Vassals Sentence Examples

The Pasargadian kings of Anshan were vassals of the Median empire.

A strong check was thus imposed upon the tendency of freemen to become the vassals of great lords.

Small native princes ruled as vassals of Egypt which, after expelling the Hyksos from its borders, had entered upon a series of conquests as far as the Euphrates.

From 1466 to 1526 grand masters of the Order ruled in East Prussia as vassals of Poland.

Although his de facto sovereignty was confined to the town of Laon and to some places in the north of France, Louis displayed a zeal beyond his years in procuring the recognition of his authority by his turbulent vassals.

It should also here be noticed that the changes introduced into the holding of the fiefs, whether by altering their boundaries or substituting Frankish for Lombard vassals, were chief among the causes why the feudal system took no permanent hold in Italy.

But before this event John had instituted a great inquiry, the inquest of service of June 1212, for the purpose of finding out how much he could exact from each of his vassals, a measure which naturally excited some alarm; and then, fearing a baronial rising, he had abandoned his proposed expedition into Wales, had taken hostages from the most prominent of his foes, and had sought safety in London.

In 1225 Frederick married Isabella, and immediately after the marriage he assumed the title of king in right of his wife, and exacted homage from the vassals of the kingdom.'

It dates unquestionably from a period when the Frankish authority was very strong in Bavaria, when the dukes were vassals of the Frankish kings.

But they have been much subdivided, and the vassals may by law redeem them.

Their vassals and subjects, appalled by the invisible powers wielded by the head of the church, supported them in their rebellion.

Canaan (Palestine and the south Phoenician coast land) and Amor (Lebanon district and beyond) were under the constant supervision of Egypt, and Egyptian officials journeyed round to collect tribute, to attend to complaints, and to assure themselves of the allegiance of the vassals.

Unhappily, clinging to the conviction that all the lands which the crusaders would traverse were the "lost provinces" of his empire, he induced the crusaders to do him homage, so that, whatever they conquered, they would conquer in his name, and whatever they held, they would hold by his grant and as his vassals.

These were drawn up in the language of the country, a Romance dialect (1288 being the date of the most ancient written code), and are remarkable for the manner in which they define the rights of the sovereign, determining the reciprocal obligations of the viscount and his subjects or vassals.

Edward the Confessor gave the manor to the church of Winchester in 1042, and it remained with the prior and convent of St Swithin until the 13th century, when it passed by exchange to Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, though the vassals of the prior and convent remained exempt from dues and tronage in the port.

In the oldest register of Philip Augustus counts are reckoned with dukes in the first of the five orders into which the nobles are divided, but the list includes, besides such almost sovereign rulers as the counts of Flanders and Champagne, immediate vassals of much less importance - such as the counts of Soissons and Dammartin - and even one mediate vassal, the count of Bar-sur-Seine.

It was the general opinion abroad that the Magyars would either relapse into heathendom, or become the vassals of the Holy Roman Empire, and this opinion was reflected in the increasingly hostile attitude of the popes towards the Arpad kings.

The Zulu asserted that the Swazis were their vassals and denied their right to part with the territory.

His son and successor was Dungi, whose reign lasted more than 51 years, and among whose vassals was Gudea, the patesi or high-priest of Lagash.

After his death, the Assyrians, who were still nominally the vassals of Babylonia, threw off neser L - g n a ll disguise, and Shalmaneser I.

Under the English rule the counts of Armagnac were turbulent and untrustworthy vassals; and the administration of the Black Prince, tending to favour the towns of Aquitaine at the expense of the nobles, drove them to the side of France.

His vassals, however, showed themselves determined to support him in his struggle against the avengers of the duke of Orleans.

A knight might hold directly of the king, a count of a viscount, a bishop of an abbot, or the king himself of one of his own vassals, or even of a vassal's vassal, and in return his vassal's vassal might hold another fief directly of him.

Its chief and almost only organ, for kingdom and barony alike, was the curia - a court formed of the vassals.

This was particularly the case in parts of France and Germany where feudalism continued to regulate the property relations of lords and vassals longer than elsewhere, and where the underlying economic feudalism remained in large part unchanged.

According to Jordanes (the epitomator of Cassiodorus's History of the Goths) at the funeral of Attila his vassals, as they rode round the corpse, sang of his glorious deeds.

