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Encyclopedia Britannica



VASSAL (Fr. vassal, vassaut, vassault, &c,)

This article appears in Volume V27, Page 946 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: VAN-VIR
VASSAL (Fr. vassal, vassaut, vassault, &c,) , the
tenant
  and follower of a feudal lord (see Fa :AUSM). The etymology of the word has beet- a matter of considerable dispute The
late
  Henri de Tourville, in his Histoire de la formation particulariste, maintained that vassal is derived from the German Gast, a guest, meaning an outsider to whom a portion of a free domain was assigned in return for rent and certain fixed services. This derivation has a somewhat fantastic ail, and seems to havebeen framed to suit an hypothesis. The commonly accepted etymology is from the
Breton
  gwaz, Welsh guns, a lad or a servant. As the word in its Latin form vassus was at first uniformly employed in the sense of slave, this explanation is the more acceptable of the two. If it is correct we may say that "vassal" was analogous in origin to the name of " boy
given to a coloured servant by Europeans. in
Asia
  and Africa, The word gained in dignity under the Frankish empire through the vassi dominici, i.e. servants of the royal household,
great
  officers of state, who were sent on extraordinary missions into the provinces, to act as assessors to the
counts
  in the courts, or generally to settle any questions in the interests of the central power. Sometimes they were sent to organize and govern a march, sometimes they were rewarded with benefices, and as, with the growth of feudalism, these developed into hereditary fiefs, the word vassus or vassallus was naturally retained as implying the relation to the king as overlord, and was extended to the holders of all fiefs whether
capital
  or mediate. As feudal independence increased, the word vassal lost every vestige of its.
original
  servile sense, and, since it had come to imply a purely military relation, acquired rather the meaning of " free warrior." Thus in medieval French poetry vasselage is commonly used in the sense of " prowess in arms," or generally of any knightly qualities. In this sense it also became acclimatized in England, and "vassal " came to be used as equivalent to free-born, soldierly, valiant and loyal, in which sense it is commonly used in medieval poetry. Tn countries which were not feudally organized-in Castile, for instancevassal meant simply subject, and during the revolutionary period acquired a distinctly offensive significance as being equivalent to slave. The diminutive form vasseletus, for the son of a vassal, after strange fortunes returned to something of its
original
  sense of " household servant " in the modern " valet" (q.v.) (see also VAVASSOR).
Set Dictionnaire' de l`ancienne Ian
glee
  fraricaise (Paris, 1895), for numerous examples of the use of the word vassal; also Du Cange; Glossatium, s. Wises."


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