Feudalism

Feudalism comes from the Late Latin word feudum that was borrowed from a Germanic root
fehu, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain
obligations by feodati. Even though the word origin is from the Middle Ages, the concept of
feudalism was not invented untill the 17th Century in the modern era. Because feudalism is a
modern concept, to understand what Feudalism is, it is helpful to understand the history of the
term since its invention, the key definitions of feudalism used by diffrent historians, and recent
modern interpretations and revolts.
Many different definitions of the term feudalism exist. In order to understand what feudalism is,
a working definition is desirable. The definition described in the section What is Feudalism? is
based on a classic narrow definition: feudalism is a set of reciprocal legal and military
obligations among the warrior nobility of Europe during the Middle Ages revolving around the
three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs.

What is feudalism?
Three elements existed and characterize the period: lords, vassals and fiefs. How these three
elements fit together defines feudalism:
A lord was a noble who owned land. A vassal was given land by the lord. The land was known as
a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The
obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief is feudalism.
Lords, vassals and fiefs
Before a lord will grant land, or fief, to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was
done in a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony comprised of the two
part act of homage and oath of fealty. In homage the vassal would promise to fight for the lord at
his command. Oath of fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas or faithfulness which means the
vassal will remain faithful to the lord. Once the commendation was complete, the lord and vassal
were now in a feudal relationship with agreed upon mutual obligations to one another.
The lord foremost was obligated to grant a fief or its revenues to the vassal, the fief is the
primary reason the vassal chose to enter into the relationship. In addition the lord sometimes had
other obligations to the vassal and fief. Two common ones were, first, to maintain the fief. Since
the lord had not given the land away but only loaned it, it was still the lords responsibility to
maintain the land, while the vassal had the right to collect revenues generated from the land.
Second, the lord is responsible to protect the land and the vassal from harm.
The vassal, in turn, has two obligations to the lord. First and most importantly was aid which
means military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the

revenues from the fief, the vassal was responsible to answer a call to military service on behalf of
the lord. This was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship, to ensure
military help. Second the vassal was to provide counsel. If the lord faced a major decision,
such as if to go to war or not, he would summon all his vassals and hold a counsel.
The land-holding relationships of feudalism revolved around the fief. These grants depending on
the power of the granting lord could range in size from a small farm to much larger. The lordvassal relationship was not restricted to members of the laity, for example bishops and abbots
were also capable of acting as lords.

Decline of feudalism
Feudalism had begun as a bargain, the exchange of service for protection. But in the end, the
bargain was not kept, one party continued to provide service while the other failed to provide
protection.
The introduction of money in the 11th Century meant by the 14th Century it had spread to
replace land as the primary medium of exchange. The influence of urban towns and the money
system weakened land-based feudalism. The nobility, hard hit by riseing costs, were obliged to
sell land and to sell serfs their freedom. The feudal army had become obsolete and the mercenary
army, paid in money not land, replaced it. The introduction of gunpowder in the 14th Century
made the castle obsolete. Nobles gladly abandoned the discomforts of life in an isolated stone
prison to a spacious manor house or residence in town among their kind.
A noble vassal was expected to deal with most local issues and could not always expect help
from a distant king. The nobles were independent and often unwilling to cooperate for a greater
cause (military service). By the end of the middle ages, the kings sought a way to become
independent of the wilful nobles, especially for military support. The kings first hired
mercenaries and later created standing national armies.
Historian J.J. Bagley noted that the 14th Century marked the end of the true feudal age and
began paving the way for strong monarchies, nation states, and national wars of the 16th
Century. Much 14th Century feudalism had become artificial and self-conscious. Already men
were finding it a little curious. It was aquiring an antiquarian interest and losing its usefulness. It
was ceasing to belong to the real world of practical living.

