The ecclesiastical immunitas, as early as the ninth
century, was in the eyes of all ambitious landowners the model of a privileged estate.
But it was by another road that the layman arrived at the position of a petty
sovereign. Speaking broadly, there are two stages in his progress. First, he
comes into the position of a royal tenant, holding his lands in exchange for
services and fealty. Secondly, he acquires, by delegation or usurpation, a
greater or smaller part of the royal authority over his own dependents.
(1) The idea of a personal contract between the free warrior
and his lord, by which the former places himself at the disposition of the latter
and promises unlimited service, is one which occurs in many primitive societies
and is peculiar to no one branch of the human race. Tacitus noticed, as one
feature of German life in his time, the free war-band (comitatus) who
lived in the house of their chief, followed him to battle, and thought it the
last degree of infamy to return alive from the field on which he had fallen.
The Merovingian kings maintained a bodyguard of this kind (antrustions).
Under the Carolingians such followers appear in the host, in the royal household,
in every branch of the administration. They are the most trusted agents of the
King and possess considerable social consequence. They are called vassi,
a name formerly applied to any kind of dependent, but now reserved for free men
rendering free services to the King or some other lord, and subject to his
jurisdiction. So valuableare these followers that, in the eighth and ninth
centuries, the power of the great is largely measured by the number of vassi
whom they can put into the field.
