_P._ They have means enough; and besides what they gave their subjects, had much land remaining in their own hands, afforrested for their recreation. For you know very well that a great part of the land of England was given for military service to the great men of the realm, who were for the most part of the King’s kindred or great favourites; much more land than they had need of for their own maintenance; but so charged with one or many soldiers, according to the quantity of land given, as there could be no want of soldiers at all times ready to resist an invading enemy: which soldiers those lords were bound to furnish, for a time certain, at their own charges. You know also, that the whole land was divided into hundreds, and those again into decennaries; in which decennaries all men, even to children of twelve years of age, were bound to take the oath of allegiance. And you are to believe, that those men that hold their land by the service of husbandry, were all bound with their bodies and fortunes to defend the kingdom against invaders, by the law of nature. And so also such as they called villains, and as held their land by baser drudgery, were obliged to defend the kingdom to the utmost of their power. Nay, women and children, in such a necessity, are bound to do such service as they can, that is to say, to bring weapons and victuals to them that fight, and to dig. But those that hold their land by service military, have lying upon them a greater obligation. For read and observe the form of doing homage, according as it is set down in the statute of 17 _Edw. II_, which you doubt not was in use before that time, and before the Conquest. _L._ _I become your man for life, for member, and for worldly honour, and shall owe you my faith for the lands that I hold of you._ _P._ I pray you expound it. _L._ I think it is as much as if you should say, I promise you to be at your command, to perform with the hazard of my life, limbs, and all my fortune, as I have charged myself in the reception of the lands you have given me, and to be ever faithful to you. This is the form of homage done to the King immediately. But when one subject holdeth land of another by the like military service, then there is an exception added, viz. _saving the faith I owe to the King_. _P._ Did he not also take an oath? _L._ Yes, which is called the oath of fealty: _I shall be to you both faithful, and lawfully shall do such customs and services, as my duty is to you at the terms assigned, so help me God and all his Saints_. But both these services, and the services of husbandry, were quickly after turned into rents, payable either in money, as in England, or in corn or other victuals, as in Scotland and France. When the service was military, the tenant was for the most part bound to serve the King in his wars, with one or more persons, according to the yearly value of the land he held. _P._ Were they bound to find horsemen, or footmen?