In the monasteries and convents, the poor man's son might wear the Abbot's ring and in the assemblies and councils of the realm, the poor clerk of former days, might speak with all the authority of a Bishop to sway the destinies of both Church and State.
One of the greatest evils of feudalism was that it fostered to excess the warlike spirit.

Of its very nature, the system was a complex one.

It gave rise to countless misunderstandings between the various grades of its involved hierarchy.

The opportunities and plausible pretexts for misunderstandings, quarrels and war were many.

A petty quarrel in Burgundy, in Champagne, in the Berry in France, involved not only the duke and count of these territories but almost every vassal or feudal lord in the province.