United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British North
America, 'British South Africa, and Australasia.' The West
Indies and one or two other British Dependencies seem here to
be shut out; but, at any rate, with this definition we at
least know where we are. The terms of the union we are not
told; but, as the word 'confederation' is used, I conceive
that they are meant to be strictly federal. That is to say,
first of all, the Parliament of the United Kingdom will give
up its right to legislate for British North America, British
South Africa, and Australasia. Then the United Kingdom,
British North America, British South Africa and Australasia
will enter into a federal relation with one another. They may
enter either as single members (States or Cantons) 'or as
groups of members. That is, Great Britain and Ireland might
enter as a single State of the Confederation, or England,
Scotland, Ireland, Wales--or possibly smaller divisions
again--might enter as separate States. Or Great Britain,
Australia, Canada, &c., might enter as themselves Leagues,
members of a greater League, as in the old state of things in
Graubünden. I am not arguing for or against any of these
arrangements. I am only stating them as possible. But whatever
the units are to be--Great Britain and Australia, England and
Victoria, or anything larger or smaller--if the confederation
is to be a real one, each State must keep some powers to
itself, and must yield some powers to a central body. That
Central body, in which all the States must be represented in
some way or other, will naturally deal with all international
matters, all matters that concern the Britannic Confederation
as a whole. The legislatures of Great Britain and Australia,
England and Victoria, or whatever the units fixed on may be,
will deal only with the internal affairs of those several
cantons. Now such a scheme as this is theoretically possible.
That is, it involves no contradiction in terms, as the talk
about Imperial Federation does. It is purely federal; there is
nothing 'imperial' about it. It is simply applying to certain
political communities a process which has been actually gone
through by certain other political communities. It is
proposing to reconstruct a certain political constitution
after the model of certain other political constitutions which
are in actual working. It is therefore something better than
mere talk and theory. But, because it is theoretically
possible, it does not follow that it is practically possible,
that is, that it is possible in this particular case. ... Of
the federations existing at this time the two chief are
Switzerland and the United States of America. They differ in
this point, that one is very large and the other very small;
they agree in this, that the territory of both is continuous.
But the proposed Britannic Confederation will be scattered,
scattered over every part of the world.
{1115}
I know of no example in any age of a scattered confederation,
a scattered Bundesstaat. The Hanse Towns were not a
Bundesstaat; they were hardly a Staatenbund. Of the probable
working of such a body as that which is now proposed the
experience of history can teach us nothing; we can only guess
what may be likely. The Britannic Confederation will have its
federal congress sitting somewhere, perhaps at Westminster,
perhaps at Melbourne, perhaps at some Washington called
specially into being at some point more central than either.
... For a while their representatives will think it grand to
sit at Westminster; presently, as the spirit of equality
grows, they are not unlikely to ask for some more central
place; they may even refuse to stir out of their own
territory. That is to say, they will find that the sentiment
of national unity, which they undoubtedly have in no small
measure, needs some physical and some political basis to stand
on. It is hard to believe that States which are united only by
a sentiment, which have so much, both political and physical,
to keep them asunder, will be kept together for ever by a
sentiment only. And we must further remember that that
sentiment is a sentiment for the mother-country, and not for
one another. ... Canada and Australia care a great deal for
Great Britain; we may doubt whether, apart from Great Britain,
Canada and Australia care very much for one another. There may
be American States which care yet less for one another; but in
their case mere continuity produces a crowd of interests and
relations common to all. We may doubt whether the
confederation of States so distant as the existing colonies of
Great Britain, whether the bringing them into closer relations
with one another as well as with Great Britain, will at all tend
to the advance of a common national unity among them. We may
doubt whether it will not be likely to bring out some hidden
tendencies to disunion among them. ... In the scattered
confederation all questions and parties are likely to be
local. It is hard to see what will be the materials for the
formation of great national parties among such scattered
elements."
