With the crystallization of the feudal system in the 12th century the office of vidame, like that of avoue, had become an hereditary fief.
The kharaj, the jiziye, and the whole feudal system disappeared in theory, although its spirit, and indeed in some respects its practice, still exists in fact, during the reforming period initiated by Sultan Selim III., culminating in the Tanzimat-i-Khairiye (1839) of Abd-ul-Mejid, and the Hatt-iHumayun issued by the same sultan (1856).
Under French rule, which has modified the old usages in many respects, local government of the Annamese type tends to supplant this feudal system.
The feudal system with which history most concerns itself is that of medieval western Europe, and it is that which will be here described.
Nor was the feudal system established in any sense by the settlement of the comitatus group on the conquered land.
