ABSTRACT
This chapter discovers the origins of feudalism in the history following Charles’ reign, the immediate effect on his empire and the development of feudalism in the countryside; and most of the chapter will be concerned, not with great men and their achievements, but with the muddles and changes of ordinary everyday life. Feudalism at bottom means simply putting one thing—generally a man, or his wealth—under the protection of another, which involves putting him into the power of another. Now while necessity and danger had forced the king to take all sorts of people under his protection and pay pretty heavily for their loyalty, the common people were beginning to crowd under the protection of the fideles. The relation between lord and man was at first purely personal, just like the relation between the king and his fideles; but it too was soon mixed up with land.