_E. A. Freeman,
The Physical and Political Bases of National Unity
(Britannic Confederation, edited by A. S. White)._
"I have the greatest respect for the aspirations of the
Imperial Federationists, and myself most earnestly desire the
moral unity of our race and its partnership in achievement and
grandeur. But an attempt at formal Federation, such as is now
proposed, would in the first place exclude the people of the
United States, who form the largest portion of the
English-speaking race, and in the second place it would split
us all to pieces. It would, I am persuaded, call into play
centrifugal forces against which the centripetal forces could
not contend for an hour. What interests of the class with
which a Federal Parliament would deal have Australia and
Canada in common? What enemy has either of them whom the other
would be inclined to fight? Australia, it seems, looks forward
to a struggle with the Chinese for ascendency in that quarter
of the globe. Canada cares no more about a struggle between
the Australians and the Chinese at the other extremity of the
globe than the Australians would care about a dispute between
Canada and her neighbours in the United States respecting
Canadian boundaries or the Fisheries Question. The
circumstances of the two groups of colonies, to which their
policy must conform, are totally different. Australia lies in
an ocean by herself: Canada is territorially interlocked and
commercially bound up, as well as socially almost fused, with
the great mass of English-speaking population which occupies
the larger portion of her continent. Australia again is
entirely British. Canada has in her midst a great block of
French population, constituting a distinct nationality, which
instead of being absorbed is daily growing in intensity; and
she would practically be unable to take part in any enterprise
or support any policy, especially any policy entailing an
increase of taxation, to which the French Canadians were
opposed. Of getting Canada to contribute out of her own
resources to wars or to the maintenance of armaments, for the
objects of British diplomacy in Europe or in the East, no one
who knows the Canadians can imagine that there would be the
slightest hope. The very suggestion, at the time of the Soudan
Expedition, called forth emphatic protests on all sides. The
only results of an experiment in formal Federation, I repeat,
would be repudiation of Federal demands, estrangement and
dissolution."
_Goldwin Smith,
Straining the Silken Thread
(Macmillan's Magazine. August, 1888)._
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
European Federation.
"While it is obvious that Imperial Federation of the British
Empire would cover many of the defects in our relationship
with the colonies, it is equally apparent that it is open to
the fatal objection of merely making us a more formidable
factor in the field of international anarchy. Suppose the
colonies undertook to share equitably the great cost of
imperial defence in the present state of things throughout
Europe--and that is a very large assumption--England would be
entirely dependent, in case of war, for the supply of food on
the fleet, any accident to which would place us at the enemy's
mercy. Even without actual hostilities, however, our
additional strength would cause another increase of foreign
armaments to meet the case of war with us. This process has
taken place invariably on the increase of armaments of any
European state, and may be taken to be as certain as that the
sun will rise to-morrow. But all the benefits accruing from
Imperial Federation may be secured by European Federation,
plus a reduction of military liability, which Imperial
Federation would not only not reduce, but increase. There is
nothing to prevent the self-governing colonies from joining in
a European Federation, and thus enlarging the basis of that
institution enormously, and cutting off in a corresponding
degree the chance of an outbreak of violence in another
direction, which could not fail to have serious consequences
to the colonies at any rate."
_C. D. Farquharson,
Federation, the Polity of the Future
(Westminster Review, December, 1891),
pages 602-603._
----------FEDERAL GOVERNMENT: End----------
FEDERALIST, The.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1787-1789.
FEDERALISTS; The party of the.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1789-1792;
also 1812; and 1814 (DECEMBER): THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.
FEDS.--CONFEDS.
See BOYS IN BLUE.
FEE.
See FEUDALISM.
FEHDERECHT.
The right of private warfare, or diffidation,
exercised in mediæval Germany.
See LANDDFRIEDE.
{1116}
FEHRBELLIN, Battle of (1675).
See BRANDENBURG: A. D. 1640-1688;
and SCANDINAVIAN STATES (SWEDEN): A. D. 1644-1697.
FEIS OF TARA.
See TARA.
FELICIAN HERESY.
See ADOPTIANISM.
FELIX V., Pope, A. D. 1439-1449
Elected by the Council of Basle.
FENIAN MOVEMENT, The.
See IRELAND: A. D. 1858-1867;
and CANADA: A. D. 1866-1871.
FENIAN: Origin of the Name.
