Note 83 — STATE OF SOCIETY. 1216–1399.

Maintainers seem to have been of two sorts. On the borders of the counties palatine, confederacies were formed, who made sudden irruptions into the neighbouring counties, and carried off young women, particularly heiresses. They then retired within the freedoms of the counties palatine, and held their captives to ransom. The bodies of retainers who gathered round individual nobles, and stood by one another in such illegal actions as forcible desiesin, or ejection of rightful owners from their property, also received the name.