FEALTY • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Fealty

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/fˈiəlti/ /fˈilti/ Listen

noun

fealty n.

Fidelity to one's lord; the feudal obligation by which the tenant or vassal was bound to be faithful to his lord; the special oath by which this obligation was assumed; fidelity to a superior power, or to a government; loyalty. It is no longer the practice to exact the performance of fealty, as a feudal obligation.

Fidelity; constancy; faithfulness, as of a friend to a friend, or of a wife to her husband. "He should maintain fealty to God." "Makes wicked lightnings of her eyes, and saps The fealty of our friends." "Swore fealty to the new government." Note: Fealty is distinguished from homage, which is an acknowledgment of tenure, while fealty implies an oath. See Homage.

Synonyms: Homage; loyality; fidelity; constancy.

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Etymology of 'Fealty'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Fealty" Quotes from Famous Books

... through, and his will is the will of the Gens! They will obey him, and he has sworn allegiance to Luar, or given some sort of oath of fealty!" ...

— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, August 1930 • Various

... my nature to be slow in deciding any matter of importance, and this is the weightiest one that ever I had to consider. Men much older and wiser than I are finding it a knotty question to which their loyalty is due, State or General Government; where allegiance to the one ends, and fealty to ...

— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley

... Juvenal des Ursins relates in his Journal[138] how at the time of the English conquest of Normandy, a young widow was known to quit her domain with her three children in order to escape doing homage to the King from beyond the seas. But how many Norman nobles were like her in refusing to swear fealty to the former enemies of the kingdom? The example of fidelity to the king was not always set by those of his own family. The Duke of Bourbon, in the name of all the princes of the blood royal, prisoners with him ...

— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France

... captious, as neither the number nor the tendency of these customs had been defined; and the Archbishop with equal policy replied that he would observe them, "saving his order." The clause was admitted when the clergy swore fealty to the sovereign; why should it be rejected when they only promised the observance of customs? The King put the question separately to all the prelates, and, with the exception of the Bishop of Chichester, received from each the same answer. His eyes flashed with indignation: ...

— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... against the Yorkist pretensions. To modern minds the best reply to Richard's claim lay in the words used at a later time by Henry himself. "My father was King; his father also was King; I myself have worn the crown forty years from my cradle: you have all sworn fealty to me as your sovereign, and your fathers have done the like to mine. How then can my right be disputed?" Long and undisturbed possession as well as a distinctly legal title by free vote of Parliament was in favour of the ...

— History of the English People, Volume III (of 8) - The Parliament, 1399-1461; The Monarchy 1461-1540 • John Richard Green

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