From the Fatimites it passed into the possession of the Beni-Yala, of the Beni-Ifren branch of the Zenata Berbers, who held it as vassals of the Omayyad rulers of Spain.

The bishops, in their turn, had to exercise their temporal rights through lay vassals, of whom the most powerful in the course of the 12th century were the lords of Andechs, near Munich.

But in the histories of the wars with his vassals he is often little more than a tyrannical dotard, who is made to submit to gross insult.

The wars of Charlemagne with his vassals are described in Girart de Roussillon, Renaus de Montauban, recounting the deeds of the four sons of Aymon, Huon de Bordeaux, and in the latter part of the Chevalerie Ogier, which belong properly to the cycle connected with Doon of Mayence.

Geoffrey the Handsome, with his indefatigable energy, was eminently fitted to suppress the coalitions of his vassals, the most formidable of which was formed in 1129.

Boni was once the most powerful state of Celebes, all the other princes being regarded as vassals of its ruler, but its history is not known in detail.

In 1131 the king led an expedition into Denmark, where one of his vassals had been murdered by Magnus, son of the Danish king, Niels, and where general confusion reigned; but no resistance was offered, and Niels promised to pay tribute to Lothair.

In the 7th century Gaza, Ascalon, Ashdod and Ekron were Assyrian vassals, together with Judah, Moab and Edom - in all, twenty-two kings of the " Hittites " - and the discovery of Assyrian contract-tablets at Gezer (c. 650) may indicate the presence of Assyrian garrisons.

But the Babylonian Empire followed upon traditional lines and thrust back Egypt, and Nabonidus (553 B.C.) claims his vassals as far as Gaza.

As he was not a great baron with a body of vassals at his command, he put himself at the head of a band of adventurers, and fought on the side of Charles and of France.

In 1180, however, he was placed under the imperial ban and Saxony was broken up. Henry retained Brunswick and Luneburg; Westphalia, as the western portion of the duchy was called, was given to Philip, archbishop of Cologne, and a large part of the land was divided among nine bishops and a number of counts who thus became immediate vassals of the emperor.

All therefore that Adam could do, as they passed before him, was to name them, as a lord names his vassals.

The prince of Wales's voyage to India in the winter of 1875-76 had brought the heir to the throne into personal relationship with the great Indian vassals of the British crown, and it was felt that a further demonstration of the queen's interest in her magnificent dependency would confirm their loyalty.

In Surakarta and Jokjakarta in Java, and in many parts of the Outposts, native princes preserve their positions as vassals; they have limited power, and act generally under the supervision of a Dutch official.

At the enfeoffments of 1072 and 1002 no great undivided fiefs were created, and the mixed Norman, French and Italian vassals owed their benefices to the count.

From 1028 onwards it was ruled by local counts, the vassals of the bishops, but after Tirol fell into the hands of the Habsburgers (1363) their power grew at the expense of that of the bishops.

Austria was to be compensated in Italy, while Prussia was to receive the whole of Saxony, whose unfortunate monarch had been the most faithful of Napoleon's vassals.

While other vassals might hold of a graduated hierarchy of overlords up to the crown, the burgess always held directly of the sovereign.

Below the king was a numerous and powerful class of nobles, the highest of whom (tlatoani) were great vassals owing little more than homage and tribute to their feudal lord, while the natural result of the unruliness of the noble class was that the king to keep them in check increased their numbers, brought them to the capital as councillors, and balanced their influence by military and household officers, and by a rich and powerful merchant class.

Nur-ed-din's vassals rebelled against his youthful heir, es-Salih, and Saladin came north, nominally to his assistance.

Thither Assur-bani-pal brought the rebel Egyptian vassals Necho and Sharru-ludari, the Elamite kings, the booty and captives of his continual conquests.

After some years of desultory fighting de Courci established his power over that part of Ulster comprised in the modern counties of Antrim and Down, throughout which he built a number of castles, where his vassals, known as "the barons of Ulster," held sway over the native tribes.

The British coinage now begins to bear Roman legends, and after Caesar's two raids (55, 54 B.C.) the southern tribes were regarded at Rome, though they do not seem to have regarded themselves, as vassals.

