"Vassalage" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... 1605, by which the ancient Irish customs, of tanistry and gavelkind, were declared null and void, and the entire Feudal system, with its rights of primogeniture, hereditary succession, entail, and vassalage, was held to exist in as full force in England. Very evidently this decision was not less a violation of the articles of Mellifont than was the King's proclamation against freedom of conscience issued ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... condition, and of individual rights and freedom.' In England, however, we are only in a state of transition from that relation of protection on the one hand, and respect or loyalty on the other, which constituted the system of vassalage, to the true democratic relation which assumes a perfect equality and independence in the contracting parties. 'The master cannot divest himself of the idea, that in virtue of his rank he is entitled to deference and submission; and the workman conceives that, in virtue of his comparative ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 424, New Series, February 14, 1852 • Various
... knew him, nor stood beside, But will say how noble a lord is he, Princely and valiant in high degree. Never could words of mine express His honor, his bounty, his gentleness, 'Twas God who graced him with gifts so high. Ere I leave his vassalage I will die." ...
— The Harvard Classics, Volume 49, Epic and Saga - With Introductions And Notes • Various
... suppose the doctor's pain; But presently he thought a point to gain, And take the student's place by wily art, Where, acting in disguise the lover's part, His rib he might entangle in a net, And vassalage bestow she'd ne'er forget. Our learned man was clearly in the wrong; 'Twere better far to sleep and hold his tongue; Unless, with God's assistance, he could raise A remedy that merited full praise. Whenever wives have got a candidate, To be admitted to the ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... broke out in Venezuela, and even in parts of Colombia itself. International complications followed. In 1827, Peru declared war against Colombia, alleging that Bolivar was attempting to place her in a state of vassalage to Colombia. ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... dominated by feudalism. This feudalism differed somewhat from the French feudalism, for it represented a sort of overlordship of absentee feudal chiefs, which, leaving the people more to themselves, made vassalage ...
— History of Human Society • Frank W. Blackmar
... responded Washington. "And the British troops must be expelled from Boston by force, or our American Colonies are reduced to a condition of vassalage. The army that precipitated the attack at Concord must be paid for the ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... one of their governors, rebelled and usurped the government to himself, assuming the title of king. This was the same person with whom Annaya had now to contend, and whose son Solyman he established in the sovereignty, under the protection and vassalage of Portugal. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... families, no wonder that all his sympathies were with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something above a state of vassalage that is wretchedness. Those who were born great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain great, however worthless their characters. Those who were born low, were always to remain so, however great their talents—though if that rule were carried out, where ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... it was esteemed a very happy thing for Mardi at large, that the subjects whom Bello sent to populate his foreign acquisitions, were but too apt to throw off their vassalage, so soon as they deemed themselves ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... the ministries of the Society have been exercised in those so remote parts, with not a little gain, and great hopes of numerous Christians, since those baptized number seven hundred—among whom are some of the chiefs of the neighboring islands, who have already offered vassalage to the king our sovereign, and asked for ministers of the gospel. If God be pleased to let our arms in Mindanao be free, and if this undertaking that has been begun in Borney be continued, it will be without doubt to the great exaltation of our holy faith, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... perceive that, though the representatives of the nation were as a body zealous for civil liberty and for the Protestant religion, and though they were prepared to endure every thing rather than see their country again reduced to vassalage, they were anxious and dispirited. All were thinking of the state of the coin; all were saying that something must be done; and all acknowledged that they did not know what could be done. "I am afraid," said a member who expressed what many felt, "that the nation can bear ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... subjection; dependence, dependency; subordination; thrall, thralldom, thraldom, enthrallment, subjugation, bondage, serfdom; feudalism, feudality[obs3]; vassalage, villenage; slavery, enslavement, involuntary servitude; conquest. service; servitude, servitorship[obs3]; tendence[obs3], employ, tutelage, clientship[obs3]; liability &c. 177; constraint &c.751; oppression &c. (severity) 739; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... England while the powers of the various Crusading Princes swept round before him; their commanders, as they passed, making a signal of courtesy "in sign of regard and amity," as the protocol of the ceremony heedfully expressed it, "not of vassalage." By the king's side stood an Ethiopian slave, recently sent to Richard by Saladin, holding a noble dog in a leash, who watched the ranks with a sagacious look as they passed. King Richard looked more than once at the Nubian and his dog, and at ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Sims, a tall, stout, and resolute widow, with a heavy hand and a shrewish temper. With a huge bunch of keys at her side, and an eye quick to detect the smallest waste and the slightest irregularity, she kept the household in terror, and her master (poor little man!) in almost abject vassalage. A specimen of one of their daily breakfast dialogues may be worthy ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... abject, needy circumstances wherein the Devil keeps the Slaves, that are under his more sensible Vassalage, do suggest unto us, how woful the Devil would render all our Lives. We that live in a Province, which affords unto us all that may be necessary or comfortable for us, found the Province fill'd with vast Herds of Salvages, that never saw so much as a Knife, ...
— The Wonders of the Invisible World • Cotton Mather
... homage and the rights of vassalage are altered; the competition for favour having succeeded to the dependence for protection, the feudal lord of ancient times could ill compete in power with the influence of ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... unctuous axioms of social morality are only used to cloak her disappointment." Ah! Renee, the best of happiness is that it needs no dogma and no fine words to pave the way; it speaks for itself, while theory has been piled upon theory to justify the system of women's vassalage and thralldom. If self-denial be so noble, so sublime, what, pray, of my joy, sheltered by the gold-and-white canopy of the church, and witnessed by the hand and seal of the most sour-faced of mayors? Is it a thing ...
— Letters of Two Brides • Honore de Balzac
... as it was called; an enterprise which threw much dishonor on the king, and involved him, during some years, in great trouble and expense. The Romish church, taking advantage of favorable incidents, had reduced the kingdom of Sicily to the same state of feudal vassalage which she pretended to extend over England; and which, by reason of the distance, as well as high spirit of this latter kingdom, she was not able to maintain. After the death of the emperor Frederic ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... northern boundary; and the northern and eastern States of Kedah, Patani, Kelantan, Pahang, and Tringganu, are more or less tributary to this ambitious empire, which at intervals has exacted a golden rose, the token of vassalage, from every State in the Peninsula. Except at the point where the Isthmus of Kraw joins Siam, the Peninsula is surrounded by the sea to the east by the China Sea and the Gulf of Siam, and to the south ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)
... the national kings "members of their caste led the national armies and occupied all the chief posts in the kingdom." The royal houses that succeeded one another at Babylon sprang from their ranks both in the days of vassalage to Assyria and in those of full independence. Their hierarchy was headed by an archimagus; we do not know his title in the national language, but we do know that, after the king, he was the chief person in the empire. He accompanied ...
— A History of Art in Chaldaea & Assyria, v. 1 • Georges Perrot
... Governor's inference that "either the colonies are vassals of the Parliament, or they are totally independent"; upon which the Assembly would observe only that, "as it cannot be supposed to have been the intention of the parties in the compact that we should be reduced to a state of vassalage, the conclusion is that it was their sense that we were thus independent." With very few exceptions, everyone who was of the patriot way of thinking regarded the Assembly's reply as a complete refutation of the argument presented ...
