that every prince, noble, and town should straightway repudiate and forbid them. This lawless pillaging of ecclesiastical benefices and fiefs by Rome should be resisted at once by the nobility.
The church, through bequests of the dying and donations from the living, constantly increased its possessions. It might be despoiled, but it could defend itself by the terrible weapon of excommunication. SERFS AND VILLAINS. In the eleventh century Europe was thus covered with a multitude of petty sovereigns. Below the body of rulers, or the holders of fiefs, was the mass of the people.
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