a. [f. next + -AL.] = FEUDAL.
1789. Mrs. Piozzi, Journ. France, I. 126. It is difficult, if not impossible however, to withhold one’s respect from those barbarians who could thus change the face of art, almost of nature; who could overwhelm courage and counteract learning; who not only devoured the works of wisdom and the labours of strength, but left behind them too a settled system of feudatorial life and aristocratic power, still undestroyed in Europe, though hourly attacked, battered by commerce, and sapped by civilization.