— The Eve of the Revolution - A Chronicle of the Breach with England, Volume 11 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Carl Becker
... of the next year. Mr. Steele went over to Barbadoes, as I have said before, in the year 1780, and he was then in the eightieth year of his age. He began his humane and glorious work in 1783, and he finished it in 1789. It took him, therefore, six years to bring his Negroes to the state of vassalage described, or to that state from whence he was sure that they might be transferred without danger in no distant time, to the rank of freemen, if it should be thought desirable. He lived one year afterwards to witness the success of his labours. He had accomplished, therefore, ...
— Thoughts On The Necessity Of Improving The Condition Of The Slaves • Thomas Clarkson
... without a free community, to retain ten thousand persons in perpetual vassalage, or to uphold a system of simple coercion and social exclusion, in a colony so remote, remains a question; but it is none, that the name of Macquarie will become more illustrious, as the traditions of faction subside, and classes are blended ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... offerings. This must be our task In Heav'n, this our delight; how wearisom Eternity so spent in worship paid To whom we hate. Let us not then pursue By force impossible, by leave obtain'd 250 Unacceptable, though in Heav'n, our state Of splendid vassalage, but rather seek Our own good from our selves, and from our own Live to our selves, though in this vast recess, Free, and to none accountable, preferring Hard liberty before the easie yoke Of servile Pomp. Our greatness will appear Then most conspicuous, when great things of ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... was a pagan very wise, In vassalage he was a gallant knight, First in prowess, he stood his lord beside. And thus he spoke: "Do not yourself affright! Yield to Carlun, that is so big with pride, Faithful service, his friend and his ally; Lions and bears and hounds for him provide, Thousand ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... I have been casting about to whom I may intrust the keeping of her person as well as of the stronghold. Were I to choose some knight of name, as I have many in my household, he would be setting about to do deeds of vassalage upon the Welsh, and engaging himself in turmoils, which would render the safety of the castle precarious; or he would be absent on feats of chivalry, tournaments, and hunting parties; or he would, perchance, have shows of that light nature under the walls, ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... claim of one part of the people to exclude another from all share in the Government has the most doubtful and shadowy foundation in right, and to an American it needs no evidence to show that a portion of the people thus excluded are in a state of vassalage. I read from Story on the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... what Father Pedro told me particularly, and from what Father Cobo had stated before. When I was born, the sun shone on my breast; and this is a miracle, and portends that I was destined from the beginning to be lord of all between the rising and the setting sun, and that all kingdoms must render me vassalage and bow down before my door; and unless they do it, I will destroy them with war. I have conquered all the kingdom of Xapon, and that of Coria, and many of my commanders have asked my permission to go and capture Manila. Learning this, Faranda and Funguen told me that ships went there from here, ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume IX, 1593-1597 • E. H. Blair
... his own parents in his own Native Country. But this King being forced to fly to avoid the Spanish slaughter and Cruelty, deprived of all he was Master of, died in the Mountains; and all the rest of the Potentates and Nobles, his subjects, perished in that servitude and Vassalage; as you shall ...
— A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies • Bartolome de las Casas
... remarkable features of that period; and it showed, more clearly, I think, than anything else, the amazing depth and strength of the influence exerted by the Canadian preacher's Duty teaching. Our relations with the Power to which we were in effect a people in vassalage, and payers of tribute, demanded at this stage the exercise of the most cautious restraint; and finely the people responded to this demand. In his History of the Revival, Charles Corbett ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... which as good a share of individual liberty was secured to the citizen as was then enjoyed in any country of the world. Their institutions admitted of great improvement, no doubt; but it was natural that a people so circumstanced should be unwilling to exchange their condition for the vassalage of "Moors ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... of Borney, who calls himself king of Xolo, surrendered himself as a vassal to his Majesty, King Don Phelipe, king of Castilla and Leon, for himself and his descendants. In token of recognition and vassalage, he gave twelve pearls and thirty-five taes of gold for himself and his vassals, which are the islands of Xolo, Treguima, Camboanga, Cavite, and Tavitavi, his subjects and vassals. The said Rahayro bound himself and ...
— The Philippine Islands 1493-1898, Vol. 4 of 55 - 1576-1582 • Edited by E. H. Blair and J. A. Robertson
... her maid Penelope, that quite upset my ideas of northern serfdom. I think they even once exchanged a wink, but of this I am not sure. There is nothing like experience to expand one's ideas, and I made up my mind to re-examine the whole of my notions of Muscovite vassalage. M. Jerome seemed less struck by these circumstances than myself—being probably too much absorbed in contemplation of our hostess—but even he could not avoid exclaiming, 'that if that were the way in which serfs were ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... he reached the middle of the courtyard, but made no motion to dismount. The lady came slowly down the broad stone steps, followed by her feminine train, and, approaching the Elector, placed her white hand upon his stirrup, in mute acknowledgment of her vassalage. ...
— The Strong Arm • Robert Barr
... of culture, fortune, and consideration with jealousy, as an upstart. The new monarchic constitution of 1808-12, which has immortalized the names of Frederick William III., and of his ministers, Stein and Hardenberg, altered this system, and abolished the vassalage and feudal service of the peasants in those provinces that lie to the east of the Elbe. The fruits of this wise act of social reform were soon apparent, not only in the increase of prosperity and of the population, ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... were disposed of. The Northmen were pacified by presenting them outright with the coast lands they had most harried. Their great leader, Rolf, accepted the territory with some vague and ill-kept promise of vassalage to the French King, and with a very firmly held determination that he would let no pirates ravage his land or cross it to reach others. So the French coast became Normandy, and the Northmen learned the tongue and manners of their new home, and softened their harsh name ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... unavailing to his purpose. Whatever these people may pretend, to evade your uncle's importunities, they cannot, at this time of day, think of subjecting their necks again to the feudal yoke, which was effectually broken by the act of 1748, abolishing vassalage and ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... of the realm of the Almohades, the Moorish kingdom of Granada was established, and was held in vassalage to Castile, of which Ferdinand and Isabella, in 1474, became joint sovereigns. The Moors made Granada, their capital, a large and powerful city, and there in the thirteenth century they built their magnificent palace and citadel, the Alhambra, the finest example ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... profligate families, no wonder that all his sympathies were with the Stuarts and their dissipated insolent party, and all his hatred directed against those who endeavoured to check them in their proceedings, and to raise the generality of mankind something above a state of vassalage, that is, wretchedness. Those who were born great, were, if he could have had his will, always to remain great, however worthless their characters. Those who were born low, were always to remain so, however great their talents; though, if that rule were carried ...
— The Romany Rye • George Borrow
... the name of Christians should so much have the heart of devils in them, as to prevent and hinder the instruction of the poor Blackamores, and confine the souls of their miserable slaves to a destroying ignorance, merely through fear of using the benefit of their vassalage." So, old as he was, he induced the settlers around to send him their negroes on certain days of the week for instruction; but he had not made much progress in the work before he became too feeble to carry it on. He fell into languishments attended ...
