Of the Nature of the Fiefs after the Reign of Charles the Bald.
WE have observed, that Charles the Bald ordained that when the possessor of a great office or of a fief left a son at his death, the office or fief should devolve to him. It would be a difficult matter to trace the progress of the abuses which from thence resulted, and of the extension given to that law in each country. I find in the books of fiefs, that towards the beginning of the reign of the emperor Conrad II. the fiefs situated in his dominions did not descend to the grandchildren: they descended only to one of the last possessor’s children, who had been chosen by the lord: thus the fiefs were given by a kind of election, which the lord made among the children.
In the seventeenth chapter of this book, we have explained in what manner the crown was in some respects elective, and in others hereditary, under the second race. It was hereditary, because, the kings were always taken from that family, and because the children succeeded; it was elective, by reason the people chose from amongst the children. As things of a similar nature move generally alike, and one political law is constantly relative to another, the same spirit was followed in the succession of fiefs, as had been observed in the succession to the crown. Thus the fiefs were transmitted to the children by the right of succession, as well as of election; and each fief was become both elective and hereditary, like the crown.
This right of election in the person of the lord, was not subsisting at the time of the authors of the books of fiefs, that is, in the reign of the emperor Frederic I.