HOMAGE
. Homage originated in the Frankish custom of the immixtio manuum, by which the king
clasped the joined hands of a follower who promised loyal service. The first example of a
great lord performing homage occurred in 757, when Tassilo, duke of Bavaria,
commended himself “by his hands” to King Pepin. Galbert de Bruges provides the fullest
description of the act when he recounts how in 1127 the Flemish barons were received by
their new count: they performed homage by placing their hands in his and sealed the
relationship by a kiss; they pledged their loyalty (fealty); and the count invested them
with their fiefs.
The practice of multiple homages, by which vassals with fiefs from several lords did
homage to each, led inevitably to the development of liege (primary) homage from the
11th century: a vassal declared his first loyalty to the lord from whom he held his most
important fief. The circulation of fiefs, however, continued to complicate the chain of
loyalty, especially as powerful princes forged new political and military alliances by
purchasing the homage of barons and knights and demanding that fiefs, rather than
tenants, be considered liege. The multiplication of liege fiefs resulted in reservation
clauses by which vassals ranked their fiefs, and consequently their loyalties, in order to
prevent misunderstandings.
From the late 12th century, those who performed homage often were required by their
lords to submit sealed letters confirming that act; later sealed letters could be sent in lieu
of the act itself. In the 13th and 14th centuries, lords with large numbers of feudal tenants
periodically conducted inquests of their tenants and fiefs; the resultant “books of
homages” furnish invaluable information on the nobility of late-medieval France.
Theodore Evergates
[See also: FEALTY; FIEF HOLDING]
Boutrouche, Robert. Seigneurie et féodalité. 2 vols. Paris: Aubier, 1968–70.
Fourquin, Guy. Lordship and Feudalism in the Middle Ages, trans. Iris and A.L.Lytton Sells. New
York: Pica, 1976.
Ganshof, François L. Feudalism, trans. Philip Grierson. New York:Harper, 1961.
Lemarignier, Jean-François. Recherches sur l’hommage en marche et les frontières féodales. Lille:
Bibliothèque Universitaire, 1945.
Poly, Jean-Pierre, and Eric Bournazel. La mutation féodale, XIe-XIIe siècles. Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1980.
HOMME ARMÉ
. A melody used in at least thirty-eight polyphonic Mass cycles of the years ca. 1460–
1600, of which about thirty are probably from before 1520; at least nine smaller works
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