— Pioneers and Founders - or, Recent Workers in the Mission field • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... this light both by the Company and the successive members of the late Council; but to insure his attachment to the Company, his interest must be connected with it, which cannot be better effected than by freeing him totally from the REMAINS of his present vassalage under the guaranty and protection of the Company, and at the same time guarding him against any apprehensions from this government, by thus pledging its faith that no encroachment shall ever be made on his rights by the Company." And ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to see thy mind's free course. Declining from this trencher-waiting trade. Well, may I now disclose in plainer guise What erst I meant to work in secret wise; My busy conscience check'd my guilty soul, For seeking maintenance by base vassalage; And then suggested to my searching thought A shepherd's poor, secure, contented life, On which since then I doated every hour, And meant this same hour in [a] sadder plight, To have stol'n from thee ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. IX • Various
... beheld the Reformation, we must note one other ruler farther north. Ever since the union of Colmar in 1397, Sweden had been more or less bound to Denmark, the strongest of the northern kingdoms. By the year 1520 the Danish monarch Christian had reduced the Swedes to a state of most cruel vassalage and misery. Only one young noble, Gustavus Vasa, a lad of twenty-three, still held out, and by adventures wild as those of Robin Hood evaded his enemies and at last roused his countrymen to one ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... the command of the water-supply would be far preferable to the chances of rain in the most favoured country. Water, like fire, should be the slave of man, to whom it is the first necessity; therefore his first effort in his struggle with the elements should reduce this power to vassalage. There must be no question of supremacy; water ...
— Cyprus, as I Saw it in 1879 • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... that you acknowledge in him some natural or social superiority, and according to democracy there are no superiorities, social or natural, and if there were such a thing as natural superiority, nature has no business to allow it. This is tantamount to proclaiming a form of vassalage—a thing which is ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet
... Every succeeding year, therefore, has but tended to increase their obligations, and they are, at present, identified with the soil, and reduced to all intents and purposes, except in name, to as complete a state of vassalage as the serfs of Russia. If they should be in need of any trifling supply, it is to their proprietors, and to them only, that they dare have recourse, though they would be able to obtain the same articles a hundred ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth
... desolation, left the island, destitute as it was of wine and oil, and returned to Italy, leaving behind them taskmasters, to scourge the shoulders of the natives, to reduce their necks to the yoke, and their soil to the vassalage of a Roman province; to chastise the crafty race, not with warlike weapons, but with rods, and if necessary to gird upon their sides the naked sword, so that it was no longer thought to be Britain, but a Roman island; and all their money, ...
— On The Ruin of Britain (De Excidio Britanniae) • Gildas
... her lover fast, through all his gruesome changes of form, she 'borrowed' him from the 'seely court,' and saved him from becoming the tribute paid every seven years to the powers that held fairydom in vassalage. ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... afterward, on February thirteenth, a messenger carried to Frederick William verbal proposals for either an armistice or a separate peace on most favorable terms. In these Napoleon set forth that the relation of Prussia to Russia was mere vassalage, and that her rehabilitation as an independent power was essential to the peace of Europe, agreeing to restore her lands as far as the Elbe, and saying that as to Poland he cared nothing whatever. The confident feeling of the allies was shown by the Prussian king's prompt refusal to accept such ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... years previous; the fact that the Transvaal was quite differently situated as to adjoining territory imposed the necessity, if only as a matter of form, to preserve the written conditions of Transvaal vassalage. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... its owners, I could not repress a feeling very much like consternation on hearing that the hereditary manor which bore my own name had apparently been taken and set on fire. It meant disgrace, defeat; and this fire was as a seal of vassalage affixed to my arms by those I called clodhoppers and serfs. I sprang up from my chair, and had I not been held back by the violent pain in my foot, I believe I ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... enslavement, servitude, inthrallment, captivity, bond service, vassalage, thralldom, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... higher order of beings and endow him with a natural quality to govern? Are the laity an inferior order of beings, fit only to be slaves and to be governed? Is it good policy for mankind to subject themselves to such degrading vassalage and abject submission? Reason, common sense, and the Bible, with united voice, proclaim to all mankind that they are all born free and equal; that every member of a church or Christian congregation must be on the same footing in respect of church government, and that the CONSTITUTION, ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... declaimers," he continued, "who set out on the assumption that man is free-born. I am too well assured of the contrary. Man is not free-born. The earlier period of his existence, whether as a puny child or the miserable denizen of an uninformed and barbarous state, is one of vassalage and subserviency. He is not born free, he is not born rational, he is not born virtuous; he is born to become all these. And woe to the sophist who, with arguments drawn from the unconfirmed constitution of his childhood, would strive ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume 2 - Historical, Traditional, and Imaginative • Alexander Leighton
... that Benjamin must have passed along this coast before 1167, when Thoros died at peace and on terms of vassalage to the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. Malmistras is forty-five miles from Tarsus. Both had been recaptured by Manuel in 1155. Josippon, I, chap. i, identifies ...
— The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela • Benjamin of Tudela
... the instruction and delight which I have derived from his conversation for the last twenty-seven years—a period in which I have doubled my own age—would have been lost. But, independent himself, and the proudest man I ever knew when the faintest shadow of vassalage was sought to be cast upon him, he valued independence in others, and his wide experience taught him that the friend who would not hesitate to stand up firmly against him when he thought him wrong, would be the last to skulk from his side in the hour ...
— Discourse of the Life and Character of the Hon. Littleton Waller Tazewell • Hugh Blair Grigsby
... Most humiliating was the vassalage to the slave power displayed by northern congressmen of both parties, though forming a majority in the House during all the great days of the slavery battle. The gag history is one example. Resolutions against unquestionably unconstitutional laws imprisoning ...
— History of the United States, Volume 3 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... It is inserted in the new "Encyclopedie," and is appearing in most of the publications respecting America. In fact, it is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind has been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us, to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare, that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... daughters so dowried," answered Warwick; "and though I disdain for myself the hard vassalage of a throne, yet if the channel of our blood must pass into other streams, into nothing meaner than the veins of royalty should it merge." He paused a moment, and added with a sigh, "Would that Clarence were more ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... must become noble.' With this view, he tried to call forth a strong feeling of nationality and a new spirit in the people. His first step in introducing his new system of administration was the abolition of vassalage, and the change of the titles of seignorial property. This was done by the edict dated Memel, October 9, 1807, which did away with the monopoly until then claimed by the nobles holding such estates, which were now allowed to be acquired also by burghers and peasants. It moreover abolished all the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866 • Various
... the door, as if to review his subjects as they passed, giving each dog a cuff beside the ears as he went by. This clapper-clawing was always taken in good part; it appeared to be, in fact, a mere act of sovereignty on the part of grimalkin to remind the others of their vassalage; which they acknowledged by the most perfect acquiescence. A general harmony prevailed between sovereign and subjects, and they would all sleep together in ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... to whom in vassalage Thy merit hath my duty strongly knit, To thee I send this written ambassage, To witness duty, not to show my wit: Duty so great, which wit so poor as mine May make seem bare, in wanting words to show it, But that I hope some good conceit of thine In thy soul's thought, ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the chevalier who never comes, of the serf for the chatelaine, of the rose for the nightingale, of Rudel for the Lady of Tripoli. Another element of extravagance came in with the feudal spirit: Provencal love is full of the very forms of vassalage. To be the servant of love, to have offended, to taste the subtle luxury of chastisement, of reconciliation—the religious spirit, too, knows that, and meets just there, as in Rousseau, the delicacies of the earthly love. Here, under this strange complex of conditions, as in some medicated ...
