Obedience, used in the sense of being under the jurisdiction, is a technicality borrowed only recently by Masonic authorities from the French, where it has always been regularly used. Thus 'the Grand Lodge has addressed a letter to all the Lodges of its obedience" means "to all the Lodges under its jurisdiction." In French, " toutes Les Loges de son obedience." It comes originally from the usage of the Middle Ages, in the Low Latin of which obedientia meant the homage which a vassal owed to his lord. In the ecclesiastical language of the same period, the word signified the duty or office of a monk toward his superior.