11Th century France

Among the complexities of feudal arrangements there existed no guarantee that contracts between lord and vassal would be honored, and feudal contracts saw little enforcement from those with greater authority. This often resulted in the wealthier and more powerful party taking advantage of the weaker.

Such was (allegedly) the case of Hugh de Lusignan and his relations with his lord William V of Aquitaine. Between 1020 and 1025 Hugh wrote or possibly dictated a complaint against William and his vassals describing the unjust treatment he had received at the hands of both. Hugh describes a convoluted intermingling of loyalties that was characteristic of the period and instrumental in developing strain between nobles that resulted in competition for each other's land. According to Hugh's account, William wronged him on numerous occasions, often to the benefit of William's vassals. Many of his properties suffered similar fates: seized by opponents and divided between them and William. William apparently neglected to send military aid to Hugh when necessary and dealt most unfairly in the exchange of hostages. Each time Hugh reclaimed one of his properties, William ordered him to return it to whoever had recently taken it from him. William broke multiple oaths in succession yet Hugh continued to put faith in his lord's word, to his own ruin. In his last contract with William, over possession of his uncle's castle at Chizes, Hugh dealt in no uncertain terms and with frank language:

While perhaps an embellishment of the truth for the sake of Hugh's cause, and not necessarily a microcosm of the feudal system everywhere, the Agreement Between Lord and Vassal is evidence at least of corruption in feudal rule.

12Th century England

Feudalism in 12th century England was among the better structured and established in Europe at the time. However, it could be structurally complex, which is illustrated by the example of the feudal barony of Stafford as described in a survey of knight's fees made in 1166 and recorded in The Black Book of the Exchequer. This was a roll of parchment, or several such, recording the quantity and tenant of each knight's fee held in capite. It was a record commissioned by the Treasury as the knight's fee was the primary basis for assessing certain types of taxation, for example feudal aid. Feudalism is the exchange of land for military service, thus everything was based on what was called the knight's fee, which was a fiefdom or estate of land. A feudal barony contained several knight's fees, for example the baron Robert of Stafford held a barony containing 60 knight's fees. Often lords were not so much lords presiding over great estates, but managers of a network of tenants and sub-leases. Stafford tenants were themselves lords of the manors they held from him, which is altogether different from their being barons. Henry d'Oilly, who held 3 fees from Robert of Stafford, also held, as atenant-in-chief, over 30 fees elsewhere that had been granted to him directly by the king. Thus while Henry was the vassal of his overlord Robert, Henry was himself a lord of his own manors held in capite and sub-enfeoffed many of his manors which he did not keep in demesne, that is to say under his own management using simple employees. It would also have been possible and not uncommon for a situation where Robert of Stafford was a vassal of Henry elsewhere, creating the condition of mutual lordship/vassalage between the two. These complex relationships invariably created loyalty problems through conflicts of interests. To resolve this the concept of a liege lord existed, which meant that the vassal was loyal to his liege lord above all others, except the king himself, no matter what. However, even this sometimes broke down when a vassal would pledge himself to more than one liege lord. From the perspective of the smallest land holder, multiple networks of tenancy were layered on the same small plot of land. A chronicle of the time says "different lordships lay on the land in different respects". Each tenant laid claim to a certain aspect of the service from the land.

Francia or Frankia, later also called the Frankish Empire (Latin: imperium Francorum), Frankish Kingdom (Latin: regnum Francorum, "Kingdom of the Franks"), Frankish Realm or occasionally Frankland, was the territory inhabited and ruled by the Franks from the 3rd to the 10th century. Under the nearly continuous campaigns of Charles Martel, Pepin the Short, and Charlemagne—father, son, grandson—the greatest expansion of the Frankish empire was secured by the early 9th century. The tradition of dividing patrimonies among brothers meant that the Frankish realm was ruled, nominally, as one polity subdivided into severalregna (kingdoms or subkingdoms). The geography and number of subkingdoms varied over time, but the particular term Francia came generally to refer to just one regnum, that of Austrasia, centred on the Rhine and Meuse rivers in northern Europe; even so, sometimes the term was used as well to encompass Neustria north of the Loire and west of the Seine. Eventually, the singular use of the name Francia shifted towards Paris, and settled on the region of the Seine basin surrounding Paris, which still today bears the name Île-de-France, and which region gave its name to the entire Kingdom of France.