Fealty - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition fealty

Definition :

Fealty [fr. fidelitas, Lat.; feaulte, Fr.], the special oath of fidelity or mutual bond of obligation between a lord and his tenant; the general oath being the allegiance performed by every subject to his sovereign, but this is better known by its more significant appellation of the oath of allegiance. Although foreign jurists consider fealty and homage as convertible terms, because in some continental countries they are blended so as to form on engagement, yet they are not to be confounded in our country, for they do not imply the same thing, homage being the acknowledgment of tenure, and fealty, the vassal oath of fidelity, being the essential feudal bond, and the animating principle of a feud, without which it could not subsist. Fealty comprehends the following obligations, viz.: (1) Incolume, that the tenant do no bodily harm to his lord; (2) Tutum, that he do no secret damage to him in his house; (3) Honestum, that he damage not his reputation; (4) Utile, that he do no damage to him in his possessions; (5) Facile and (6) Possible, that he render it easy for the lord to do any good, and not make that impossible to be done which was before in his power to do, Leg. Hen. 1, c. 5.