Part V—Ties of Dependence among the Lower Orders of Society xviii the manor page

THE relatively high social circles of which military homage was a characteristic feature were not the only ones where ‘men’ of other men were to be found. But at the lower level relationships of dependence found their natural setting in an arrangement which was much older than vassalage and which was for a long time to survive it. This was the manor (seigneurie). Neither the origins of the manorial régime nor its rôle in the economy fall within the scope of the present work: we are here concerned solely with its place in feudal society.