[Steve,]

Good point. I am not sure that this is much different from the situation in our old examples of England's Ireland and Scotland, or even Norman England, where the Anglo-American law of property has its roots. Fealty today is largely different from fealty then only insofar as we no longer demand that tribute be paid in military service. The lord has always been "foreign" to the serf, and vice versa, although we cannot deny that there has long been considerable cross-fertilization (if you will pardon a pun).

[David Robert Foss]