Yet in defiance of ciphers, coronets, visiting-cards, blue hangings, the homage of lords, and the vassalage of ladies, there was something amiss.

After the disruption of the realm of the Almohades, the Moorish kingdom of Granada was established, and was held in vassalage to Castile, of which Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1474, became joint sovereigns.

We suppose that your lordship is fully aware, that the laws under which the laborer is now placed are tyrannical and unjust in the extreme; laws, we hesitate not to affirm, which are a disgrace to those who framed them, and which, if acted upon by a local magistracy, will entail upon the oft-cheated, over-patient negro some of the worst features of that degrading state of vassalage from which he has just escaped.

[d]: he pretended to the entire property and dominion of Spain; and he parcelled it out amongst adventurers, who undertook to conquer it from the Saracens, and to hold it in vassalage under the see of Rome

By forfeitures, consequent poverty and ultimate pauperization, many of the Lombard stock lost their rank and their lands and entered the same state of vassalage with the great body of the people.