The word fealty derives from the Latin fidelitas, and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. During homage, the lord and vassal entered a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces, a valuable right in a society without police and with only a rudimentary justice system. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony, composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.īefore a lord could grant land to a tenant, he had to make that person a vassal. Below the tenant, further tenants could hold from each other in series. Yet inheritance of land was not unconditional before inheriting, the heir had to pay a suitable feudal relief.īelow the king in the feudal pyramid was a tenant-in-chief (generally in the form of a baron or knight) who was a vassal of the king, and holding from him in turn was a tenant - generally a knight, sometimes a baron, including tenants-in-chief in their capacity as holders of other fiefs. These leases were inheritable from father to son or through other patriarchal lines of transference. All nobles, knights and other tenants, called vassals, merely "held" land on a perpetual lease from the king, who was thus at the top of the "feudal pyramid". Under the English feudal system, the person of the king was the only absolute "owner" of land.
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