History of the term feudalism

In order to better understand what the term feudalism means, it is helpful to see how it was
defined and how its been used since its 17th Century creation.
Invention of feudalism
The word feudalism was not a medieval term. It was invented by French and English lawyers in

the 17th century to describe certain traditional obligations between members of the warrior
aristocracy. The term first reached a popular and wide audience in Montesquieus De LEsprit
des Lois (Spirit of the Laws) in 1748. Since then it has been redefined and used by many
diffrent people in diffrent ways.
Feudalism in history
The term feudalism has been used by different political philosophers and thinkers throughout
history.
Enlightenment thinkers on feudalism
Starting in the late 18th Century during the French revolution, radicals wrote about feudalism to
tar the antiquated system of the ancien regime, or French monarchy. This was the age of
Enlightenment when reason was king and the radicals were appealing to the negative image of
the Dark Ages. Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the Dark
Ages including Feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French
monarchy as a means of political gain.
Karl Marx on feudalism
Like the French revolutionaries, Karl Marx also used the term feudalism for political ends. In the
19th Century Karl Marx described feudalism as the economic situation coming before the
inevitable rise of capitalism. For Marx, what defined feudalism was the military elite
accumulating the surplus wealth of those under them by exploitation through military
dominance. This was the definition of feudalism to Marx, a purely economic model.
Historians on feudalism
The term feudalism is, among medieval historians, one of the most widely debated concepts.
There exist many definitions of feudalism and indeed some haved revolted against it, saying the
term does not exist at all.
British origins of feudalism
In the late 19th and early 20th Century historians John Horace Round and Frederic William
Maitland, who focused on medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions as to the character of
English society prior to the start of Norman rule in 1066. The former arguing for a Norman
import of feudalism and the latter contending that the fundamentals were already in place in
Britain a debate which continues to this day.
Ganshof and classic view of feudalism
A historian whose concept of feudalism remains highly influential in the 20th Century is
Francois-Louis Ganshof, who belongs to a pre-Second World War generation. He defines
feudalism on very narrow legal and military perspective. He says feudal relationships existed
within the medieval nobility and only the nobility. Ganshof articulted this concept in FrancoisLois Ganshof, Feudalism. Tr Philip Grierson. New York: Harper and Row 1964. It is Ganshofs
classic definition of feudalism that is the most widely known today and also the easiest to
understand. Simply, when a lord granted a fief to a vassal, the vassal provided military service in
return.

 Marc Bloch and sociological view of feudalism

One of Ganshofs contemporaries, a French historian by the name of Marc Bloch is arguably the
most influential medieval historian of the 20th Century. He approached feudalism not so much
from a legal and and military point of view but from a sociological one. He developed his ideas
in a book Marc Bloch Feudal Society. Tr. L.A. Manyon. Two volumes. Chicago : University of
Chicago Press 1961 ISBN 0226059790. Marc Bloch did not concieve of feudalism as being
limited soley to nobility, but as a type of society. Like Ganshof he saw there were heirarchal
relationships between lords and vassals on the one hand, but also lords and peasants on the other.
This radical notion that peasants are part of the feudal relationship is what set Bloch apart from
his peers. While the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant
performed physical labour in return for protection. Both are a form of feudal relationship.
According to Bloch other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms, all the aspects of life
were centered on lordship; we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly
(and anti-courtly) literature, a feudal economy.
More recently there has been a revolt by some historians on the use of the term feudalism, with
some arguing that the term should not be used at all.

Revolt against the term feudalism

In 1974, U.S. historian Elizabeth A.R. Brown, The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and
Historians of Medieval Europe in American Historical Review 79, challenged the value of using
the word at all, rejecting the label as an anachronistic construct which imparted a false sense of
uniformity to the concept. She noted there are so many diffrent, contradictory fuedalism
definitions circulating at once there is no accepted definition. She also suggested feudalism is a
construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back into the
historical record, using the word tyranny. Supporters of Brown have gone as far to say the term
feudalism is so invalid, it should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval
history entirely. In Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1994 ISBN 0198206488, Susan Reynolds expanded upon Browns original
thesis. Although some of her contemporaries questioned Reynolds methodology, her thesis has
received support from certain historians. Who would support the removal of the term feudalism?
Those historians who have been traditionally disadvantaged in the profession such as women
historians and historians not from the elite institutions, who gain advantage by shaking up the
status quo, have been some of the most vocal supporters of Brown and Reynolds in rejecting the
term feudalism. The historians and institutions that benefit the most from the status quo, the more

conservative elements of the historical profession, are generally more interested in keeping the
traditional term feudalism, such as defined by Francois-Lois Ganshof and Marc Bloch.

