A country disinherited by nature of its rights
     A pleasantry called voluntary contributions or benevolences
     Annual harvest of iniquity by which his revenue was increased
     Batavian legion was the imperial body guard
     Beating the Netherlanders into Christianity
     Bishop is a consecrated pirate
     Brethren, parents, and children, having wives in common
     For women to lament, for men to remember
     Gaul derided the Roman soldiers as a band of pigmies
     Great science of political equilibrium
     Holland, England, and America, are all links of one chain
     Long succession of so many illustrious obscure
     Others go to battle, says the historian, these go to war
     Revocable benefices or feuds
     Taxation upon sin
     The Gaul was singularly unchaste

MOTLEY’S HISTORY OF THE NETHERLANDS, PG EDITION, VOLUME 2.

The rise of the Dutch republic
John Lothrop Motley, D.C.L., LL.D.
1855

Historical introduction., Part 2.

VII.

Five centuries of isolation succeed.  In the Netherlands, as throughout Europe, a thousand obscure and slender rills are slowly preparing the great stream of universal culture.  Five dismal centuries of feudalism:  during which period there is little talk of human right, little obedience to divine reason.  Rights there are none, only forces; and, in brief, three great forces, gradually arising, developing themselves, acting upon each other, and upon the general movement of society.

The sword—­the first, for a time the only force:  the force of iron.  The “land’s master,” having acquired the property in the territory and in the people who feed thereon, distributes to his subalterns, often but a shade beneath him in power, portions of his estate, getting the use of their faithful swords in return.  Vavasours subdivide again to vassals, exchanging land and cattle, human or otherwise, against fealty, and so the iron chain of a military hierarchy, forged of mutually interdependent links, is stretched over each little province.  Impregnable castles, here more numerous than in any other part of Christendom, dot the level surface of the country.  Mail-clad knights, with their followers, encamp permanently upon the soil.  The fortunate fable of divine right is invented to sanction the system; superstition and ignorance give currency to the delusion.  Thus the grace of God, having conferred the property in a vast portion of Europe upon a certain idiot in France, makes him competent to sell large fragments of his estate, and to give a divine, and, therefore, most satisfactory title along with them.  A great convenience to a man, who had neither power, wit, nor will to keep the property in his own hands.