— Aesthetic Poetry • Walter Horatio Pater
... war. No other answer could I get (from Berlin) than that it was a colossal condescension on the part of Austria not to contemplate any acquisition of territory. Sir Edward justly pointed out that one could reduce a country to vassalage without acquiring territory; that Russia would see this, and regard it as a humiliation not to be put up with. The impression grew stronger and stronger that we were bent on war. Otherwise our attitude toward ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... life. By this means the Government keeps the people within the limits of humble obedience; it is for this reason that the Emperors of China established the Academy of Astronomy." (Timk. I. 358.) The acceptance of the Imperial Almanac by a foreign Prince is considered an acknowledgment of vassalage to the Emperor. ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... any history. Parcelled out, by virtue of the feudal system, between a multitude of princes, independent, isolated, and scarcely sovereigns in their own dominions, keeping up anything like frequent intercourse only with their neighbors, and loosely united, by certain rules or customs of vassalage, to him amongst them who bore the title of king, the France of the eleventh century existed in little more than name: Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Poitou, Anjou, Flanders, and Nivernais were the real states and peoples, each with its own distinct life and history. One single event, ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume I. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... became aware,—first that he could not carry out such a threat, and then that he would lack even the firmness to make it. There was something in her face, something even in her dress, something in her whole manner to himself, which softened him and reduced him to vassalage directly he saw her. Then he determined to throw himself on her compassion and to implore her to put an end to all this misery by making herself happy. But as he drew near home he found himself unable to do even this. How is a father to beseech his widowed daughter ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... credited to the period under discussion. At the beginning of the eighteenth century there was scarcely a nation that acknowledged the right of the individual to a part in government, or to personal freedom. Men were in vassalage to their immediate lord, who, in turn, was obliged to acknowledge the "divine right" of the king over him. With the exception of Switzerland, who for centuries had maintained her freedom, and of England, who had secured ...
— History of Education • Levi Seeley
... your Majesty, with the aid of your royal arms, in the great number of infidels whom they have converted to our holy Catholic faith, and how they have been brought to render to your Majesty the due vassalage and tribute, which they have generally paid, and are paying, annually. [We have also told your Majesty] that they have engaged in all this with the spiritual affection that belongs to their profession, with singular ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXXVI, 1649-1666 • Various
... sadly missed the Italian sun, there took place the meeting of Napoleon and Marie Louise with a crowd of sovereigns, great and small. These sovereigns tried to make out of their different courts subordinate circles of the first court, and rivalled with one another in vassalage. One wanted to be the cup-bearer of the ensign of Brienne; another, his butler. Charlemagne's history was put under contribution by the erudition of the German chancellor's officers. The higher they were, the more eager their demands. ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand
... and to serve them with all his men; since he recognized that, although his were the more numerous, they were inferior in valor to the Spaniards. The natives wished from that moment to consider the Spaniards as their seigniors, and the latter's king as their king. They offered what vassalage was right in recognition of subjection. Thereupon, they signed the treaty of peace under the most advantageous conditions. All was done by act of notary. The governor, in his Majesty's name, gave them a general pardon for the death of Magallanes and his men. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XXIII, 1629-30 • Various
... unfounded theory you were taught to believe—that its burthens were in proportion to your exports, not to your consumption of imported articles. Your pride was roused by the assertion that a submission to those laws was a state of vassalage and that resistance to them was equal in patriotic merit to the opposition our fathers offered to the oppressive laws of Great Britain. You were told that this opposition might be peaceably, might be constitutionally, made; that you might enjoy all the advantages of the Union and bear ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, - Vol. 2, Part 3, Andrew Jackson, 1st term • Edited by James D. Richardson
... was then a minor; and Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, whose daughter William had married, was regent of the kingdom. This circumstance rendered the remonstrance of the French Council against his design of no effect: indeed, the opposition of the Council itself was faint; the idea of having a king under vassalage to their crown might have dazzled the more superficial courtiers; whilst those who thought more deeply were unwilling to discourage an enterprise which they believed would probably end in the ruin of the undertaker. The Emperor was in his minority, as well as the King ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... to avoid immediate ruin he seized on a means of escape which was completely unexpected, but quite decisive—he gave over his kingdom in vassalage to the Pope. ...
— A History of England Principally in the Seventeenth Century, Volume I (of 6) • Leopold von Ranke
... some members of the conquered people, by natural and economic causes, were raised to the level of their superiors; and on the other hand, some of the conquerors, by reason of similar causes, fell to the rank of the subject population. By manumission and by the various forms of vassalage more or less honorable, and by gaining some economic importance by trade and other means, many of the descendants of the Roman population gained admission to the ranks of the Arimanni, and obtained the full franchise by the possession of landed property. By forfeitures, ...
— The Communes Of Lombardy From The VI. To The X. Century • William Klapp Williams
... the Chief of the Conservators replied: "We accept with pleasure the homage of fidelity, of vassalage, and of respect, the expression of which you renew to-day in the name of the entire Jewish community, and, assured that you will respect the laws and orders of the Senate, and that you will pay, as in the past, the tribute and the dues which are incumbent upon you, ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... condemned as inefficient by all progressive minds, and in the doctor's acre of grass a flock of two whole sheep was grazing,—no doubt he'd taken them on account. Two men and one old woman made gestures of abject vassalage, and my uncle replied with a lordly gesture of his great ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... abject slave that ever toiled on a Southern plantation, cast off by his master and compelled to claim the rights of a freeman, should, of his own deliberate choice, elect to return to his miserable vassalage, who would not pronounce him unfit to enjoy the priceless boon of liberty? who would hesitate to say that natural stupidity, or the acquired imbecility of long enslavement, had doomed him to remain, to the day of his death, a hewer of wood and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... and 'twould size and swell To its huge self; and the minutest fish Would pass the very hardest gazer's wish, And shew his little eye's anatomy. 210 Then there was pictur'd the regality Of Neptune; and the sea nymphs round his state, In beauteous vassalage, look up and wait. Beside this old man lay a pearly wand, And in his lap a book, the which he conn'd So stedfastly, that the new denizen Had time to keep him in amazed ken, To mark these shadowings, and stand ...
