The need of a kindly policy towards the little valley towns—­a policy that might have won their allegiance—­never occurred to him.  They were his property and Peter von Hagenbach was, in course of time, made lieutenant-governor in his behalf.

Apart from all personal considerations of enmity and amity of natives and neighbours, the territory of Upper Alsace and the county of Ferrette, delivered from needy Austria to rich Burgundy, like a coat pawned by a poor student, was held under very complex and singular conditions.[9] The status of the bargain between Sigismund and Charles was in point of fact something between pawn and sale, according to the point of view.  Sigismund fully intended to redeem it, while Charles did not admit that possibility as remotely contingent.  Nor was that the only peculiarity.  The itemised list of the ceded territories as given in the treaty was far from telling the facts of the possessions passing to Sigismund’s proxy.

In the first place the Austrian seigniories were not compact.  They were scattered here and there in the midst of lands ruled by others, as the Bishop of Strasburg, the Abbe of St. Blaise in the Black Forest, the count Palatine, the citizens of Basel and of Mulhouse, and others.

The existent variety in the extent and nature of Austrian title was extraordinary.  Nearly every possible combination of dismembered prerogative and actual tenure had resulted from the long series of ducal compositions.  In some localities a toll or a quit-rent was the sole cession, and again a toll or a prerogative was almost the only residue remaining to the ostensible overlord, while all his former property or transferable birthright privileges were lodged in various hands on divers tenures.  There were cases in which the mortgagee—­noble, burgher, or municipal corporation—­had taken the exact place of the Austrian duke and in so doing had become the vassal of his debtor, stripped of all vested interest but his sovereignty.  For in these bargains wherein elements of the Roman contract and feudal customs were curiously blended, two classes of rights had been invariably reserved by the ducal mortgagers: 

(1) Monopolies, regal in nature, such as assured free circulation on the highways, the old Roman roads, all jurisdiction of passports and travellers’ protection.

(2) The suzerainty.  This comprised the power to confer fiefs, of requisition of military service, of requesting aids and admission to strongholds, cities, or castles, le droit de forteresse jurable et rendable.

In these regards the compact between Charles and Sigismund differed from all previous covenants not only in degree, but in kind.  The Duke of Burgundy entered into the sovereign as well as into the mangled, maimed, and curtailed proprietary rights of the hereditary over-lord.