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The whole contract including the oath of fealty was part of a formal commendation ceremony that created the feudal relationship. [2] The term is also used by English-speakers to refer to similar oaths of allegiance in other feudal cultures, as with medieval Japan, as well as in modern organized crime.
The oath known as "fealty" implied lesser obligations than did "homage". Further, one could swear "fealty" to many different overlords with respect to different land holdings, but "homage" could only be performed to a single liege, as one could not be "his man" (i.e., committed to military service) to more than one "liege lord". [citation needed]
Strictly speaking, however, a fief was usually defined as immovable property whose usufruct perpetually conceded to another under the obligation of fealty and personal homage. A fief was not ecclesiastical simply because its overlord was a churchman; it was requisite also that the domain granted should be church property.
The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1405, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, [4] paralleling the French féodalité.. According to a classic definition by François Louis Ganshof (1944), [1] feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs, [1 ...
A vassal swears the oath of fealty before Count Palatine Frederick I of the Palatinate. A vassal [1] or liege subject [2] is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain.
The purpose of the commendation was to make a chosen person a vassal of a lord. The commendation ceremony is composed of two elements, one to perform the act of homage and the other an oath of fealty. In some countries, such as the Kingdom of Sicily, the commendation ceremony came to be referred to as investiture.
A fief (/ f iː f /; Latin: feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments.
Henry Kissinger places his hand on a Hebrew Bible as he takes the oath of office as Secretary of State, 1973. Traditionally, an oath (from Anglo-Saxon āþ, also a plight) is a statement of fact or a promise taken by a sacrality as a sign of verity. A common legal substitute for those who object to making sacred oaths is to give an affirmation ...