This division contains the palace of the ruler of Tiryns, a building which shows careful and skilful construction, elaborate decoration, and a well-arranged plan, suitable to the wants1 of a wealthy autocratic chief, who lived in a manner which partly recalls the luxury of an Oriental king, and also resembled the feudal state of a medieval baron, surrounded by a crowd of vassals.

But it is no less certain that Innocent attempted to subject the kings of Europe by making them his tributaries and vassals.

Andresen (Heilbronn, 1879), that Taillefer went before the Norman army singing of Charlemagne and of Roland and the vassals who died at Roncevaux, has been considered important in demonstrating the existence of a comparatively early tradition and song of Roland.

The petty rulers of these sections wasted their strength with internecine quarrels and proved quite incompetent to check the lawlessness of their feudal vassals.

From his tenth year, when he was kidnapped from his father's court by the rebellious vassals, till his assassination eighteen years later, his whole life, with one bright interval of military glory, was unrelieved tragedy.

The tyranny of these nobles drove the peasantry and smaller vassals to seek the protection for life and property, the equality of taxation and of justice, which could be found only inside the walled city and under the rule of the archbishop. Thus Milan grew populous, and learned to govern itself.

Reversing his fathers policy, Otto resolved that the dukes should act in the strictest sense as his vassals, or lose their dignities.

For the time, feudalism in truth meant that lands and offices were held on condition of service; the kinf was the genuine ruler, not only of freemen, but of the highest vassals in the nation.

But the attention of the French kings was concentrated on their immediate interests, and in course of time they brought their unruly vassals to order.

This alone would have shaken their authority, for, during their absence, the great vassals seized rights which were afterwards difficult to recover.

In dealing with the revolt of nobles Ernest of Swabia Conrad was aided by the reluctance a-nd the of the vassals of the great lords to follow them against land.

In Germany Conrad did not definitely decree that fiefs should pass from father to son, but he encouraged and took advantage of the tendency in this direction, a tendency which was, obviously, a serious blow at the pow-er of the great lords over their vassals.

The secret of Fredericks great popularity was partly the national pride excited by his foreign achievements, partly the ascendance over other minds which his genius gave him, and partly the conviction that while he would forego nmrne of his rights he would demand from his vassals nothing more than was sanctioned by the laws of the Empire.

Hence the custom of fare, hiring mercenary troops was introduced, and a prince could never be certain, however numerous his vassals might be, that the advantage would not rest with his opponent.

The feudal relation between the king and the princes and between the princes and their vassals had become purely nominal.

The counts of Wernigerode, who can be traced back to the early 12th century, were successively vassals of the margraves of Brandenburg (1268),(1268), and the archbishops of Magdeburg (1381).

He was the first of Rome's kingly vassals.

Only the king had antrustions; every lord could have vassals.

Even the barbarian courts, their neighbours or vassals, were swayed by the dominant fashion to imitation.

Incursions were immediately made by the Ottoman sultan into the territory of Egyptian vassals at Derendeh and Albistan (Ablestin), and Malatia was besieged by his forces.

For two years Ali, now over eighty years of age, held his own, in spite of the defection of his vassals and even of his sons.

In the 13th century the Scots had acquired a considerable celebrity in shipbuilding; and a powerful French baron had a ship specially built at Inverness in 1249 to convey him and his vassals to the Holy Land.

The germ of a parliament existed in the crown vassals and the royal officials - chancellor, steward, constable, marischal and the rest - with bishops, priors, earls, barons and other probi homines.

Now Hagenbach is known to have committed many cruelties like those attributed to the bailiffs in the legend, and it has been plausibly conjectured that his case has really given rise to these stories, especially when we find that the Confederates had a hand in his capture and execution, that in a document of 1358 Hagenbachs and Gesslers appear side by side as witnesses, and that the Hagenbachs had frequent transactions with the Habsburgs and their vassals.

Unfortunately at this point our best authority ceases; and we cannot well explain the changes which brought about the Christianization of the Normans and their settlement in Normandy as vassals, though recalcitrant ones, of the West Frankish kings.

According to the Chaldean Nabonidus (553) all the kings from Gaza to 'the Euphrates assisted in his buildings, and the Chaldean policy generally appears to have been favourable towards faithful vassals.

Vassals or servants of any lord, and tradespeople, were excluded.

With his vassals terrorized and subdued, Louis continued to subsidize the Swiss and Rene II.

