| Loyalty Loyalty to one's lord came before everything. A man could be forgiven much, but to betray one's sworn lord was the worst crime a knight could commit. Everything in knightly society depended upon the reliability of a knight's sworn oath. That's why the giving of an oath was considered sufficient evidence in a court of law. When a lord made war on one of his vassals, or a vassal rebelled against his lord, one reason nearly always cited was that the other party had broken faith--had betrayed the trust. The language indicates how deeply this sentiment ran in knightly society. Among the various terms used to describe the followers of a lord was vassi dominici--the vassals of the lord. The French word was mesnie and an older Latin word was comitatus. We can translate these words as "the boys", or "gang" or "band". But another term used was truste--that is to say, "the trusted ones". In a society that was illiterate, as knightly society was, written contracts counted for nothing. The saying ran that, "with pen and ink, one can say anything." Only an oath taken before peers was worth anything. Still, when we look at the historical record, we see betrayals on every hand. Does this mean that all the sworn trusts were a sham? Not at all, for our own society depends on written contracts, notwithstanding the fact that such contracts are sometimes broken. Moreover, oaths kept were usually not worth recording, for that was the norm. |