Castle-guard was an arrangement under the feudal system, by which the duty of finding knights to guard royal castles was imposed on certain manors, knight's fees or baronies. The greater barons provided for the guard of their castles by exacting a similar duty from their sub-enfeoffedknights. The obligation was commuted very early for a fixed money payment, a form of scutage known as "castle-guard rent", which lasted in to modern times. Castle-guard was a common form of feudal tenure, almost ubiquitous, on the Isle of Wight where all manors were held from the Lord of the Isle of Wight, seated at Carisbrook Castle.
Famous quotes containing the words castle and/or guard:
“He that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned.”
—14th-century French proverb, first recorded in English in A. Barclay, Gringore’s Castle of Labour (1506)
“I loved. And a man will guard when he loves.
Their white-gowned democracy was my fair lady.
With her knife lying cold, straight, in the softness of her sweet-flowing sleeve.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)