Notes on feudalism
Historical examples of feudalism
Extant sources reveal that the early Carolingians had vassals, as did other leading men in the
kingdom. This relationship did become more and more standardized over the next two centuries,
but there were differences in function and practice in different locations. For example, in the
German kingdoms that replaced the kingdom of Eastern Francia, as well as in some Slavic
kingdoms, the feudal relationship was arguably more closely tied to the rise of serfdom, a system
that tied peasants to the land (for more on this see the works of Leonard Blum on the history of
serfdom).
Moreover, the evolution of the Holy Roman Empire greatly affected the history of the feudal
relationship in central Europe. If one follows long-accepted feudalism models, one might believe
that there was a clear hierarchy from Emperor to lesser rulers, be they kings, dukes, princes, or
margraves. These models are patently untrue: the Holy Roman Emperor was elected by a group
of seven magnates, three of whom were princes of the church, who in theory could not swear
allegiance to any secular lord.
The French kingdoms also seem to provide clear proof that the models are accurate, until we take
into consideration the fact that, when Hrolf or Rollo the Gangler kneeled to pay homage to
Charles the Simple in return for the Duchy of Normandy, accounts tell us that he knocked the
king on his rump as he rose, demonstrating his view that the bond was only as strong as the lord
in this case, not strong at all.
The autonomy with which the Normans ruled their duchy supports the view that, despite any
legal feudal relationship, the Normans did as they pleased. In the case of their own leadership,
however, the Normans utilized the feudal relationship to bind their followers to them. It was the
influence of the Norman invaders which strengthened and to some extent institutionalized the
feudal relationship in England after the Norman Conquest.

A note on manorialism
Since we do not use the medieval term vassalage how are we to use the term feudalism? Though
it is sometimes used indiscriminately to encompass all reciprocal obligations of support and
loyalty in the place of unconditional tenure of position, jurisdiction or land, the term is restricted
by most historians to the exchange of specifically voluntary and personal undertakings, to the
exclusion of involuntary obligations attached to tenure of unfree land: the latter are considered
to be rather an aspect of Manorialism, an element of Feudal society but not of feudalism proper.

Cautions on use of term Feudalism

Feudalism and related terms should be approached and used with considerable caution owing
to the range of meanings associated with the term (see below). It is important to remember that
no medieval society ever described itself or its institutions and relationships as feudal, and it is
advisable to avoiding employing it to characterise phenomena for which others may find its use
inappropriate.
Though used in popular parlance to represent all voluntary or customary bonds in medieval
society, or a social order in which civil and military power is exercised under private contractual
arrangements, the term is best considered appropriate only to the voluntary, personal
undertakings binding lords and free men to protection in return for support which characterised
the administrative and military order.

England
Uniquely in England, the village of Laxton in Nottinghamshire continues to retain some vestiges
of the feudal system, where the land is still farmed using the open field system. The feudal court
now only meets annually, with its authority now restricted to management of the farmland.

Sweden
The Swedish variant of feudalism: Landowners resourceful enough committed to maintain a
soldier with a horse in the liege lords army, in compensation obtaining exemption from land
taxation (so-called frlse). This led to curb the relative local democracy of Viking era, in favor of
local lords who succeeded in exercising administrative and judicial power over their less
powerful neighbors. The King also depended more on such vassals and their resources.
Extrapolations of the meaning of feudalism
One example of this exists in the Peoples Republic of China. The official view of history there
being based on Marxism, attempts to fit Chinese in Marxist historical periods and hence defines
Chinese history from the Zhou Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty as part of the feudal period. In order
to do this, new concepts had to be invented such as bureaucratic feudalism which most Western
historians would consider a contradiction in terms.
As a result of this Marxist definition, feudal, as used in a Chinese context is very commonly used
as a pejorative term meaning old and unscientific, and this usage is also common among both
academic and popular writers from Mainland China, even those who are anti-Marxist. The use of
the term feudal to describe a period in Chinese history was common among Western historians of
China of the 1950s and 1960s, but became increasingly uncommon after the 1970s, and the
prevailing consensus among Western historians is that using the term feudal to describe Chinese
history confuses more than it clarifies as it assumes strong commonalities between Chinese and
European history that may not exist.