After having fled for a long time at the approach of the pagans to the forest, among the wild beasts, some stout-hearted had turned their heads and refused to abandon all they had without some attempt at defence. Here and there in mountain gorges, at river fords, or on the hill overlooking the plain, walled strongholds were raised up where the brave and the strong held their own. An edict of 862 directed the counts and the king’s vassals to repair their old castles and to build new ones. The country was soon covered with these strongholds against which invaders often flung themselves in vain. A few defeats taught these bold people prudence, and they dared not venture so far amid these fortresses which had sprung out of the ground on all sides, and the new invasion, now made hazardous and difficult, came to an end in the following century. The masters of these castles became later the terror of the country side they had helped to save. Feudalism so oppressive in its age of decadence had its legitimate term. All power is raised up by its good services and falls by its abuses. These hedged and walled-in castles were places of refuge from the Northmen, but often also they became nests of brigands. However, little by little, out of the chaos came a new order of things. We have seen how the king and his nobles assured themselves of the services of a greater or less number of men by giving them benefices or rather taking these men under their protection by making them their vassals. One might be a beneficiary without being a vassal or a vassal without being a beneficiary; in the days of Charles the Bald there were vassals who held no land. These were the _vagi homines_, so often mentioned in the prince’s edicts--brigands in search of fortune and who transferred their loyalty from one noble to another at their pleasure. It was to remedy these disorders and to organise these unruly members of society that Charles the Bald ordered every freeman to choose a lord and remain faithful to him.