By 1228 he had so far brought his vassals to obedience, that he was able to undertake the conquest of the Balearic Islands, which he achieved within four years.

It was " divided among petty kings and other lords with fewer vassals who are called inkosis or fumes."

A league including his rebel vassals, Renaud of Dammartin, count of Boulogne, and Ferdinand, count of Flanders, with the emperor Otto IV.

The extension of the system of sauvegarde, by which abbeys, towns or lay vassals put themselves under the special protection of the king, and that of pariage, by which the possessor surrendered half the interest in his estate to the king in return for protection or some further grant, increased the royal power.

The sultan's policy had been consistently directed to crushing the overgrown power of his vassals; in the spring of 1831 two rebellious pashas, Hussein of Bosnia and Mustafa of Scutari, had succumbed to his arms; and, since he was surrounded and counselled by the personal enemies of the pasha of Egypt, it was likely that, so soon as he should feel himself strong enough, he would deal in like manner with Mehemet Ali.

The empire, which at one time included nearly the whole of Asia Minor, with portions of Armenia and Syria, passed to the Mongols when they defeated the sultan of Rum in 1243, and the sultans became vassals of the Great Khan.

In 1529 and 1530 the king made a strong effort to suppress his turbulent vassals in the south of Scotland; and after several raids and counter-raids negotiations for peace with England were begun, and in May 1534 a treaty was signed.

In 1238 Llewelyn, growing aged and infirm, summoned all his vassals to a conference at the famous Cistercian abbey of Strata Florida, whereat David, his son by the Princess Joan of England, was acknowledged his heir by all present.

A natural result of this partial treatment of the towns by the king and his vassals was that the English tongue and also English customs became prevalent if not universal in all the towns of Wales, whilst the rural districts remained strongly Cymric in character, language and sympathy.

Nevertheless, his rule and power gradually declined, and by the year 1408 Owen himself had disappeared as suddenly and mysteriously as he had arisen, and the land once more fell into undisputed possession of the king and his chosen vassals.

Only in tho secluded districts of northern Media (Tabaristan), the generals of the house of Karen (Spahpat, Ispehbed) maintained themselves for a century as vassals of the caliphs exactly as Atropates and his dynasty had done before them.

The early Capetians had a custom, based upon ancient precedents, of summoning periodically to their court their principal vassals and the prelates of their kingdom.

Here they deliberated upon political matters and the vassals and prelates gave the king their advice.

Nevertheless when a suit was brought before the king he judged it with the assistance of his prelates and vassals assembled around him, who formed his council.

But in law the king was sole judge, the vassals and prelates being only advisers.

During the 12th and at the beginning of the 13th centuries the curia regis continued to discharge these functions, except that its importance and actual competence continued to increase, and that we frequently find in it, in addition to the vassals and prelates who formed the council, consiliarii, who are evidently men whom the king had in his entourage, as his ordinary and professional councillors.

This suggests that a sufficient number of councillors was assured beforehand, and a list drawn up for each session; the vassals and prelates still figuring as a complementary body at the council.

Not only were the persons who were to constitute each Parlement named in advance, but those who were not placed on this list, even though vassals or prelates, were excluded from judging cases.

It had originally been an assembly of lay vassals and prelates; when its composition became fixed and consisted of councillormagistrates, a certain number of these offices were necessarily occupied by laymen, and others by ecclesiastics, the conseillers lais and the conseillers clercs.

Some anecdotes of the king's "justice," his favourite and distinguishing attribute during the sixteen years which intervened between the two crusades, are given; then comes the story of Joinville's own refusal to join the second expedition, a refusal which bluntly alleged the harm done by the king's men who stayed at home to the vassals of those who went abroad as the reason of Joinville's resolution to remain behind.

The relation between a lord and his vassals, implied in the oath of fealty, has been extended to states of unequal power; it has been found convenient to designate certain states as vassal states, and their superiors as suzerains.

At the end of this period, as the title had been held by many vassals of Turkey, its retention was considered inconsistent with the growth of Rumanian independence.

From this period onwards the Porte introduced a new system with regard to its Walachian vassals.

Asia and the East generally were left under the subjection of petty kings who were mere vassals of Rome.