— Endymion - A Poetic Romance • John Keats
... little comparative projection is given,—nay, the masterly group of Agamemnon, Nestor, and Ulysses, and, still more in advance, that of Achilles, Ajax, and Thersites, so manifestly occupying the fore-ground, that the subservience and vassalage of strength and animal courage to intellect and policy seems to be the lesson most often in our poet's view, and which he has taken little pains to connect with the former more interesting moral impersonated in the titular hero and heroine of ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... for want of the necessary strength to escape from vassalage to the external impressions will always drag on, feeble and opprest by the exactions of a mental servitude from which ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... of Athoel's estate is very extensive, and the country populous; while vassalage existed, the chieftain could raise two or three thousand fighting-men, and leave sufficient at home to take care of the ground. The forests, or rather chases, (for they are quite naked,) are very extensive, and feed vast numbers of stags, which range at certain times of the ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume II. • Mrs. Thomson
... will then show some moderation in his covetousness. Does he wish to rule over all the countries of the North? Will he eat up all the kail in England? He shall do so, and reduce that country to a desert, before I lay my head in his hands, or show him any other kind of vassalage. Now ye shall tell him these my words,—I will defend Norway with battle-axe and sword as long as life is given me, and will pay scat to no ...
— Heimskringla - The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway • Snorri Sturluson
... very mournful in which Eugene made this profession of vassalage, and at its conclusion his eyes were veiled by tears of burning humiliation. His mother affected not to perceive his emotion, as she replied in ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... Pedee, and including the whole of the present Williamsburgh, and part of Marion district, into which the British arms had not penetrated. The inhabitants of it were generally of Irish extraction; a people, who at all times during the war, abhorred either submission or vassalage. Among them, tradition has handed down the following story:—A public meeting was called, to deliberate upon their critical situation, and Major John James, who had heretofore commanded them in the field, and represented them in legislature, was selected as the person who should go ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... the royal palace. When he came in presence of Ferdinand he knelt and offered to kiss his hand, not merely in homage as his subject, but in gratitude for his liberty. Ferdinand declined the token of vassalage, and raised him graciously from the earth. An interpreter began, in the name of Boabdil, to laud the magnanimity of the Castilian monarch and to promise the most implicit submission. "Enough!" said King Ferdinand, interrupting the interpreter in the midst of ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... as conjectured by Professor Max Muller about 259 B.C., in other words, if he reigned sixty or seventy years later than any of the Greek kings named on the Piyadasian monuments, what had he to do with their vassalage or non-vassalage, or how was he concerned with them at all? Their dealings had been with his grandfather some seventy years earlier—if he became a Buddhist only after ten years occupancy of the ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... England, she has gone on with almost involuntary but rapid progress; and the period may arrive when there will be but two nations left in Europe—England the ruler of the seas, and Russia holding the kingdoms of the Continent in vassalage. It is true, that the ambassador adverts now and then to the inaccessible nature of the Russian territory, and the success of the national arms; but the former would be but a negative source of power, and the latter he uniformly attributed to good-luck. He ought to lave ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... how to bow; how to pick up a pocket-handkerchief; how to present a bouquet; how to hold a fan; how to pay a compliment; how to turn over the leaves of a music-book—in short, how to obey and anticipate every imperious wish; and how to fetch and carry, like a dog. My vassalage began from the very day when I first ventured to call upon her. Her house was small, but very elegant, and she received me in a delicious little room overlooking the Champs Elysees—a very nest of flowers, books, and birds. Before I had ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... wish. The two Emperors equally desired war; the one with the view of consolidating his power, and the other in the hope of freeing himself from a yoke which threatened to reduce him to a state of vassalage, for it was little short of this to require a power like Russia to close her ports against England for the mere purpose of favouring the interests of France. At that time only two European powers were not tied to Napoleon's fate—Sweden ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... was an independent kingdom,—tributary to the Greek empire, until the decline of the latter encouraged them to break the weak tie of vassalage.—their writings were in the Old Slavic language; and many documents in it are still extant in monastic libraries. Venelin, a young Russian scholar, who by his researches on the Bulgarian, or, as he would fain call it, the Bolgarian ...
— Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations • Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
... Bishops and abbots became the heads of great bands of retainers, and led military expeditions, like temporal chiefs. On the other hand, these same monasteries and towns, as a means of security and protection, did homage to some powerful lord, and thus came in vassalage to him. ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... great, almost too great dignity, "I am of the family of the Duc de Mirepoix. The whole Kamaraska Isles are mine, and the best gentlemen in this province do me vassalage. I make war on none, I have stepped aside from all affairs of state, I am a simple gentleman. I have been a great way down this river, at large expense and toil, to purchase wheat, for all the corn of these counties goes to Quebec to store ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... woman, it is by a strange absurdity conceded that very many eminent men owe their station in life to their mothers. Women are now in the situation of the mass of mankind a few years since, when science and learning were in the hands of the priests, and property was held by vassalage. The Pope and the priests claimed to be not only the teachers, but the guides of the people; the laity were not permitted to examine for themselves; education was held to be unfit for the masses, while the tenure of their landed property ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... themselves masters, taking advantage of the disorders of the State; the towns refused to pay their feudal services, as though the necessity of defending themselves and helping in the war had freed them for ever from vassalage; further, the turbulent Cortes had decreed the abolition of all lordships, and had very much curtailed the enormous revenues of the Cathedral, acquired in the centuries when the archbishops of Toledo put on their casques, and went ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... ally itself, not with the feeble, the hated, the downtrodden Catholics, but with the powerful, the wealthy, the popular, the dominant Church of England; to trust for aid not to a foreign Prince whose name was hateful to the British nation, and whose succours could be obtained only on terms of vassalage, but to the old Cavalier party, to the landed gentry, the clergy, and the universities. By rallying round the throne the whole strength of the Royalists and High Churchmen, and by using without stint ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... penances, and, tyrant as he showed himself to all others, grovelled himself as an abject devotee at the feet of a haughty confessor. Amongst the populace of Klosterheim this feature of his character, confronted with the daily proofs of his entire vassalage to the Swedish interest, passed for the purest hypocrisy; and he had credit for no religion at all with the world at large. But the fact was otherwise. Conscious from the first that he held even the Landgraviate by a slender title (for he was no more than cousin once removed to his immediate ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... Leon and Santiago he sent letters without fail, And unto the Galicians, and the men of Portingale. Tidings to them in Carrion and in Castile they bring Of a Court held in Toledo by the much honored King, And that there they should be gathered when seven weeks should end. Who stayed at home, true vassalage no longer could pretend. And all men so determined throughout his breadth of lands Not to fail in the fulfillment of the King's high commands. CXXXV. Now are the Heirs of Carrion troubled by the report That the King within ...
