P. 204.-Homage and Fealty.

It is perhaps unnecessary to inform the reader that HoMAGE and FEALTY are the bonds of reciprocal duty and protection between lord and tenant1; and that by the ceremonies of doing homage and swearing fealty the feudal relations of seignor and vassal are added to the civil and political characters of king and subject. As the performance of these ceremonies hath long been connected with regal investiture, some further remarks upon them will not be foreign from our general design.

HOMAGE, or the doing of Homage, is a mutual acknowlegement on the part of the lord and the tenant that the latter is the MAN, or vassal, of the former; which is further manifested by a personal act of obeisance and service on the one part, and of acceptance and patronage on the other3. Homage, then, can only be done "by the person of the tenant to the person of the lord." FEALTY is a consequent promise upon oath, on the part of the tenant, that as a vassal he will be faithful and true to his lord, and perform the services which are due on account of his tenure: this oath

1" Quid sit Homagium? Sciendum quod Homagium est juris vinculum, quo quis tenetur et astringitur ad warrantizandum, defendendum, et acquietandum tenentem suum in seysinâ suâ versus omnes, per certum servitium in donatione nominatum et expressum ; et etiam, vice versâ, quo tenens reobligatur et astringitur ad fidem domino suo servandam, et servitium debitum faciendum."-Bracton, lib. ii. 2.

"Sir M. Wright (Law of Tenures, p. 67, note) observes that the words of homage (jeo deveigne vostre home), though pronounced by the tenant, equally obliged the lord; for homage according to Brittoa (170) "lie deux homes per leur commun assent.”

may be administered either in the lord's presence, or before another person authorized by him.

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From particulars given in the texts, the reader may have formed a sufficient idea of the manner in which these ceremonies are usually performed: with a view to further ilJustration I shall here insert the form of homage prescribed by Lyttelton (§ 85) in the language of his translator Coke: "Homage is the most honourable service and most humble service of reverence, that a frank tenant may doe to his lord: For when the tenant shall make homage to his lord he shall be ungirt, and his head uncovered, and his lord shall sit, and the tenant shal kneele before him on both his knees, and hold his hands joyntly together betweene the hands of his lord, and shall say thus: 'I become your man from this day forward of life and limbe and of earthly worship, and unto you shall be true and faithfull, and beare you faith for the tenements that I claime to hold of you (saving the faith that I owe unto our soveraigne lord the king); and then the lord so sitting shall kisse him."

In so far as relates to ceremony, there appears to have been no difference between simple and what is termed liege homage, or that which was done to a sovereign seignor5. For the form of words peculiar to the latter we may re

3 See Book iv. p. 204: also Book v. p. 254.

4" Debet quidem tenens manus suas utrasque ponere inter manus utrasque domini sui, per quod significatur ex parte domini protectio, defensio, et warrantia, et ex parte tenentis reverentia et subjectio."-Bracton,lib. ii. 8.

5 The only difference indeed consisted in the omission of the clause "saving the faith," &c. which was unnecessary in liege homage. Mr Hallam in his View of the Middle Ages, 8vo, vol. i. 176, inadvertently attributes them to liege homage: But see Coke and Bracton, &c.

fer to the ceremonial of the present day; some more antient copies may however be acceptable to the curious, and will be given in the Appendix. With regard to the homage said to be done by the TEMPORAL PEERS at our coronations, the reader will observe that although the ceremony performed is strictly that of homage, yet a form of adjuration is connected with it, which gives to the tenant's profession the force of an oath of fealty. This blending of two distinct solemnities is certainly a departure from original practice; but it is nevertheless a departure of long continuance, and one that is perfectly known to the writers on legal antiquities. "In some countries on the continent of Europe," saith Mr Hargrave, "homage and fealty are blended together so as to form one engagement, being so entire that one cannot be without the other, and therefore foreign jurists frequently consider them as synonymous." "In homagio præstando," writes-Sir H. Spelman, "non jurat vassallus, sed in fidelitate.-Licet autem dixerimus non juratum esse in homagio sed in fidelitate, intelligendum est quod fidelitatis præstatio individuè sequitur homagium, atque hoc in causâ esse conjicio quod nonnulli docti asserunt in homagio jurari"." The distinction between the service of homage and the profession of fealty,

6 Notes on Co. Lit. § 91. In the Coutumier de Touraine (1507) I find a distinction in this respect between homage simple and liege. "Le vassal doit faire hommaige simple a son seigneur nue teste, les mains joinctes, et le baiser. Et celluy qui doit hommaige lige le doit faire mains joinctes sur les Evangilles, nue teste, desseint, et le baiser, en faisant les sermens requis." To the same effect there is something in Coke, §91: but of both I would say in the old phrase Quere de ceo.

7 Gloss. in v. Homagium.

as well as the union which custom and convenience have formed between them, are ably defined and elucidated by Sir Martin Wright. "It appears not only from the several historians cited in the former note (Ingulphus, Huntingdon, &c.), but likewise from The Mirror, Britton, Bracton, and Fleta, that homage and fealty (though treated by the feudists as synonymys) were really with us distinct though concomitant engagements; for though fealty was incident and essential to homage or tenure, and is now become part of the form of homage itself (vid. Stat. 17 E. II. and Lit. § 85.), yet there was no doubt antiently a considerable difference between them; inasmuch as homage was meerly a declaration of the homager's consent to become his lord's man or military tenant of such lands or tenements (jeo deveigne vostre home de tiel fief,-Mirror, p. 206 [226]; and the same author p. 304 [306] reckons it one of the abuses of the common law de mettre pluis des paroles en homages faire, forsque tant Jea deveigne vostre home del fieu que jeo claime tenir de vous.)—Fealty on the other hand was a solemn oath, consequential to homage, and sworn immediately after it, that the homager would as his man or tenant be faithful to his lord." But he adds in another place

"Whatsoever difference there was antiently in our law between homage and fealty, they are now so blended together that they are in effect with us, as in other countries, but one and the same engagement."

"Fealtie," saith Coke, "is a part of homage; for all the words of fealtie are comprehended within homage, and

8 Law of Tenures, p. 55, note; 141, note.

therefore fealtie is incident to homage." But "this," Mr Hargrave justly observes, "is not strictly accurate; for the words So help me God and the Saints, which constitute the oath, and are therefore of the essence of fealty, were not comprehended in the form of homage, nor were the words I will lawfully do to you the customs, &c. Another dif ference between the two in point of expression was that the person doing fealty did not say I become your man; words so significant of the nature of the engagement by homage."

We shall now procede to the form of service assigned to the Bishops, or SPIRITUAL PEERS. Of this form it is difficult to apprehend the genuine character; for although our later ceremonials agree in calling it a doing of homage, there appears to be sufficient ground for believing that, at least in the name thus given to it, a deviation from antient authority hath been suffered to obtain.

It hath been shown that Homage is always done by the tenant's kneeling and placing his hands between those of the lord, in this posture making the declaration I become your man, &c. and afterwards kissing the lord. The manner of swearing Fealty was by the tenant standing, and repeating an oath with one hand laid upon the Gospels. Du Cange, referring to examples he had collected, writes "Ex quibus patet homagii et sacramenti fidelitatis discrimen; ac homagium quidem fieri a vassallo genibus flexis, manibus in domini manus immissis: sacramentum verò fidelitatis, à vassallo stante, et tactis sanctis Evangeliis"."

9 Gloss. v. Fidelitas.