It was among the vast forests and plains of Russia, Hungary, Germany, and France, and by a people just emerging from barbarism, that the feudal system arose, and that about the fifth century of the Christian era; thence it was carried by the Continental invaders into their newly conquered territories. But in no country was the system more predominant, than in Gaul, or France, whence it was carried by their Duke of Normandy, or our William the Conqueror, after the battle of Hastings in the eleventh century into Britain, and was more rigorously established here for the protection of the conquerors and the subjection of the native races than it had ever been in Normandy itself. The Conqueror parcelled out all the richest parts of the territory among seven hundred of his Captains or warlike retainers, and erected each into a Barony. The Barons rented a portion of their domains to their Knights, which were denominated knights’ fiefs, and were 60,215 in number;—these again sub-let part of their fiefs to their Esquires. The cultivation of the soil and all kind of manual labor were carried on by the vassals, or villeins, who formed the mass of the people. Each class owed rent, suit, and service to their superiors, and the whole were subject to the Lord paramount, or Sovereign, to whom the right to the soil of all the land in his kingdom was reserved, and the herbage or surface alone was granted to the Barons and their tenants, on condition of yielding suit and service to the King, failing which the land reverted to its original owner—the Lord paramount. The wily Conqueror thus founded a superstructure of government which proved impregnable to all assaults from the vanquished races, and reared a cordon of despotism strong and compact from within, and unassailable from without.