Under Tigranes of Armenia they became his vassals, and after the victories of Lucullus and Pompey, vassals of the Romans.

Yet the moment that he was dead all his vassals revolted; his successors could never recover all that was lost.

The process was not so hard as might be thought; when once the Danes had settled down, had brought over wives from their native land or taken them from among their English vassals, had built themselves farmsteads and accumulated flocks and herds, they lost their old advantage in contending with the English.

While abroad the great vassals of the crown generally held their property in compact blocks, in England their power was weakened by the dispersion of their lands.

The advance was begun by his great vassals, the earls of Chester, Shrewsbury and Hereford, all of whom occupied new districts on the edge of the mountains of Powys and Gwynedd.

Their plan was that John should land in Poitou and distract the attention of the French by a raid up the Loire, while the emperor and his vassals should secretly mobilize a great army in Brabant and make a sudden dash at Paris.

Hitherto life-owners of land, holding as subtenants, had possessed large powers of alienating it, to the detriment of their superior lords, who would otherwise have recovered it, when their vassals died heirless, as an escheat.

There was to be an end to the power of the courts of Paris to harass the duke of Aquitaine, by using the rights of the suzerain to interfere with the vassals subjects.

The solid and wealthy realm of France proved able to make head against Spain and the Netherlands, even when they were backed by the emperors German vassals.

Guiscard's last enterprise was his attack on the Greek Empire, a rallying ground for his rebel vassals.

He created and enforced a strong ducal power which, however, was met by many baronial revolts, one being in 1078, when he demanded from the Apulian vassals an " aid " on the betrothal of his daughter.

The religious sept or family consisted in the first instance not only of the ecclesiastical persons to whom the gift was made, but of all the celi or vassals, tenants and slaves, connected with the land bestowed.

They soon mixed in the domestic quarrels of neighbouring tribes, at first selling their protection, but afterwards as vassals, sometimes as allies, like the septs and tribes of the Goidel among themselves.

At any rate, in 851-852 the king of Lochlann (Norway) sent his son Amlaib (Olaf the White) to assume sovereignty over the Norsemen in Ireland and to receive tribute and vassals.

When everything was ready he entered Mag Breg with an army consisting of his own troops, those of Ossory, his South Connaught vassals and the Norsemen of Munster.

Every king had hostages for the fealty of his vassals; they sat unarmed in the hall, and those who had become forfeited by a breach of treaty or allegiance were placed along the wall in fetters.

The freemen were divided into freemen pure and simple, freemen possessing a quantity of stock, and nobles (flathi) having vassals.

The liberties were those districts in which the great vassals of the crown exercised palatinate jurisdiction, and the crosses were the church lands, where alone the royal writ usually ran.

Having asserted his authority over the Bohemians and other Slavonic tribes, Conrad went a second time to Italy in 1036 in response to an appeal from Heribert of Milan, whose oppressions had led to a general rising of the smaller vassals against their lords.

Unable to take Milan, Conrad issued in May 1037 an edictum de beneficiis, by which he decreed that the principle of heredity should apply in Italy to lands held by sub vassals,, and that this class of tenants should not be deprived e;f their lands except by the sentence of their peers, and should retain the right of appeal to the emperor.

Although he did not decree that German fiefs should be hereditary, he favoured the tendency in this direction, and so attempted to make the smaller vassals a check on the power of the nobles.

The bishops and abbots, by confiding their domains to laymen on condition of assistance with the sword in case of need, became temporal lords and suzerains with vassals to fight for them, with courts of justice, and in short with all the rights and privileges exercised by lay lords.

On the other hand there were bishop-dukes, bishop-counts, &c., themselves vassals of other lords, and especially of the king, from whom they received the investiture of their temporalities.

Thus in various ways ecclesiastical benefices were gradually transformed into fiefs, and lay suzerains claimed the same rights over ecclesiastics as over other vassals from whom they received homage, and whom they invested with lands.

The beginning of his reign was occupied with wars against the vassals, particularly against the duke of Normandy.

After the passing of this torrent the Visigoths, under their kings Ataulphus, Wallia and Theodoric, still dazzled by the splendours of this immense empire, established themselves like submissive vassals in Aquitaine, with Toulouse as their capital.

He submitted to the yoke of the social system and feudal institutions at the very moment when he was attempting to revive royal authority; he was ruler of the state, but ruler of vassals also.

