Put shortly, then, feudalism may be described as a system of society based upon the holding of land--a system, that is, in which a man’s legal status and social rank were in the main determined by the conditions on which he held (i.e. possessed) his land. Such a system, to return to our example of the pyramid, grew not only from the apex, by the sovereign granting lands, as the King of France did to Rollo ‘the Ganger’, but from the middle and base as well. One of the chief feudal powers in mediaeval times was the Church, for though abbots and bishops were not supposed to fight themselves, yet they would often have numbers of lay military tenants to bring to the help of the king or their overlord. Some of these tenants were men whom they had provided with estates, but others were landowners who had voluntarily surrendered their rights over their land in return for the protection of a local monastery or bishopric, and thus become its tenants. A large part of the Church land was, however, held, not by military or lay tenure, but in return for spiritual services, or free alms as it was called, i.e. prayers for the soul of the donor. Perhaps a landowner wished to make a pious gift on his death-bed, or had committed a crime and believed that a surrender of his property to the Church would placate God. For some such reason, at any rate, he made over his land, or part of it, to the Church, which in this way accumulated great estates and endowments, free from the usual liabilities of lay tenure. All over Europe other men, and even whole villages and towns, were taking the same steps, seeking protection direct from the king, or a great lord, or an abbot or bishop, offering in return rent, services, or tolls on their merchandise. Feudalism at its best stood for the protection of the weak in an age when armies and a police force as we understand the terms did not exist. Even when the system fell below this standard, and it often fell badly, there still remained in its appeal to loyalty an ideal above and beyond the ordinary outlook of the day, a seed of nobler feeling that with the growth of civilization and under the influence of the Church blossomed into the flower of chivalry. I made them lay their hands in mine and swear To reverence the King as if he were Their conscience, and their conscience as their King: To break the heathen and uphold the Christ, To ride abroad redressing human wrongs, To speak no slander; no! nor listen to it, To honour his own word as if his God’s, To live sweet lives in purest chastity.