United States or Maldives ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
An assembly was now summoned at Trebur, in obedience to a requisition from the Pope, at which it was decreed that, if the Emperor continued excommunicate on the 23d of February, 1077, his crown should be given to another. The theory of the Holy Roman Empire had thus become a practical reality. The vassal of Otho had reduced the successor of Otho to vassalage.
An enormous amount of litigation as to the law of real property was created by a judgment of the Court of King's Bench at Dublin, in 1605, by which the ancient Irish customs, of tanistry and gavelkind, were declared null and void, and the entire Feudal system, with its rights of primogeniture, hereditary succession, entail, and vassalage, was held to exist in as full force in England.
Neither he nor his people were one whit the better for the change, and, as far as vassalage was concerned, they would in all probability, in the state of religious feeling at the time, have sooner been subordinate to the Moslem corsair than to the Christian King.
Maine was not, like Normandy, a large territory, inhabited to a great extent by a distinct people a territory which, in all but name, was a kingdom rather than a duchy a territory which, though cumbered by the relations of a nominal vassalage, fairly ranked, according to the standard of those times, among the great powers of Europe.
But, though a tributary colony of Rome, it was so remote a dependency of that mighty mistress of the world that the yoke of vassalage was but carelessly worn and lightly felt.
Henceforth Philip was the most active ally of the papacy. While thus dealing with Philip of France, Innocent enjoyed easier triumphs over the lesser kings of Europe. It was his ambition to break through the traditional limits that separated the church from the state, and to bind as many as he could of the kings of Europe to the papacy by ties of political vassalage.
Of the great empires which the modern age has brought into being, the Russian would have survived as a helpless and blinded mammoth; the French Empire would have vanished, and the proud and noble land of France would have sunk into vassalage and despair; the British Empire would assuredly have dissolved into its component parts, for its strength is still too much concentrated in the motherland for it to be able to hold together once her power was broken.
Earl John of Islay and many of his neighbours were now paying homage to both Norway and Scotland. The isle of Gigha, which had been a possession of Alpin of Bute, had been bestowed at that chief's death upon his younger son Roderic. But Roderic, as has been told, had gone over entirely to King Hakon, and had refused to acknowledge his vassalage to his rightful sovereign of Scotland.
Vassalage I know is a word which bears no favourable acceptation in this liberal age; and slavery is in worse repute. But we must remember that slavery implies a very different state in different ages of the world, and in different stages of society. Montesinos. In many parts of the East, and of the Mohammedan world, as in the patriarchal times, it is scarcely an evil.
The exiled prince had recourse to Henry, who was at this time in Guienne, craved his assistance in restoring him to his sovereignty, and offered, on that event, to hold his kingdom in vassalage under the crown of England.
Word Of The Day