Quotation from: Manners, Custom and Dress During the Middle Ages and During the Renaissance Period

Written by: Paul Lacroix


The nobles alone possessed the right of having seats of honour in churches
and in chapels (Fig. 28), and to erect therein funereal monuments, and we
know that they maintained this right so rigorously and with so much
effrontery, that fatal quarrels at times arose on questions of precedence.
The epitaphs, the placing of tombs, the position of a monument, were all
subjects for conflicts or lawsuits. The nobles enjoyed also the right of
_disinheritance_, that is to say, of claiming the goods of a person dying
on their lands who had no direct heir; the right of claiming a tax when a
fief or domain changed hands; the right of _common oven_, or requiring
vassals to make use of the mill, the oven, or the press of the lord. At
the time of the vintage, no peasant might sell his wine until the nobles
had sold theirs. Everything was a source of privilege for the nobles.
Kings and councils waived the necessity of their studying, in order to be
received as bachelors of universities. If a noble was made a prisoner of
war, his life was saved by his nobility, and his ransom had practically to
be raised by the "vilains" of his domains. The nobles were also exempted
from serving in the militia, nor were they obliged to lodge soldiers, &c.
They had a thousand pretexts for establishing taxes on their vassals, who
were generally considered "taxable and to be worked at will." Thus in the
domain of Montignac, the Count of Perigord claimed among other things as
follows: "for every case of censure or complaint brought before him, 10
deniers; for a quarrel in which blood was shed, 60 sols; if blood was not
shed, 7 sols; for use of ovens, the sixteenth loaf of each baking; for the
sale of corn in the domain, 43 setiers: besides these, 6 setiers of rye,
161 setiers of oats, 3 setiers of beans, 1 pound of wax, 8 capons, 17
hens, and 37 loads of wine." There were a multitude of other rights due to
him, including the provostship fees, the fees on deeds, the tolls and
furnaces of towns, the taxes on salt, on leather, corn, nuts; fees for the
right of fishing; for the right of sporting, which last gave the lord a
certain part or quarter of the game killed, and, in addition, the _dime_
or tenth part of all the corn, wine, &c., &c.

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