a. and sb. Also 7 feodatory. [ad. L. type *feudātōri-us, f. med. L. feudāre to enfeoff, f. feudum: see FEUD2 and -ORY.]
A. adj.
1. a. Of a person: Owing feudal allegiance to another; subject. b. Of a kingdom, etc.: Under the overlordship of an outside sovereign. Const. to.
a. 1592. Bacon, Observations on a Libel, Wks. 1753, I. 519. No king of Spain, nor bishop of Rome, shall umpire or promote any beneficiary, or feodatory king, as they designed to do, even when the Scots queen lived, whom they pretended to cherish.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 217. For which he is Feudatory to the Pope.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., II. 219. The second [class of Germans] is composed of low or feudatory nobility.
1828. Tytler, Hist. Scot. (1864), I. 9. Henry seems to have interposed his good offices to prevent a rupture between Alexander and Haco, king of Norway, regarding the possession of the Western Islands, the petty chiefs of which had for a long period been feudatory to the Norwegian crown.
b. 1759. Robertson, Hist. Scot. (1802), I. I. 207. If the one crown had been considered not as imperial and independent, but as feudatory to the other, a treaty of union could not have been concluded on equal terms.
1884. Manch. Exam., 12 Sept., 5/1. The armies kept up by the feudatory states.
1890. Daily News, 30 Dec., 5/6. Feudatory India.
2. Of or pertaining to vassals or retainers.
1861. Lytton & Fane, Tannhäuser, 23.
| From mass in holy church, and mirth in hall, | |
| From all the fair assemblage of his peers, | |
| And all the feudatory festivals, | |
| Men miss’d Tannhäuser. |
B. sb.
1. One who holds his lands by feudal tenure; a feudal vassal.
1765. Blackstone, Comm., I. II. iv. 45. The feudatory could not aliene or dispose of his feud.
1814. Scott, Chivalry (1874), 49. He held a middle rank, beneath the barons or great feudatories of the crown, and above the knights-bachelors.
1843. Prescott, Mexico, IV. v. (1864), 236. The Indian Monarch had declared himself the feudatory of the Spanish.
transf. 1825. Bentham, Indicat. Ld. Eldon, 10. Court, sitting as yet in public, cannot convert itself into a sinecurist: this accommodation it cannot afford to any but its feudatories.
2. A feud, fief, or fee; a dependent lordship.
1644. Evelyn, Diary, 22 Nov. The kingdomes of Naples and Sicily, pretended feudatorys to the Pope.
1680. Morden, Geog. Rect. (1685), 110. The Duke whereof [Lorrain] is a Prince of the Empire; and the Countrey was reckoned a Feodatory thereof.
1782. W. F. Martyn, Geog. Mag., I. 424. Being a feudatory of Thibet, the Lama thought it proper to interpose his good offices.
1873. Lowell, Among my Bks., Ser. II. 104. If he made the gift, the pope should hold it as a feudatory of the Empire.