An Irish poem of the ninth century called the Duan Eireannach,
or Poem of Ireland, preserves a mythical story of the origin
of the Irish people, according to which they sprang from one
Fenius Farsaidh who came out of Scythia. Nel, or Niul, the son
of Fenius, travelled into Egypt and married Scota, a daughter
of Forann (Pharaoh). "Niul had a son named Gaedhuil Glas, or
Green Gael; and we are told that it is from him the Irish are
called Gaedhil (Gael) or Gadelians, while from his mother is
derived the name of Scoti, or Scots, and from Fenius that of
Feni or Fenians."
_M. Haverty,
History of Ireland,
page 10._
From this legend was derived the name of the Fenian
Brotherhood, organized in Ireland and America for the
liberation of the former from British rule, and which played a
disturbing but unsuccessful part in Irish affairs from about
1865 to 1871.
FEODORE.
See THEODORE.
FEODUM.
See FEUDALISM.
FEOF.
See FEUDALISM.
FEORM FULTUM.
See FERM.
FERDINAND,
King of Portugal, A. D. 1367-1383.
Ferdinand 1., Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1835-1848.
Ferdinand I.,
Germanic Emperor, 1558-1564;
Archduke of Austria,
and King of Hungary and Bohemia, 1526-1564;
King of the Romans, 1531-1558.
Ferdinand I., King of Aragon and Sicily, 1412-1416.
Ferdinand I.,
King of Castile, 1035-1065;
King of Leon, 1037-1065.
Ferdinand I., King of Naples, 1458-1494.
Ferdinand II., Germanic Emperor and King of Bohemia and
Hungary, 1619-1637.
Ferdinand II.,
King of Aragon, 1479-1516;
V. of Castile (King-Consort of Isabella of Castile and
Regent), 1474-1516;
II. of Sicily, 1479-1516; and III. of Naples, 1503-1516.
Ferdinand II., King of Leon, 1157-1188.
Ferdinand II., King of Naples, 1495-1496.
Ferdinand II., called Bomba,
King of the Two Sicilies, 1830-1859.
Ferdinand III., Germanic Emperor, and King of Hungary and
Bohemia, 1637-1657.
Ferdinand III.,
King of Castile, 1217-1230;
King of Leon and Castile, united, 1230-1252.
Ferdinand IV., King of Leon and Castile, 1295-1312.
Ferdinand IV.,
King of Naples,
and I. of the Two Sicilies, 1759-1806;
and 1815-1825.
Ferdinand VI., King of Spain, 1746-1759.
Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, 1808; and 1814-1833.
FERIÆ.
See LUDI.
FERM.--FIRMA.--FARM.
"A sort of composition for all the profits arising to the king
[in England, Norman period] from his ancient claims on the
land and from the judicial proceedings of the shire-moot; the
rent of detached pieces of demesne land, the remnants of the
ancient folk-land; the payments due from corporate bodies and
individuals for the primitive gifts, the offerings made in
kind, or the hospitality--the feorm-fultum--which the kings
had a right to exact from their subjects, and which were
before the time of Domesday generally commuted for money; the
fines, or a portion of the fines, paid in the ordinary process
of the county courts, and other small miscellaneous incidents.
These had been, soon after the composition of Domesday,
estimated at a fixed sum, which was regarded as a sort of rent
or composition at which the county was let to the sheriff and
recorded in the 'Rotulus Exactorious'; for this, under the
name of ferm, he answered annually; if his receipts were in
excess, he retained the balance as his lawful profit, the
wages of his service; if the proceeds fell below the ferm, he
had to pay the difference from his own purse. ... The farm,
ferm, or firma, the rent or composition for the ancient
feorm-fultum, or provision payable in kind to the Anglo-Saxon
kings. The history of the word in its French form would be
interesting. The use of the word for a pecuniary payment is
traced long before the Norman Conquest."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 11, section 126, and note._
FERNANDO.
See FERDINAND.
FEROZESHUR, Battle of (1845)
See INDIA: A. D. 1845-1849.
FERRARA: The House of Este.
See ESTE.
FERRARA: A. D. 1275.
Sovereignty of the Pope confirmed by Rodolph of Hapsburg.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1273-1308.
FERRARA: A. D. 1597.
Annexation to the states of the Church.
End of the house of Este.
Decay of the city and duchy.
See PAPACY: A. D. 1597.
FERRARA: A. D. 1797.
Joined to the Cispadine Republic.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1796-1797 (OCTOBER-APRIL).
----------FERRARA: End----------
FERRY BRIDGE, Battle of (1461).
