ESTIMATE OF THE EFFECTS OF FEUDALISM.
Certain evils often attributed to feudalism did not spring from it.
For instance, slavery was not its offspring, nor indeed an integral
part of it. The lord and the vassal were the parties who formed the
feudal relationship; and though the latter was not a freeman,
according to our views, he was not a slave, but had certain personal
and social rights, which his lord was bound to respect and preserve.
Slavery of an abject kind existed in Europe long before the feudal
system appeared. It existed in the free republic of Rome; in Greece,
too, the cradle of liberty; and while Athens knelt at the shrine of
freedom, and poets, and philosophers, and orators, were her
ministering priests, there were thousands of slaves within the narrow
limits of Attica. The Germans had slaves; the Saxons had slaves--all
Europe had slaves. Feudalism found slavery in existence, and
attached it to itself. The system was not inimical to it, but it did
not create the evil.
In relation to the social disorders of the middle ages, the
insecurity of property, the personal dangers, the robberies and
cruelties which prevailed, it may be remarked, that the feudal
system, if it did not quench them, did not kindle them; and if, in
some cases, it should appear that the system fanned them into greater
violence, it also appears that, in other cases, it checked their
operation. The state of society, at the commencement of the feudal
era, was most deplorable. It was disorganized and dissolved. The
Roman empire was shattered to pieces. Monarchy made some abortive
attempts to mould the scattered fragments of the social fabric into
form, but failed. The kingdom of Charlemagne shone like a meteor,
and vanished. The church sunk in ignorance and corruption. The
religious power almost entirely left it. The times were awful.
Men's hearts failed them because of fear. The moral heavens blazed
with strange portents, and many cried, "The end of all things is at
hand." Amidst all this disorder, the feudal principle was developing
itself; on this scene of social strife and misery it had to work;
this was the theatre of its operation, the field of its career; and
when it terminated its course, it certainly left Europe better than
at the beginning.
Mr. Hallam has shown that feudalism accomplished two great political
results. In Germany, it stood in the way of the ambitious designs of
an Otho and a Barbarossa, and prevented the establishment of a great
empire,--a powerful despotism, crushing the seeds of commerce and
liberty, and retarding, perhaps for ages, the progress of
civilisation. In France, it prevented the dismemberment of the
monarchy, and its reduction into a number of petty and despotic
sovereignties; for "who can doubt that some of the counts of France
would have thrown off all connexion with the crown, if the slight
dependence of vassalage had not been substituted for legitimate
subjection to a sovereign?"
As to its moral influence, it cannot be denied that feudalism
nurtured fidelity and gratitude. It also inspired a sense of
honour--far different, indeed, from a sense of duty, especially as it
exists in a Christian's mind, and having in it much of lofty
pride--yet it may be justly observed, "Was it not much that such
honour could be felt, and its dictates obeyed in so tumultuous an
age?" "Everything is to be measured according to its times."[1] And
further, there can be little doubt that, in the interior of the old
castles, where the baron, or knight, during intervals of peace, had
no society but his own family, domestic life and the condition of
women were in some instances improved, contributing toward the
inspiration of that lofty and pure affection, which has shed so
beautiful an influence over modern civilisation. The soft charities
of home thus sprung up, like myrtles, among the dark wild rocks of
feudal society, relieving and adorning them with its snow-white
blossoms.
At the same time, it generated and sustained many unhallowed and
anti-social habits and principles, especially, war, injustice, and
revenge. The records of the middle ages contain the expression of
sentiments, and the history of deeds of the most unchristian and
revolting character. The worst passions of the human mind are seen
playing around the system, like lightning around the summit of one of
its hoary castles at midnight. If flowers are growing at the base,
there are weeds of deadly poison too. It must be allowed also, that,
as, a political system, it was most defective; it left almost
everything to the mercy of the ruler, made no provision for the
rights of the governed, supplied no constitutional guarantee for
social order, and might easily prove an engine of oppression and
cruelty to those who were so disposed to employ it.
It could, of necessity, last but for a season, being a transition
state of things. It evidently contained the elements of its own
dissolution, and nurtured a spirit of resistance which was sure at
length to destroy it. On the whole, it was a rough process of
discipline, tending to social improvement: and the thoughtful and
devout mind will recognise in it, a course of things somewhat
analogous to what obtains in the government of nature, whereby the
tempest purifies the atmosphere, and the snows of winter prepare for
the bloom of spring.
[1] British Quarterly Review, vol. i. 255.