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A great deal of it was held by military service; the tenant-in-chief of this land, who might be either a layman or an ecclesiastic, had to render this military service to the king, while the sub-tenants had to render it to the tenants-in-chief.
The King is surrounded by a circle of tenants-in-chief, some of whom are bishops and abbots and ecclesiastical dignitaries of other kinds; the remainder are dukes, counts, barons, knights. They hold their lands in fact upon a contract; but the precise obligations named in this contract do not exhaust their relation to the King.
The English system was strong in the cohesion of its lower organism, the association of individuals in the township, in the hundred, and in the shire; the Norman system was strong in its higher ranges, in the close relation to the Crown of the tenants-in-chief whom the King had enriched.
There were bull-fights in the Plaza this very one for five days, and to each of his tenants-in-chief, De La Cuesta gave a horse, a barrel of tallow, an ounce of silver, and half an ounce of gold dust. Ah, those were days. That was a gay life. This" he made a comprehensive gesture with his left hand "this is stupid."
These personal and indefinite ties should not be renounced, on either side, without some very serious reason gross treachery, gross neglect of duty, gross abuse of power or privilege. These tenants-in-chief have on their estates a number of sub-tenants, who are bound to them by similar contracts and a similar personal relation.
Within two years of his accession the throne of Stephen was evidently becoming an insecure seat. To counteract the power of the great nobles, he made a lavish distribution of crown lands to a large number of tenants-in-chief. Some of them were called earls; but they had no official charge, as the greater barons had, but were mere titular lords, made by the royal bounty.
But the Conqueror did not want his books for the gratification of official curiosity. He went to work when he knew how many tenants-in-chief he could command, and how many men they could bring into the field. He instituted the great feudal principle of knight-service.
The royal court, containing the tenants-in-chief of the crown, both lay and clerical, and entering into all the functions of the witenagemot, was the supreme council of the nation, with the advice and consent of which the King legislated, taxed, and judged.
The burgesses were tenants-in-chief of the king, held of him by charter, and stood in the same relation to him as other tenants-in-chief.
Nor is there anything about trial by jury or "no taxation without representation" in Magna Carta. What we mean by "trial by jury" was not developed till long after 1215; there was still no national, but only class taxation; and the great council, which was to give its assent to royal demands for money, represented nobody but the tenants-in-chief of whom it was composed.
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