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In medieval Europe, the swearing of fealty took the form of an oath made by a vassal, or subordinate, to his lord. "Fealty" also referred to the duties incumbent upon a vassal that were owed to the lord, which consisted of service and aid. [1] One part of the oath of fealty included swearing to always remain faithful to the lord.
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]
This system of feudal tenure was not always restricted to lands, as church revenues and tithes were often farmed out to secular persons as a species of ecclesiastical fief. Strictly speaking, however, a fief was usually defined as immovable property whose usufruct perpetually conceded to another under the obligation of fealty and personal ...
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 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.
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.
Pope Gregory VII's Dictatus Papae (c. 1075) claimed for the Pope "that it may be permitted to him to depose emperors" (12) and asserted the papal power to "absolve subjects from their fealty to wicked men" (27). Oaths of allegiance held together the feudal political structure of medieval Europe. The principle behind deposition was that the Pope ...
In history writing, a comitatus, which is Latin for a group of companions (comites), is an armed escort or retinue, especially in the context of Germanic warrior culture, where warbands were tied to a leader by an oath of fealty. [1] The concept describes the relations between a lord and his retainers.