Crossword-Solution: LEUDES 6 letters, 2 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 7

The authority belonged, at one and the same time, to assemblies of free men, to landholders over the dwellers on their domains, and to the king over the leudes and their following.

This chief was styled Senior, Lord, and the like terms, which marked out a superiority in age and merit; the followers were called Ambacti, Comites, Leudes, Vassals, and other terms, marking submission and dependence.

The power of the monarch at that period was much restrained, by a class of men called Leudes, Anstrutions, or faithful, being companions in arms of the king, and sharing with him whatever lands or booty might be gained by conquest.

The king, by his constant donations to his _leudes_ or great vassals, had, in course of time, very nearly stripped himself of domains, and these _bénéfices_ were retained by the lords and made hereditary in their own families.

When his father was assassinated in 575, Childebert was taken from Paris by Gundobald, one of his faithful _leudes_, to Metz, where he was recognized as sovereign.