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1455-1471,
FETIALES.--FECIALES.
"The duties of the feciales, or fetiales [among the Romans].
extended over every branch of international law. They gave
advice on all matters of peace or war, and the conclusion of
treaties and alliances. ... They fulfilled the same functions
as heralds, and, as such, were frequently entrusted with
important communications. They were also sent on regular
embassies. To them was entrusted the reception and
entertainment of foreign envoys. They were required to decide
on the justice of a war about to commence, and to proclaim and
consecrate it according to certain established formalities.
... The College of Feciales consisted of nearly twenty
members, with a president, who was called Pater Patratus,
because it was necessary that he should have both father and
children living, that he might be supposed to take greater
interest in the welfare of the State, and look backwards as
well as forwards. ... The name of Feciales ... still existed
under the emperors, as well as that of Pater Patratus, though
only as a title of honour, while the institution itself was
for ever annihilated; and, after the reign of Tiberius, we
cannot find any trace of it."
_E. C. G. Murray,
Embassies and Foreign Courts,
pages 8-10._
See, also, AUGURS.
{1117}
FEUDAL TENURES.
"After the feudal system of tenure had been fully established,
all lands were held subject to certain additional obligations,
which were due either to the King (not as sovereign, but as
feudal lord) from the original grantees, called
tenants-in-chief (tenentes in capite), or to the
tenants-in-chief themselves from their under tenants. Of these
obligations the most honourable was that of knight-service.
This was the tenure by which the King granted out fiefs to his
followers, and by which they in turn provided for their own
military retainers. The lands of the bishops and dignified
ecclesiastics, and of most of the religious foundations, were
also held by this tenure. A few exceptions only were made in
favour of lands which had been immemorially held in
frankalmoign, or free-alms. On the grant of a fief, the tenant
was publicly invested with the land by a symbolical or actual
delivery, termed livery of seisin. He then did homage, so
called from the words used in the ceremony: 'Je deveigne votre
homme' ['I become your man']. ... In the case of a sub-tenant
(vavassor), his oath of fealty was guarded by a reservation of
the faith due to his sovereign lord the King. For every
portion of land of the annual value of £20, which constituted
a knight's fee [in England], the tenant was bound, whenever
required, to render the services of a knight properly armed
and accoutred, to serve in the field forty days at his own
expense. ... Tenure by knight-service was also subject to
several other incidents of a burdensome character. ... There
was a species of tenancy in chief by Grand Serjeanty, ...
whereby the tenant was bound, instead of serving the King
generally in his wars, to do some special service in his own
proper person, as to carry the King's banner or lance, or to
be his champion, butler, or other officer at his coronation.
... Grants of land were also made by the King to his inferior
followers and personal attendants, to be held by meaner
services. ... Hence, probably, arose tenure by Petit
Serjeanty, though later on we find that term restricted to
tenure 'in capite' by the service of rendering yearly some
implement of war to the King. ... Tenure in Free Socage (which
still subsists under the modern denomination of Freehold, and
may be regarded as the representative of the primitive alodial
ownership) denotes, in its most general and extensive
signification, a tenure by any certain and determinate
service, as to pay a fixed money rent, or to plough the lord's
land for a fixed number of days in the year. ... Tenure in
Burgage was a kind of town socage. It applied to tenements in
any ancient borough, held by the burgesses, of the King or
other lord, by fixed rents or services. ... This tenure, which
still subsists, is subject to a variety of local customs, the
most remarkable of which is that of borough-English, by which
the burgage tenement descends to the youngest instead of to
the eldest son. Gavelkind is almost confined to the county of
Kent. ... The lands are held by suit of court and fealty, a
service in its nature certain. The tenant in Gavelkind
retained many of the properties of alodial ownership: his
lands were devisable by will; in case of intestacy they
descended to all his sons equally; they were not liable to
escheat for felony ... and they could be aliened by the tenant
at the age of fifteen. Below Free Socage was the tenure in
Villeinage, by which the agricultural labourers, both free and
servile, held the land which was to them in lieu of money
wages."
_T. P. Taswell-Langmead,
English Constitutional History,
pages 58-65._
FEUDALISM.
