Yet we must not infer that the state ceased to exist altogether during the centuries of confusion that followed the break-up of Charlemagne's empire, or that it fell entirely apart into little local governments independent of each other. In the first place, a king always retained some of his ancient majesty. He might be weak and without the means to enforce his rights and to compel his more powerful subjects to meet their obligations toward him. Yet he was, after all, the _king_, solemnly anointed by the Church as God's representative on earth. He was always something more than a feudal lord. The kings were destined to get the upper hand before many centuries in England, France, and Spain, and finally in Italy and Germany, and to destroy the castles behind whose walls their haughty nobles had long defied the royal power. [Sidenote: Feudalism.] In the second place, the innumerable independent landowners were held together by _feudalism_. One who had land to spare granted a portion of it to another person on condition that the one receiving the land should swear to be true to him and perform certain services,--such as fighting for him, giving him counsel, and lending aid when he was in particular difficulties. In this way the relation of lord and vassal originated. All lords were vassals either of the king or of other lords, and consequently all were bound together by solemn engagements to be loyal to one another and care for one another's interests. Feudalism served thus as a sort of substitute for the state. Private arrangements between one landowner and another took the place of the weakened bond between the subject and his king. The feudal form of government and the feudal system of holding land are so different from anything with which we are now familiar that it is difficult for us to understand them. Yet unless we do understand them, a great part of the history of Europe during the past thousand years will be well-nigh meaningless.[61] CHAPTER IX FEUDALISM [Sidenote: Feudalism the outgrowth of prevailing conditions and earlier customs.] 40. Feudalism was the natural outcome of the peculiar conditions which prevailed in western Europe during the ninth and tenth centuries. Its chief elements were not, however, newly invented or discovered at that period but were only combined in order to meet the demands of the times. It will be well, therefore, to consider briefly those customs in the later Roman Empire and among the invading Germans which suggest (1) the habit of the mediæval landowner of granting his land to others in such a way that, while he retained the title, they became, to most intents and purposes, the real owners; and (2) the relation of lord and vassal. [Sidenote: Conditions of landholding in the later Roman Empire.] [Sidenote: The _beneficium_.]