[ad. F. feudalité (Cotgr.), feodalité, f. feudal (Cotgr.), feodal: see FEUDAL a.1 and -ITY.]
1. The quality or state of being feudal; the principles and practice of the feudal system.
1790. Burke, Fr. Rev., Wks. V. 395. The leaders teach the people to abhor and reject all feodality as the barbarism of tyranny.
1827. Hallam, Const. Hist. (1876), I. i. 7. It [the holding of Assizes] had a powerful tendency to knit together the different parts of England, to check the influence of feudality and clanship, to make the inhabitants of distant counties better acquainted with the capital city, and more accustomed to the course of government, and to impair the spirit of provincial patriotism and animosity.
1845. Mill, Ess., II. 265. The very essence of feudality was … the fusion of property and sovereignty.
1858. Buckle, Civiliz. (1869) II. ii. 111. There followed that struggle between feudality and the church.
1877. Miss Yonge, Cameos, IV. iii. 36. Wolsey had contrived to carry on the government, and subsidize foreign princes, by the many means of raising money that feudality afforded, as well as by methods that Henry VII. had made the most of, and loans from individuals.
b. pl. Feudal principles.
1814. The Witness, I. iii.
| Adv. It was a breach in your feudalities | |
| To change the place. |
2. A feudal regime or system; a feudal-like power; a feudal holding, a fief.
1800. Coleridge, The Piccolomini, II. viii. All the great Bohemian feodalities.
1821. Examiner, 237/2. Capital in Great Britain has become a feudality, and must, equally feed its dependants, or emancipate its slaves.
1840. Carlyle, Heroes (1858), 366. He apostatised from his old faith in Facts, took to believing in Semblances; strove to connect himself with Austrian Dynasties, Popedoms, with the old false Feudalities which he once saw clearly to be false.
1844. H. H. Wilson, Brit. India, I. 203. The regulation of successions was also a subject which from the first demanded the intervention of the protecting power; and political expedience has dictated the enforcement of a principle recognised throughout the feudality of India, the appropriation of a subject territory in failure of lawful heirs by the paramount sovereign.
† 3. (See quot.) Obs.–0
1701. Kennet, Cowel’s Law Dict., Feodalitas, Feodality or Fidelity paid to the Lord by his feodal tenant. Hence
1797. Tomlins, Law Dict., Feodality, Fealty.
1847. in Craig.
