VALVASSORE. - Usually it means "vassal of a vassal," but the term has had a somewhat different value according to the times and ages. In Italy, etymologically, the vassi vassorum were called v., that is, the vassals of the royal vassals, those who in the 10th century were called milites secundi ordinis.
However, in the Edict De beneficis of 1037 by Conrad II, mention is made of nostris maioribus valvasoribus et eorum militibus, that is, of those vassals who in the same document are called seniores in competition with their milites; then Conrad II also makes there a distinction between maiores valvasores and minores valvasores: the disputes of the maiores are settled before the king's tribunal, those of the minores before the tribunal of the seniores. Thus there is mention of the usus maiorum valvasorum in dandi equis et armis suis senioribus. Therefore, after the bishops, abbots, marquises, and counts, there is a feudal class that is divided into valvasores maiores and minores. The former are those who later appear under the name of capitanei, the latter more properly retain the name of v. In the Consuetudines feudales of the 12th century, after the dux, the marchio, the comes, in the feudal hierarchy comes the valvasor maior, he who is invested by the prince or by another authority on a feudal basis with a parish church or a part of one and who is now called capitaneus qui proprie valvasor maior olim dicebatur. Instead, those who held a fief from the captains are called v. Those, then, who held from the v. a fief that these had received from the captains were called valvasini id est minores valvasores. According to the Libri feudorum, these did not have a true grant of a feudal character. Indeed, when the v. died without male children, the fief that he had given to the valvasino returned to the captain. Now, however, say the Libri feudorum, referring to their own age (mid-12th century), the valvasini in the Curia (tribunal) of Milan enjoy the same rights as the v. In France, v. in the 12th century was the free man who fought with limited light armament; in Normandy and England, the free man in military service but who must not be registered with the vassals. Thus terra valvassani is the fief held by a knight of inferior rank, with obligations of census and corvées.