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Feudalism in the Holy Roman Empire was a politico-economic system of relationships between liege lords and enfeoffed vassals (or feudatories) that formed the basis of the social structure within the Holy Roman Empire during the High Middle Ages. In German the system is variously referred to ''Lehnswesen'', ''Feudalwesen'' or ''Benefizialwesen''. Feudalism in Europe emerged in the Early Middle Ages, based on Roman clientship and the Germanic social hierarchy of lords and retainers. It obliged the feudatory to render personal services to the lord. These included e. g. holding his stirrup, joining him on festive occasions and service as a cupbearer at the banquet table. Both pledged mutual loyalty: the lord to "shelter and protect", the vassal to "help and advise". Furthermore, feudal lord and vassal were bound to mutually respect one another, i.e. the lord could not, by law, beat his vassal, humiliate or lay hands on his wife or daughter. The highest liege lord was the sovereign, the king or duke, who granted fiefs to his princes. In turn, they could award fiefs to other nobles, who wanted to be enfeoffed by them and who were often subordinate to the liege lord in the aristocratic hierarchy. == Terms == A fief (also fee, feu, feud, tenure or fiefdom, ''(ドイツ語:Lehen)'', , ''feodum'' or ''beneficium'') was understood to be a thing (land, property), which its owner, the liege lord (''Lehnsherr''), had transferred to the hereditary ownership of the beneficiary on the basis of mutual loyalty, with the proviso that it would return to the lord under certain circumstances. Enfeoffment gave the vassal extensive, hereditary usufruct of the fief, founded and maintained on a relationship of mutual loyalty between the lord and the beneficiary. The Latin word ''beneficum'' implied, not only the actual estate or property, the fief - in Latin usually called the ''feodum'' - but also the associated legal relationship. The owner was the so-called liege lord or feudal lord (German: ''Lehnsherr'' ''Lehnsgeber''; Latin: ''dominus feudi'', ''senior''), who was usually the territorial lord or reigning monarch. The beneficiary was his vassal, liegeman or feudatory (German: ''Vasall'', ''Lehnsmann'', ''Knecht'', ''Lehenempfänger'' or ''Lehensträger''; Latin: ''vassus'' or ''vasallus''). Both parties swore an oath of fealty (''Lehnseid'') to one another. The rights conferred on the vassal were so similar to actual possession that it was described as beneficial ownership (''dominium utile''), whereas the rights of the lord were referred to as direct ownership (''dominium directum''). The fief (German: ''Lehen'' or ''Lehnsgut'') usually comprised an estate or a complex of estates, but also specified rights of use and rights of taxation or duties. Linguistically the term ''Lehen'' is connected with the word ''leihen'', to lend or loan, and meant something like "loaned property" (c.f. the modern German ''Darlehen'', a loan), whilst the word ''feudum'', which some etymologists suggest comes from the Latin ''fides'' (loyalty), is more likely to be derived from the Old High German ''feo'', which meant ''Vieh'' i.e. "cattle", but later generally meant "goods" or "property". The opposite of a fief was the freehold, allod or ''allodium'', which roughly corresponds to the present freehold estate. An institution during the transition from feudal states to what is now the free ownership of property, was the ''allodifizierte Lehen'' ("allodified fief"), a fief in which the feudal lord gave up direct ownership - usually in return for the payment of compensation or an allodified rent (''Allodifikationsrenten'') - but the vassal's ownership of the fief with an agreed agnatic succession - resembling a family entailed estate (''Familienfideikommiß'') - remained in place. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Feudalism in the Holy Roman Empire」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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