The rights secured by this able king were often recklessly sold by his successors, but in the reign of Henry III. it was evidently illegal even to fortify an ordinary house with a ditch and stockade without royal permission.[1206]
Feudalism was an inevitable phase in the evolution of the Western nations, and it ought neither to be idealised nor execrated. After the break-up of the tribal system the nations of Europe sought refuge in the forms of imperialism which were devised by Charlemagne, and even the small and distant island of England strove to move in the same direction. But the times were not ripe for centralisation on so great a scale, and when the system of the Carlovingian Empire gave way under the inrush of Northmen and Huns, European society would have fallen into ruin had it not been for the institutions of feudalism. These offered, in place of the old blood bond of the tribe, a social compact which, though itself artificial, was so admirably adapted to the general need that it was speedily adopted by all the progressive nations of Europe. The great merit of feudalism was that it replaced the collective responsibility of the tribe by the individual responsibility of the man to his lord, and of the lord to his man. In an age when the decay of mutual trust was the worst evil of society it laid stress on individual loyalty, and insisted that personal honour should consist in the fulfilment of obligations. Being a system so wholly personal, its usefulness depended largely on the nature of the person in power, and it was therefore liable to great abuses.
But it is probable that feudalism worked better on the whole in England than in any other part of Western Europe. The worst evils of French feudalism never appeared in this country, except during the short and disastrous reign of Stephen. The strong kings of the Norman and Plantagenet Houses held in check the turbulence of the barons; and private war was never allowed to become here, as it was on the Continent, a standing evil. To follow out this subject would lead us beyond the limits of this book, but it is interesting to remember that not only the picturesque ruins of our castles, but also the neglected green hillocks of which we have treated in this work, while they point to the skilful machinery by which the Norman Conquest was riveted on the land, bear witness also to something still more important. They tell of a period of discipline and education through which the English people passed, when in spite of much oppression and sometimes even cruelty, seeds of many noble and useful things were sown, from which succeeding generations have garnered the enduring fruit.