The vassals of a baron were, by their tenure, immediately dependent on him, owed attendance at his court, and paid all their duty to the king, through that dependence which their lord was obliged by HIS tenure to acknowledge to his sovereign and superior.

The king passed an equitable law, that the goods of a vassal should not be seized for the debt of his lord, unless the vassal be surety for the debt; and that the rents of vassals should be paid to the creditors of the lord, not to the lord himself.

If we consider chivalry in fact as a kind of privileged body into which men were received on certain conditions and with a certain ritual, it is important to observe that every vassal is not necessarily a cavalier.

The barons were peers to each other in the national council, and, in some degree, companions to the king: the vassals were peers to each other in the court of barony, and companions to their baron

" These words, "in fee, with right of inheritance," leave no doubt that the great vassals of the crown were absolute proprietors, and that all their subvassals had the same right of holding in perpetuity.