To show how entirely different the "feudal system" was from the systems introduced into New- York by the Dutch and English ; and how erroneous have been, and are, the views that Lave been expressed by American, and New England, as well as New York, writers, respecting the latter, it will be well to recur to what "feudalism'" really was.
Scrcely any subject of an historical nature has been more fully and thoroughly investigated, studied, and written upon, in late years, by modern historical scholars than this. Germany, France, and England, have each produced writers who have given to the world the results of searche-s and investigations of the most exhaustive character ; von Maurer, Waitz, Eichorn, Roth, and Richter, in the former, Guizot,
2Tlie word "alod" (Latinized into aUodium, whence tlie Engli li "allodial") does not occur in Anglo .Saxon documents before tl'e eleventh century, when it appears in the Latin of Canute's laws in the Colbertine MS. as the equivalent of " bocland " or " hereditas. " Stuhbs Cons. Hist. "G, n.
3 Hist. Land Titles iu Mass. 52.
THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE MANORS.
Thiern-, Sismondi, Laveldye in France, and Palgrave, Austin, Freeman, Digby, Maine, and Stubbs in England. The latter, the latest writer on this subject, has treated it so fully, that a short statement almost in his own words will make the matter clear.
Feudalism was of distinctly Frank growth. The principle which underlies it may be universal, but its historic development may be traced step by step under Frank influence, from its first appearance on the conquered soil of Roman Gaul to its full development in the jurisprudence of the Middle Ages. As it existed in England, it was brought full grown from France at the Norman Conquest ; ' and "it may be described as a complete organization of society through the medium of land tenure, in which from the King down to the lowest land owner all are bound together by obligation of service and defence: the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to his lord ; the defence and service being based on, and regulated by, the nature and extent of the land held by the one or the other.