— The Lay of the Cid • R. Selden Rose and Leonard Bacon
... before? Well, I shouldn't wonder. You don't expect one to be original and enthusiastic at the same moment, when both are out of one's line? I own it, though. Your princess merits all the vassalage she has found—better than she will meet with here—if only for the perfection of her costume. That is a triumph. Honor to the artist who built her hat. I drink to him now, and I wish the Burgundy were worthier of the toast. (Hal, this Corton does not improve.) I should advise you to secure ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... precious and sacred rights, the declaratory Act left them no rights at all; and contained the full grown seeds of the most despotic government ever exercised in the world. It placed America not only in the lowest, but in the basest state of vassalage; because it demanded an unconditional submission in everything, or, as the act expressed it, in all cases whatsoever: and what renders this act the more offensive, is, that it appears to have been passed as an act of mercy; truly ...
— A Letter Addressed to the Abbe Raynal, on the Affairs of North America, in Which the Mistakes in the Abbe's Account of the Revolution of America Are Corrected and Cleared Up • Thomas Paine
... flight of Chunti marked the end of the empire of the Mongols in China. War with them still went on, but the country at large was freed from their yoke, after nearly a century of submission to Tartar rule. Elsewhere the vast empire of Genghis still held firm. Russia lay under the vassalage of the khans. Central and Southern Asia trembled at the Mongol name. And at the very time that the Chinese were rising against and expelling their invaders, Timour, or Tamerlane, the second great conqueror of his race, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... navy aid to some extent the humane and patriotic cause? If necessary, why might not the marine of other lands be chartered? Strange indeed it is if shipping enough could be found half a century ago to reduce hundreds of thousands of this race in a single year to a wretched vassalage, and in this age of augmented light, and wealth, and improvement in every art, enough cannot be found for the single benevolent object before us!'—[Rev. Baxter Dickinson's Sermon delivered in Springfield ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... Uesugi Kenshin, was not member of the great Uesugi family which took such an important part in the affairs of the Kwanto. He belonged to the Nagao, which originally stood in a relation of vassalage to the Yamanouchi branch of the Uesugi in Echigo, and his father attained an independent position. Kagetora, as Kenshin was called in his youth, found himself engaged in his twenty-first year in a contest with his elder brother, whom he killed, and, by way of penance for the fratricide, ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... colonies." If there be no such line, the consequence is, either that the colonies are the vassals of the Parliament, or that they are totally independent. As it cannot be supposed to have been the intention of the parties in the compact, that we should be reduced to a state of vassalage, the conclusion is, that it was their sense that we were thus independent. "It is impossible," your Excellency says, "that there should be two independent Legislatures in one and the same state." May we not then further conclude, that it was their sense, that ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... men; that body raised into a political aristocracy by special constitutional provisions; cotton, the product of slave labor, forming the basis of our whole foreign commerce, and the commercial class thus subsidized; the press bought up, the pulpit reduced to vassalage, the heart of the common people chilled by a bitter prejudice against the black race; our leading men bribed, by ambition, either to silence or open hostility;—in such a land, on what shall an Abolitionist rely? On a few cold ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... you would guess, I came immediately into some small portion of my kingdom. Though Darius was the patriarch, the other blacks were also fugitives from Appleby Hundred; and for the son of Roger Ireton there was instant vassalage and loyal service. But best of all, on my first evening before the handful of fire in the great fire-place, Darius brought me a package swathed in many wrappings of Indian-tanned deerskin. It contained my father's sword, and, more precious than this, a message from the dead. My father's ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... Asshur-nasir-pal (formerly called Sardanapalus I.) levied tribute upon Tyre, and the other rich cities of the Syrian coast, and founded the Assyrian rule in Cilicia. About the middle of the eighth century, the kingdom of Israel, having renounced its vassalage to Assyria, in league with Rezin of Damascus, the ruler of Syria, made war upon the kingdom of Judah. Ahaz, the Judaean king, against the protest of the prophet Isaiah, invoked the aid of the Assyrian monarch, Tiglath-Pileser II. The call was answered. The league was overthrown ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... the power would be abused. If America really possessed the ability to rule England that her cotton-manufacturers assert she possesses, all Englishmen should rejoice that events have occurred here that promise to work out their country's deliverance from so degrading a vassalage. But it is not so, and England will survive the event of our conflict, no matter what that event may be. The nation that triumphed over the Continental System of Napoleon, and which was not injured by our Embargo Acts of fifty years ago, should be ashamed to lay so much stress upon ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... defiance of ciphers, coronets, visiting-cards, blue hangings, the homage of lords, and the vassalage of ladies, there was something amiss. She caught herself continually looking back to the old days at Ecclesfield Manor, to the soft lawns and shady avenues, the fond father, who thought his darling the perfection of humanity, and whose face lit up so ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... Ra, or Rameses, as he is most generally styled, was a warrior and a statesman. He led his victorious troops north, east, and west, conquering nations as he went, until he dominated and brought into a state of vassalage over two-thirds ...
— Religion and Lust - or, The Psychical Correlation of Religious Emotion and Sexual Desire • James Weir
... its crossroads, extending north, east, south and west, from Lyons to Marseilles, from Nimes to Turin. The French city, the accursed city, longing for a king, jealous of its liberties, shuddering beneath its yoke of vassalage, a vassalage of the priests with ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... permit our posterity to groan under the galling chains of our murderers? Has our blood been expended in vain? Is the only benefit which our constancy till death has obtained for our country, that it should be sunk into a deeper and more ignominious vassalage? Recollect who are the men that demand your submission, to whose decrees you are invited to pay obedience. Men who, unmindful of their relation to you as brethren; of your long implicit submission to their laws; of the sacrifice which you and your forefathers ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... Minister, Dr. Hioki, personally served on Yuan Shih-kai the now famous Twenty-one Demands, a list designed to satisfy every present and future need of Japanese policy and to reduce China to a state of vassalage. ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... of Lagash, of whom we have inscriptions (c. 3200 B.C.) have the title of 'king,' but a few centuries later Lagash lost its independent position and its rulers became 'patesis,' i.e., governors. They are in a position of vassalage, as it would appear, to the contemporaneous kings of Ur, though this does not hinder them from engaging in military expeditions against Elam, and in extensive building operations. The kings of Ur, in addition to their title as kings of Ur, ...
— The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria • Morris Jastrow
... the cause of Italy, whose past history and literature seemed to call aloud for redress of her present vassalage and wrongs, would have, no doubt, led him to the same chivalrous self-devotion in her service, as he displayed afterwards in that of Greece. The disappointing issue, however, of that brief struggle is but too well known; and this sudden wreck of a cause so promising pained ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... decision of the Crown was made, the services of Wyclif had been accepted by the Parliament in its resistance to the claim which Pope Urban V. had made in 1366, to the arrears of tribute due under John's vassalage. Edward III. had referred this claim to Parliament, and the Parliament had rejected it without hesitation on the ground that John had no power to bind the realm without its consent. The Parliament was the mere mouthpiece of Wyclif, who was now actively ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... peculiarities, it would seem, are not of equal force in the South American States, owing, in part, perhaps, to a former degradation, produced by colonial vassalage; but principally to the lesser contrast of colours. The difference is not striking between that of many of the Spanish and Portuguese Creoles and that of many of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 6, 1921 • Various
... inserted in the Encyclopedie, and is appearing in most of the publications respecting America. In fact, it is comfortable to see the standard of reason at length erected, after so many ages, during which the human mind had been held in vassalage by kings, priests, and nobles; and it is honorable for us to have produced the first legislature who had the courage to declare that the reason of man may be trusted with the formation of his own opinions!" This latter passage is characteristic, and many who do not like ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... idea involved in the statements of Sir Martin Wright, Mr. Hallam, and Mr. FREEMAN, that the VASSAL OF A LORD was then called on to swear allegiance to the KING, and that it altered the feudal bond in England, is not supported by the oath of vassalage. In swearing fealty, the vassal knelt, placed his hands between those ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... acknowledgment have recently been seen in their acceptance of a nominal sovereignty by the grant of a foreign prince under conditions equivalent to the concession by them of exclusive commercial advantages to one nation, adapted altogether to the state of colonial vassalage and retaining little of independence but the name. Our plenipotentiaries will be instructed to present these views to the assembly at Panama, and should they not be concurred in to decline acceding to any arrangement which may be ...
