Of all the symbols employed in connection with feoffments, however, the rod (_festuca_) had the widest vogue on the continent. Not that it was restricted to transactions in land; it was a more or less lineal descendant of the Roman stipulation, a contract visibly expressed by the parties breaking a straw between them. Under Charlemagne a renunciation by certain priests was made by them "holding straws in their hands and casting them from them before God and his angels." Later this appears as a recognised method of renunciation, but with a rod substituted for the straw. In some cases the fact of renunciation is emphasised by the rod being not only thrown to the ground by the resigner, but trodden under foot when there. The rôle of the _festuca_ was peculiarly important amongst the Frankish peoples.[3] Galbert of Bruges, a Flemish twelfth century historian, states that the counts of Flanders gave investitures to their vassals, after receiving their fealty and homage, by a wand (_virgula_) held in hand, and he has a dramatic passage describing how the people of Bruges, in token of their renunciation of their feudal bond to Hacket the castellan, "picking up bits of stick exfestucated their homage and fealty," _i.e._ cast the rods from them, and so doing severed all connexion with their former chief. In England and in Scotland, this rod symbol (_fustis et baculus_) also played a large part. Bracton referred it specially to land without houses. Tenure by the verge, a species of copyhold, had its name, we learn from Littleton, from _un petite verge_, delivered by the old tenant to the steward or bailiff of the manor, who re-delivered it to the new holder. Jordan Fantosme tells us that when Brien, messenger of Ranulf Glanvil, in 1174, announced in Westminster the capture of the Scottish King at Alnwick, Henry II. rewarded him for his good news by handing him a stick (_bastuncel_), which vested him in ten librates of land. In Scotland the feudal resignation by a vassal to his overlord for the re-investure of a fresh owner was effected by "staff and baton" (_fustis et baculus_), and references to those symbols occurred in every day conveyancing until far into the present century. Indeed this picturesque ritual was, strictly speaking, not abrogated, although made unnecessary, by the Act 8 and 9 Victoria ch. 35.