In return, the vassal or incumbent had to follow the seignior to battle (a thing which happened almost every day), and equip and feed himself at his own expense.

"This spirit of the German tribes--this spirit of companionship and association--governed the territory as it governed individuals.

The lands, like the men, were secured to a chief or seignior by a bond of mutual protection and fidelity.

This subjection was the labor of the German epoch which gave birth to feudalism.

By fair means or foul, every proprietor who could not be a chief was forced to be a vassal." (Laboulaye: History of Property.) By fair means or foul, every mechanic who cannot be a master has to be a journeyman; every proprietor who is not an invader will be invaded; every producer who cannot, by the exploitation of other men, furnish products at less than their proper value, will lose his labor.
Corporations and masterships, which are hated so bitterly, but which will reappear if we are not careful, are the necessary results of the principle of competition which is inherent in property; their organization was patterned formerly after that of the feudal hierarchy, which was the result of the subordination of men and possessions.
The times which paved the way for the advent of feudalism and the reappearance of large proprietors were times of carnage and the most frightful anarchy.