— A Compilation of Messages and Letters of the Presidents - 2nd section (of 3) of Volume 2: John Quincy Adams • Editor: James D. Richardson
... Philip of France, Innocent enjoyed easier triumphs over the lesser kings of Europe. It was his ambition to break through the traditional limits that separated the church from the state, and to bind as many as he could of the kings of Europe to the papacy by ties of political vassalage. The time-honored feudal superiority of the popes over the Norman kingdom of Sicily had been the first precedent for this most unecclesiastical of all papal aggressions. Already others of the smaller kingdoms of Europe, conspicuous among which was Portugal, had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various
... of great world-markets. Austria-Hungary, on her part, set herself deliberately not merely to block this access to the sea, but also to keep Serbia in complete economic dependence. Under the new dynasty the little kingdom showed a keener desire to shake off its vassalage and find new markets. The so-called "Pig War"—the breeding of swine is Serbia's staple industry, and the founders of her two rival dynasties were wealthy pig-breeders—proved an unexpected success, for new trade outlets were found in Egypt and elsewhere. ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the free population of the north, the same control which an insolvent debtor frequently has over his creditor, by threatening to break and ruin him, if not allowed his own way. A repeal of the corn laws would release the free States from their present commercial and consequent political vassalage to the southern slave-holders, and thereby take from American slavery, the great citadel of its strength, and insure its overthrow by the influences which would arise to ...
— A Visit To The United States In 1841 • Joseph Sturge
... a passion doth embrace my bosom. My heart beats thicker than a feverous pulse, And all my powers do their bestowing lose, Like vassalage at unawares encount'ring ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... my darkling day, I vassalage fulfil: Seeking the myrtle and the bay, (They thrive when hearts are chill!) The straitness of the narrowing way, The house where all ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... it," said the second man, with a querulous protest, which did not, however, conceal his admiring vassalage to his friend; "that's what I'm allus telling Jim. 'Jim,' I says, 'how is folks to know you're the man that shot Kernel Baxter, and dropped three o' them Mariposa Vigilants? They didn't see you do it! They just look at your fancy style and them mustaches ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... Durance and the Isere, which Theodoric had wrested from his brother in 523. The occasion of this cession was probably some league of mutual defence against the Franks, which Cassiodorus could without dishonesty represent as a kind of vassalage of Burgundy to Ostrogothia. If so, it availed Godomar little, as his territories were overrun by the Frankish Kings in 532, and the conquest of them was apparently completed ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... constructed to lift and move unlimited weights, than which in an emergency nothing is more useful." [6] So dreamed the great friar in the thirteenth century. When, then, we find the minds of men first throwing off their intellectual vassalage to antiquity and beginning to believe in themselves, their present powers and their future prospects, it is this new-found mastery over nature's latent resources which is the spring and fountain of their confidence. Cardan, in the sixteenth century, marveling at the then modern inventions ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... the other, the vassals of Cavek Paoh; they were addressed by Gagavitz: "Thou art the fourth of our tribes, Gekaquch, Baqahol, Cavek, and Cibakihay." Thus he addressed them: "Truly thou art my brother, my kinsman." Thus he spoke to those of Ahquehay: "Thou art counted in my tribe, thy vassalage shows that thou art of our ancient home, no longer art thou a vassal nor carriest the net. The Caveks are received, and form part of our tribe." So spoke of yore our fathers and ancestors, oh my children, and we must not forget the words of ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... when Quebec fell, the might of England in America seemed irresistible, and the vassalage of the colonies assured. Nevertheless, thirty years later, the first President of the American Republic was inaugurated. In 1849, after Novara, Italian prospects appeared as hopeless as at any time since the Middle Ages; yet only fifteen ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... in a state of vassalage. The male line of the Fitz-Ausculfs soon became extinct, and Gervase Paganell marrying the heiress, ...
— An History of Birmingham (1783) • William Hutton
... meditations? Are you the mere slave for your thoughts, compelled to follow as they, by some caprice, may direct? No intelligent mind in which the will is ruler is prepared to admit that it has been subjected to such vassalage. ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... soil who are rapidly improving, who have already attained considerable influence and are marshalled by gifted leaders, (men who show themselves qualified for legislative and judicial positions), and to doom them to a state of perpetual vassalage is altogether out of ...
— The Early Negro Convention Movement - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 9 • John W. Cromwell
... kings of Assyria and Babylon. Thus Babylon regained half its independence. But the Assyrian Empire was now at its zenith. Egypt was quelled by the army of Esarhaddon, and to Assurbanipal submitted in vassalage the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... analogy we may easily judge of the remainder. And indeed to what purpose would it be singly to recount the commonalty and rabble of mankind, who beyond all question are entirely on my side? and for a token of their vassalage do wear my livery in so many older shapes, and more newly invented modes of Folly, that the lungs of a thousand Democrituses would never hold out to such a laughter as this subject would excite; and to these thousand must be superadded one more, to laugh at them as much ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... Rome: for they reduced the matter to this short issue, That God was to be obeyed rather than men; and consequently the Bishop of Rome, who is Christ's representative, rather than an earthly prince. Neither doth it seem improbable that all Christendom would have been in utter vassalage, both temporal and spiritual, to the Roman see, if the Reformation had not put a stop to those exorbitancies, and in a good measure opened the eyes even of those princes and states who still adhere to the doctrines and discipline ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... Elbe River. And for centuries they kept the hordes of Cossacks, Turks and barbarians off Europe. Russia in those days was called "the nation of the sword." And over a hundred years ago that sword was drawn for Servia. After 400 years of vassalage to Turkey, the Serbs rebelled in 1804, and then only Russian intervention saved them from defeat. In later wars oppression of the Slavs was ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... Clandonald's lands, which his father, Lord Kenneth, formerly claimed right to but lived not to accomplish it. Thus, all the Highlands and Islands from Ardnamurchan to Strathnaver were either Mackenzie's property, or under his vassalage, some few excepted, and all about him were tied to his family by very strict bonds of friendship or vassalage, which, as it did beget respect from many it be got envy in others, ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... himself in advancing. He returned in answer, that he demanded, as the price of peace, not only that Ferdinand should renounce all claim whatever to the crown of Hungary, but that he should also acknowledge the Austrian territories as under vassalage to the Turkish empire, and pay ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... have been no fresh supply of domestic slaves, unless they were imported from Ireland, as well as carried thither for sale. That trade did not continue long. Emancipation was promoted by the clergy, and slavery was exchanged for vassalage, which in like manner gradually disappeared as the condition of ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... were little skirmishes, for such they were on the part of the Spaniards, of greater permanent importance than those above narrated, which took place in the early part of the year 1495. They must be looked upon as the origin in the Indies of slavery, vassalage, and the system of repartimientos. We have seen that the admiral, after his first victory, sent off four ships with slaves to Spain. He now took occasion to impose a tribute upon the whole population of Hispaniola. ...
