ABSTRACT
The military and ecclesiastical classes had at the same time based their social and political power upon a solid economic foundation. They had succeeded in getting the soil of the West into their hands. The double maxim of French feudal law sets forth this conception in its most logical form : " No lord without land " was the primary declaration, and the corollary "No land without a lord" followed naturally. Lands, offices, money payments, become in the same way possessions reserved to the ruling classes. Functions or offices (" honours ") became assimilated with domains granted for life or for a term of years ("benefices"), and then on a hereditary title ; together they formed a single category of property, the fief, which was the solid basis of the fortune of these classes. The feudal system imposed itself upon the whole West, modified, it is true, by the previous traditions and the particular organization of each country. Its most logical form, French feudalism, conquered England, Northern Spain, the two Sicilies, and the Levant, while a less fully evolved form, German feudalism, adapted itself to the institutions of the Low Countries and the North of Italy.