The monarchical principle no longer sufficed to ensure social discipline; the fear of lorfeiting the grant became the only powerful guarantee of obedience, and as this only applied to his personal vassals, Charlemagne gave up his claim to direct obedience from the test of the people, accepting the mediation of the counts, lords and bishops, who levied taxes, adjudicated and administered in virtue of the privileges of patronage, not of the right of the state.

Before long, too, Louis the German actually allied himself with the people of Brittany and Aquitaine, and invaded France at the summons of Charles the Balds own vassals.

Such vassals gave themselves utterly to the lord who guarded them, working for him sword or pickaxe in hand.

In 856 some of his vassals deserted him and went over to Louis the German.

Any deprivation or supersession of the count might impoverish, dispossess or ruin the vassals of the entire county; so that all, vassals or officials, small and great, feeling their danger, united their efforts, and lent each other mutual assistance against the permanent menace of an overweening monarchy.

Thus the man (879king no longer chose his own vassals; but vassals 884).

Charlemagnes vassals, however, had needed him; while from Charles the Bald onward it was the king who needed the vassalsa change more marked with each successive prince.

The feudal system had in fact turned against the throne, the vassals using it to secure a permanent hold upon offices and fiefs, and to get possession of estates and of power.

One of these great vassals, the duke of France, was amply provided with estates and offices, in.

A few half-hearted campaigns against recalcitrant vassals and a long and obstinate quarrel with the papacy over his adulterous union with Bertrade de Montfort, countess of Anjou, represented the total activity of Philips reign; he was greedy and venal, by no means disdaining the petty profits of brigandage, and he never left his own domains.

His first successes against Theobald of Champagne, who for thirty years had been the most dangerous of the great French barons and had refused a vassals services to Louis VI., as well as the adroit diplomacy with which he wrested from Geoffrey the Fair, count of Anjou, a part of the Norman Vexin long claimed by the French kings, in exchange for permitting him to conquer Normandy, augured well for his boldness and activity, had he but confined them to serving his own interests.

In 1213, John Lackland, having been in conflict with Innocent regarding the archiepiscopal see of Canterbury, had made submission and done homage for his kingdom, and Philip wished to take vengeance for this at the expense of the rebellious vassals of the north-west, and of Renaud and Ferrand, counts of Boulogne and Flanders, thus combating English influence in those quarters.

But he had not insisted; because Philip, between feudal vassals ruined by the crusades and lower classes fleeced by everybody, had threatened to forbid the exportation from France of any ecclesiastical gold and silver.

This was the end of the great feudal coalitions, for royal vengeance soon settled the account of the lesser vassals; the duke of Alencon was condemned to prison for life; the count of Armagnac was killed; and the Germans were soon to disembarrass Louis of Charles the Bold.

After the feudal vassals, decimated Struggle by the wars of religion and the executioners hand, with the and after the recalcitrant taxpayers, the Protestants, Protest- in their turn, and by their own fault, experienced this.

Representative of God upon earth, heir to the sovereignty of the Roman emperors, a universal suzerain and master over the goods and the lives of his vassals, he could conceive no other bounds to his authority than his own interests or his obligations towards God, and in this he was a willing believer of Bossuet.

He saw the Christian princes of the north become his vassals and submit to his judgment in their quarrels.

The nobles of Castile and Leon were not feudal vassals, but great landowners claiming and exercising rights oi jurisdiction on their estates.

Ismail remained in the Dongola province till February 1821, when he crossed the Bayuda Desert and received the submission of the meks (kings) of Berber, Shendi and Halfaya, nominal vassals of the king of Sennar.

This he accomplished for the most part by taking advantage of the quarrels among his vassals.

William demanded reparation for the raid of Philip's vassals and the cession of Pontoise, Chaumont-en-Vexin and Mantes, but died after sacking Mantes in the same year.

The bishop of Chartres, in consequence, refused to bring his vassals, to help Philip's ally, Robert, duke of Normandy, against his brother.

This Gerhard founded a family of hereditary counts, who held Julich as immediate vassals of the emperor, and in 1356 the county was raised to the rank of a duchy.

