The vassal that lived under the shadows of the strong towers of a feudal lord did not look much further beyond, to the king in his palace or in his courts of justice, for protection.

He found it closer at home.

The vassal, moreover, began to think of his own rights and privileges, to value them and to ask that they be enforced.

The idea of right and law, one of the most deeply engraved in the Christian conscience in the Middle Ages, grew and developed.

The barons were the first to claim these rights; gradually the whole nation imitated them.