The acquisition of fiefs had ceased to bring nobility with it, but the latter was derived from three sources: birth, lettres d'anoblissement granted by the king and appointment to certain offices.
Henceforth all possessors of fiefs owed him, whether within the kingdom or on the frontiers, military service without pay and at their own expense.
Chief of these were the fiefs of the Baron of Retz, the Seigneur de Clisson, who defended the southern frontier against Poitou, and the Baron of Ancenis, who was the bulwark between Brittany and Anjou.
In the earliest times, both Nantes and Rennes were the seat of important administrative governments, but the Counts of Nantes ceded their fiefs to the Bretons in the eleventh century.
In addition to the principal old-time governments, there were the ancient fiefs and local divisions, and these in many cases had names often encountered in history and literature.
Caesar was lord paramount of the world: its countries great fiefs whose kings were his tenants in chief, the suitors of his court, owing to him homage, fealty, and military service against the infidel.
The main ground of complaint against Hans was that he disregarded the clause of the Recess which forbade the granting of Swedish fiefs to Danes.
Regarding the matter of conferring fiefs on Hoya, the Cabinet yielded to the king's desire.
Some of the kings, therefore, devised the scheme of enlisting the influential aristocracy in their service by granting them fiefs in the crown estates, with right to all the crown incomes from the fief.
About the year 1200 castles were first erected on some of the crown estates, and the magnates who held these castles as fiefs were not slow to take advantage of their power.
This astounding grant the Cabinet owed chiefly to the influence of their chancellor, Bo Jonsson, who had done more than any other to set Albert on the throne; and to him were granted as fiefs all the royal castles.
As for Sture, at his renunciation of the regency he had been granted extensive fiefs both in Sweden and in Finland; but in 1499 the king forced him to resign a large portion of these fiefs.
New taxes had to be imposed, and several fiefs to which different magnates laid claim were appropriated to the crown.
There were three classes of fiefs in feudal France.
By marriage with Marguerite de Moncade, daughter of the Vicomte de Bearn, he inherited the two important fiefs of Catalogne and Bearn et Bigorre, thus preparing the way for possession of the throne of Navarre.
Feudal France consisted of seventy thousand fiefs or rere-fiefs, of which three thousand gave their names to their seigneurs.
Outside of the towns the open country was either domains of the count, or fiefs held from him by church corporations or nobles.
Indeed, the lands of many of those who had been carried away by the pestilence had fallen to him by inheritance, or lapsed as fiefs of the crown.
The mamelukes were for the most part attached faithfully to their masters, and the emirs, with their support, enriched themselves by exactions from the people, with the unscrupulous gains of office, and with richfiefs from the state.
Henry the Lion refused to restore certain fiefs which, as Udalrich asserted, belonged to the Halberstadt Church.
The wise but severe regulations of Rudolph for extirpating the banditti, demolishing the fortresses of the turbulent barons, and recovering the fiefs which several of the princes had unjustly appropriated, excited great discontent.
Many of them had usurped the fiefs of the barons, and as the fiefs they possessed were exempted from military service, the empire thus became weakened in its natural defences.
To these three great divisions were attached several feudatory princes, who governed as fiefs various cities of the empire.
The southern provinces subjected to this calamity were fiefs of the crown of Aragon, and did not belong at that time to France in any way.
Giovanni also received great fiefs in that kingdom, where he called himself Duke of Suessa and Prince of Teano.
Beautiful Sermoneta and all the great fiefs in the Maremma fell into the maw of the Borgias, and your ancestors either found death at their hands or were driven into exile.
The Pope's plans to destroy all the little tyrannies and fiefs in the States of the Church had already been clearly revealed.
Margaret's first husband, the Duke of Alençon, held various fiefs in this part of Maine, which would account for the incident related in the story coming to her knowledge.
But in general, the power of the barons triumphed over that of the prince; and in many instances his dominion was entirely thrown off, and the great fiefs were erected into independent principalities or States.
But the principal vassals, whose fiefs had become hereditary, and who composed the national diets which Charlemagne had not abolished, gradually threw off the yoke and advanced to sovereign jurisdiction and independence.
Federigo obtained by marriage the remaining fiefs of that family, including S.