In the year 1216, Rimini, being worsted by Cesena, adopted the desperate plan of granting citizenship to two members of the powerful Malatesta tribe, Giovanni and Malatesta, for the sake of their aid and that of their vassals in the defence of the state and the conduct of the war.

The sections of land given to the loyal Norman vassals was called a fief.

In some ways the autocracy was a dictatorship which sat upon thousands of village republics that were mere vassals.

These people then became the king's vassals, rather like tenants renting land from the owner.

All the Moorish dominions in Spain were lost in the next few years, partly by the Christian conquest of Andalusia, and partly by the revolt of the Mahommedans of Granada, who put themselves under the protection of the Christian kings and became their vassals.

Turning once more his attention to the recovery of Normandy, he asked the barons for assistance for this undertaking; in reply they, or a section of them, refused, and instead of crossing the seas the king marched northwards with the intention of taking vengeance on his disobedient vassals, who were chiefly barons of the north of England.

Bohemund and Godfrey together became Dagobert's vassals; and in the spring Godfrey even seems to have entered into an agreement with the patriarch to cede Jerusalem and Jaffa into his hands, in the event of acquiring other lands or towns, especially Cairo, or dying without direct heirs.

When, ex ruler of Tabriz, and one of Jenghiz Khan's lieutenants, the Seljukian Empire was at the point of dissolution, most of its feudatory vassals helped rather than hindered its downfall in the hope of retaining their fiefs as independent sovereigns.

He has sometimes been blamed for not crushing his incurably disloyal and rebellious nobles, instead of cajoling them, after the example of his contemporary, Louis XI., who laid the foundations of the greatness of France on the ruin of the vassals.

Richard having scornfully rejected the demand, a fratricidal war ensued; the young Henry invaded Aquitaine and attracted to his standard many of Richard's vassals, who were exasperated by the iron rule of the duke.

For ten years civil war raged in Lorraine; in Saxony much blood was shed in petty quarrels; and Henry made expeditions against his turbulent vassals in Flanders and Friesland.

These people then became the king 's vassals, rather like tenants renting land from the owner.

We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes.

Thus the titular king of Italy found himself simultaneously at war with those great vassals who had chosen him from their own class, with the turbulent factions of the Roman aristocracy, with unruly bishops in the growing cities and with the multitude of minor counts and barons who occupied the open lands, and who changed sides according to the interests of the moment.

The greater part of the territory was formally incorporated into the empire, and the petty potentates, such as the khan of Khiva and the amir of Bokhara, who were allowed to retain a semblance of their former sovereignty, became obsequious vassals of the White Tsar.

The ultimate result was that in 1454 an embassy of the League offered Prussia to the Polish king, and that, after many years of war, the Peace of Thorn (1466) gave to Poland West Prussia, with Marienburg, Thorn, Danzig and other towns, in full possession, and, while leaving East Prussia to the Order, made the Order the vassals of Poland for the territory which it retained.

Even so, Prussia was bereft of half of her territories; those west of the river Elbe went to swell the domains of Napoleon's vassals or to form the new kingdom of Westphalia for Jerome Bonaparte; while the spoils which the House of Hohenzollern had won from Poland in the second and third partitions were now to form the duchy of Warsaw, ruled over by Napoleon's ally, the elector (now king) of Saxony.

From 1299 to 1322 the country was ruled by the Croatian princes, Paul and Mladen Subic, who, though vassals of Hungary, reunited the provinces of Upper and Lower Bosnia, created by the Hungarians in order to prevent the growth of a dangerous national unity.

The emperor seconded the efforts of his vassals, Albert the Bear, margrave of the Saxon north mark, and Conrad I., margrave of Meissen and Lusatia, to extend the authority of the Germans in the districts east of the Elbe, and assisted Norbert, archbishop of Magdeburg, and Albert I., archbishop of Bremen, to spread Christianity.

Farther south came the turn of Ascalon, Lachish and Libnah; Judah under " Hezekiah suffered severely, and its western cities were transferred to the faithful vassals of Ekron, Ashdod and Gaza.

If she ever failed to get what she wanted, it was because of her inability to make the vassals of her household understand what it was.

Not only did pupils flock to Tosa from many quarters, attracted alike by the novelty of Itagaki's doctrines, by his eloquence and by his transparent sincerity, but also similar schools sprang up among the former vassals of other fiefs, who saw themselves excluded from the government.