"Feudalism, the comprehensive idea which includes the whole
governmental policy of the French kingdom, was of distinctly
Frank growth. The principle which underlies it may be
universal; but the historic development of it with which the
constitutional history of Europe is concerned may be traced
step by step under Frank influence, from its first appearance
on the conquered soil of Roman Gaul to its full development in
the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages. In the form which it has
reached at the Norman Conquest, it may be described as a
complete organisation of society through the medium of land
tenure, in which from the king down to the lowest landowner
all are bound together by obligation of service and defence:
the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to
his lord; the defence and service being based on and regulated
by the nature and extent of the land held by the one of the
other. In those states which have reached the territorial
stage of development, the rights of defence and service are
supplemented by the right of jurisdiction. The lord judges as
well as defends his vassal; the vassal does suit as well as
service to his lord. In states in which feudal government has
reached its utmost growth, the political, financial, judicial,
every branch of public administration, is regulated by the
same conditions. The central authority is a mere shadow of a
name. This institution had grown up from two great
sources--the beneficium, and the practice of
commendation,--and had been specially fostered on Gallic soil
by the existence of a subject population which admitted of any
amount of extension in the methods of dependence. The
beneficiary system originated partly in gifts of land made by
the kings out of their own estates to their kinsmen and
servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in
the surrender by landowners of their estates to churches or
powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as
tenants for rent or service. By the latter arrangement the
weaker man obtained the protection of the stronger, and he who
felt himself insecure placed his title under the defence of
the church. By the practice of commendation, on the other
hand, the inferior put himself under the personal care of a
lord, but without altering his title or divesting himself of
his right to his estate; he became a vassal and did homage.
... The union of the beneficiary tie with that of commendation
completed the idea of feudal obligation; the two-fold hold on
the land, that of the lord and that of the vassal, was
supplemented by the two-fold engagement, that of the lord to
defend, and that of the vassal to be faithful. A third
ingredient was supplied by the grants of immunity by which in
the Frank empire, as in England, the possession of land was
united with the right of judicature: the dwellers on a feudal
property were placed under the tribunal of the lord, and the
rights which had belonged to the nation or to its chosen head
were devolved upon the receiver of a fief. The rapid spread of
the system thus originated, and the assimilation of all other
tenures to it, may be regarded as the work of the tenth
century; but as early as A. D. 877 Charles the Bald recognised
the hereditary character of all benefices; and from that year
the growth of strictly feudal jurisprudence may be held to
date. The system testifies to the country and causes of its
birth.
{1118}
The beneficium is partly of Roman, partly of German origin.
... Commendation on the other hand may have had a Gallic or
Celtic origin, and an analogy only with the Roman clientship.
... The word feudum, fief, or fee, is derived from the German
word for cattle (Gothic 'faihu'; Old High German 'fihu'; Old
Saxon 'fehu'; Anglo-Saxon 'feoh'); the secondary meaning being
goods, especially money: hence property in general. The letter
_d_ is perhaps a mere insertion for sound's sake; but it
has been interpreted as part of a second root, _od_, also
meaning property, in which case the first syllable has a third
meaning, that of fee or reward, and the whole word means
property given by way of reward for service. But this is
improbable. ... The word feodum is not found earlier than the
close of the ninth century."
_W. Stubbs,
Constitutional History of England,
chapter 9, section 93, and notes (volume 1)._
"The regular machinery and systematic establishment of feuds,
in fact, may be considered as almost confined to the dominions
of Charlemagne, and to those countries which afterwards
derived it from thence. In England it can hardly be thought to
have existed in a complete state, before the Conquest.
Scotland, it is supposed, borrowed it soon after from her
neighbour. The Lombards of Benevento had introduced feudal
customs into the Neapolitan provinces, which the Norman
conquerors afterwards perfected. Feudal tenures were so
general in the kingdom of Aragon, that I reckon it among the
monarchies which were founded upon that basis. Charlemagne's
empire, it must be remembered, extended as far as the Ebro.
But in Castile and Portugal they were very rare, and certainly
could produce no political effect. Benefices for life were
sometimes granted in the kingdoms of Denmark and Bohemia.
Neither of these, however, nor Sweden, nor Hungary, come under
the description of countries influenced by the feudal system."
_H. Hallam,
The Middle Ages,
chapter 2._