The residence of its sovereign and officials retained in home circulation not only the revenues of the principality, but the income drawn by him from foreign fiefs and from military adventures.
The scattered mountain fiefs held by his ancestors had been concentrated by his first marriage, and extended by his policy or prowess.
The despicable lord of these fiefs had a granddaughter, Costanza Varana, whose pedigree in relation to the Montefeltrian princes we have explained, and who had gained the affections of Alessandro, brother of Francesco Sforza.
Lord Sten retired, but with the greatestfiefs given to any Swedish man; viz.
Fiefs granted to nobles before were now kept by the crown.
Bo Jonsson is said to have been the wealthiest man who ever lived in the North, his possessions, fiefs and castles being of an astounding number, the most famous among the latter being Gripsholm in the Lake Maelar.
He loaned money to the king against new castles and fiefs in security, and held Albrecht in the most humiliating relation of dependence.
Only small fiefs were given with the new dignities, which were nothing but an outward sign of the distinction existing between a higher aristocracy already extant and the lower nobility.
This noble but headstrong man was executed for treason, while Drotsete Krister Nilsson, who signed the death-warrant in the interest of Charles, himself was persecuted by the latter and deprived of all his fiefs save one.
Church fiefs failed to become hereditary only because bishops and abbots could not marry; yet in fact great numbers of the lower clergy lived in a state of marriage or "concubinage.
As the tenth century passed, fiefs tended to become hereditary.
A peer in France claimed equality with the crown; that is to say, he was the ruler of one of the great fiefs which had been equal to the county of Paris when the count of Paris had been elected by his equals king of France.
The founder of the family in England was a Norman baron, Guy or Guido de Baliol, who held the fiefs of Bailleul, Dampierre, Harcourt and Vinoy in Normandy.
Henry married Lora or Lauretta, a daughter of Philip de Valoines (Valsques), lord of Panmure, and in 1234 inherited part of the rich English fiefs of the Valoines family.
Probably the first royal bailiffs or seneschals were the seigniorial bailiffs of certain great fiefs that had been reunited to the crown, their functions still continuing after the annexation.
Englishmen were dismissed from the Scottish court, their fiefs were confiscated, and an alliance was concluded with Philip IV.
But in some cases this tree began as a branch of that of the imperial family: this was the case of the feudal lords who were of imperial descent and whose ancestors had been granted fiefs after the conquest of the country.
Most of the fiefholders were members of the Chou ruling family or members of the clan to which this family belonged; other fiefs were given to heads of the allied tribes.
In the course of these struggles for power many of the smallfiefs were simply destroyed.
Thus all the more important fiefs were in the hands of the imperial family, though this did not mean that rivalries came to an end.
The various parts of the country, including the lands given as fiefs to princes, had a local administration, entirely independent of the central government and more or less elaborated according to their size.
The drama of confiscation will surely follow upon their deserts, and there will be fiefs the more for their Cyprian betters.
Nay--but to prove how thou art in my grace--with rich fiefs and holdings in this land for which thou hast spent thy service right royally.
She would give back the fiefs if she knew that they had been misplaced--that any right had been violated.
There is Carlotta--both of the house of Lusignan; and she might be kinder than King Janus who seized the fiefs of my father because he came not forth to do him homage when he landed with his army from Alexandria.
And she hath never spoken of the many fiefs from which they came not--withheld by command of their jealous nobles.
Such were the acts of the "fiefs of dignity," and we may at once allow that they had nothing in common with chivalry.
The rule is not without some important exceptions, and it may have been suggested by the diversity of occasions on which the fiefs were bestowed, but the result is one which William must have foreseen.
He gave fiefs liberally to his followers; but he took care that the gifts should be in small and scattered parcels.
The possessors of minor fiefs could enjoy the same privilege, but it extended to their families only.
To the Queen of Navarre a few places were granted in the fiefs which she held of the French crown, where service could be celebrated even in her absence.
These gave into the King's hand as pledge, the fiefs and lands that they held of his Crown.
Now it was the custom of the King to summon at that tide his barons and all who held their fiefs of him to his Court for a rich banquet.
They had thought to break it up and turn it to their own advantage, by transferring the more important religious functions and the principal fiefs to their own sons or nephews.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "fiefs" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
