The right of “the Crown” should also be mentioned, which consisted of a circle of gold ornamented in various fashions, according to the different degrees of feudal monarchy, which vassals had to present to their lord on the day of his investiture.  The right of seal was a fee or fine they had to pay for the charters which their lord caused to be delivered to them.

The duty of aubaine was the fine or due paid by merchants, either in kind or money, to the feudal chief, when they passed near his castle, landed in his ports, or exposed goods for sale in his markets.

The nobles of second order possessed among their privileges that of wearing spurs of silver or gold according to their rank of knighthood; the right of receiving double rations when prisoners of war; the right of claiming a year’s delay when a creditor wished to seize their land; and the right of never having to submit to torture after trial, unless they were condemned to death for the crime they had committed.  If a great baron for serious offences confiscated the goods of a noble who was his vassal, the latter had a right to keep his palfrey, the horse of his squire, various pieces of his harness and armour, his bed, his silk robe, his wife’s bed, one of her dresses, her ring, her cloth stomacher, &c.

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