— The Life of Columbus • Arthur Helps
... manners, which border somewhat on bluntness. Since then they are neither of foreign extraction, nor naturally of English production, their origin must be sought for elsewhere, and that origin is the Norman Conquest. They are evidently of the vassalage class of manners, and emphatically mark the prostrate distance that exists in no other condition of men than between the conqueror and the conquered. That this vassalage idea and style of speaking was not got rid of even at the ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... time to discover that, in reality, brute force governed almost everything outside of the Church. The feudal obligations were not fulfilled except when the lord was sufficiently powerful to enforce them. The bond of vassalage and fidelity, which was the sole principle of order, was constantly broken and faith was violated ...
— An Introduction to the History of Western Europe • James Harvey Robinson
... during this period, in a state of the most abject vassalage; two classes alone possessing all rank and dignity, and for the most part all the riches of the country. These were the Druids and the warriors. The former composed an order consisting of three classes, Druids, Prophets, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. XX. No. 557., Saturday, July 14, 1832 • Various
... the prosecution of plans, which are found at length to accord neither with the constitution of our nature nor with the approved usages of society. I will not say, that this is a great evil in comparison with that state of mental vassalage and inaction in which nothing is attempted, nor even conceived, for the true interests of mankind. For, the mind unfettered, will ordinarily be corrected of its mistakes and brought back from its wanderings, when truth is the object of its aspirations, and ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... in the thirteenth century B.C., only to be replaced in turn by Nineveh, a little further still upstream; and ultimately Assyria, though it had taken its name from the southern city, came to be consolidated round a north Mesopotamian capital into a power able to impose vassalage on Babylon and to send imperial raiders to the Mediterranean, and to the Great Lakes of Armenia. The first of her kings to attain this sort of imperial position was Shalmaneser I, who early in the thirteenth century ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... discountenance and punish, by every means in their power, offences which were sure to lead to severe retaliation upon the property of the church, and which tended to alter the character of their peaceful vassalage. ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... moreover tells us that, conformably with another act or article in his code, the 'applicant' must represent himself as a Catholic; that he must take the oaths of fidelity and vassalage before the governor, and that within the prescribed five years 'a foreigner must be either naturalised, or ...
— The Pearl of the Antilles, or An Artist in Cuba • Walter Goodman
... district, which they afterwards converted into a duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the Montefeltri were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free themselves from ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they sought and obtained the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino acknowledged them as semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial and Papal deputies. Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth, Castel Durante was acquired from ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... enforced itself in Richmond. The value of slave property was gone. It is true that a slave was still occasionally sold, at a price less than one tenth of what he would have brought before the war, but servants could be hired of their nominal owners for almost nothing—merely enough to keep up a show of vassalage. In effect, any one could hire a negro for his keeping—which was all that anybody in Richmond, black or white, got for his work. Even Mr. Davis had at last become docile to the stern teaching of events. In his message of November he had recommended the employment of ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... rendered necessary, by the unaccountable and diabolical Scheme which many Gentlemen now give into, of laying a Number of Farms into one, and very often of a whole Parish into one Farm; which in the End must reduce the common People to a State of Vassalage, worse than that under the Barons of old, or of the Clans in Scotland; and will in Time depopulate the Kingdom. But as you are tired of the Subject, I shall take myself away, and you may visit Little ...
— Goody Two-Shoes - A Facsimile Reproduction Of The Edition Of 1766 • Anonymous
... embraced the valleys of the Rhine, the Rhone, and the Seine; he united his interests with those of the Church, and in 756 entered Italy to rescue the Pope from the threatened domination of the Lombards; reduced Aistulf of Lombardy to vassalage, assumed the title of Patrician of Rome, and by bestowing on Pope Stephen III. the "Exarchate" of the Roman empire, laid the foundation of papal temporal sovereignty, five cities being placed under his jurisdiction; his ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... the vassalage of Denmark, but the emperor never forgot nor forgave the insult and took every opportunity in after years to stir up strife against Denmark. In 1184 he incited the pagan princes of Pomerania to invade the Danish islands with a fleet of five ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... which, it was felt, would not be the garland but the yoke of peace. Yet it was an afflicting alternative; and it is not to be denied, that the effort, if it had the determination, wanted the cheerfulness of duty. Our condition savoured too much of a grinding constraint—too much of the vassalage of necessity;—it had too much of fear, and therefore of selfishness, not to be contemplated in the main with rueful emotion. We desponded though we did not despair. In fact a deliberate and preparatory fortitude—a sedate and stern melancholy, which had ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... saved from vassalage by the devotion of Moniz, is considered the first independent ruler of Portugal. Shortly after this occurrence, he defeated five Moorish rulers in the battle of Ourique, where the Portuguese claim he was favored with the appearance of a cross in the ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... would be confirmed. The debate grew every day more bitter and unmannerly. The Governor could not yield; the Assembly would not. There was a complete deadlock. The Assembly requested the Governor "not to make himself the hateful instrument of reducing a free people to the abject state of vassalage."[344] As the raising of money and the control of its expenditure was in their hands; as he could not prorogue or dissolve them, and as they could adjourn on their own motion to such time as pleased them; as they paid his support, ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... ebb. The reconstructed Roman empire of Augustus soon reduced Armenia, Cappadocia and even the kingdom of the Parthians to a kind of vassalage. But after the middle of the third century the Sassanid dynasty restored the power of Persia and revived its ancient pretensions. From that time until the triumph of Islam it was one long {136} duel between the two rival states, in which now one was victorious and now the ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... than he did the Protestants and his position was not made easier by the threat of Charles to come to terms with the Lutherans did Paul succeed in rousing France against him. In fact, with all his squirming, Paul III only sank deeper into the Spanish vassalage, while the championship of the church passed from his control into that of new agencies that ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... affirm, which are a disgrace to those who framed them, and which, if acted upon by a local magistracy, will entail upon the oft-cheated, over-patient negro some of the worst features of that degrading state of vassalage from which he has just escaped. We particularly refer to "An Act to enlarge the Powers of Justices in determining complaints between Masters and Servants, and between Masters, and Apprentices, Artificers, and others," which passed the Assembly the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society |
