Fealty

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.
Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne; from a manuscript of a chanson de geste.

An oath of fealty, from the Latin fidelitas or faithfulness, is a pledge of allegiance of one person to another. Typically the oath is made upon a religious object such as a Bible or saint's relic thus binding the oath taker before God.

In medieval Europe, fealty was sworn between two people, the obliged person (vassal) and a person of rank (lord). This was done as part of a formal commendation ceremony to create a feudal relationship.

Fealty and homage are a key element of feudalism.

The term is also used by English speakers to refer to similar oaths of allegiance in other feudal cultures, as with Japan prior to about 1500.

See also: homage, feudalism, vassal, commendation ceremony

Advanced Search
Included Web Search Engines


Safe Search

close

Top Matching Results

Occasionally Search.com will highlight specialized results that are based on the context of your query. Examples of specialized results include specific links to news, images, or video.

Top Matching Results may highlight information from other Search.com pages, content from the CNET Network of sites, or third party content. The listings are based purely on relevance. Search.com does not receive payment for listings in this section but our partners that provide this data may get paid for listing these products.

Sponsored Links

This section contains paid listings which have been purchased by companies that want to have their sites appear for specific search terms and related content. These listings are administered, sorted and maintained by a third party and are not endorsed by Search.com.

Search Results

Search.com sends your search query to several search engines at one time and integrates the results into one list which has been sorted by relevance using Search.com's proprietary algorithm. You can customize the list of search engines included in your metasearch from the preferences.

The search engines that are used in your metasearch may allow companies to pay to have their Web sites included within the results. To view the Paid Inclusion policy for a specific search engine, please visit their Web site. Search.com does not accept payment or share revenue with any search engine partner for listings in this section.