Feudalism
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Feudalism is a system by which a nobility of warriors ruled Europe during the Middle Ages. The nobility owned the land and ruled the peasantry by bonds of manorialism.
Outside of a European context, the concept of feudalism is normally only used by analogy (called semi-feudal), most often in discussions of Japan under the shoguns, and, sometimes, medieval and Gondarine Ethiopia. Some have seen something like feudalism in places as different as Ancient Egypt, Parthian empire, India, to the American South of the nineteenth century. [1]
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[change] Characteristics
Three primary elements characterized feudalism: lords, vassals and fiefs; the structure of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and 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 form the basis of feudalism.
[change] Lords, vassals, and fiefs
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony. It was called a commendation ceremony and combined an homage and an oath of fealty. During homage, the vassal would promise to fight for the lord at his command. Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas, or faithfulness; the oath of fealty is a promise that the vassal will be faithful to the lord. When the commendation was complete, the lord and vassal were now in a feudal relationship with mutual obligations to one another.
[change] Notes
- Philip Daileader (2001). "Feudalism". The High Middle Ages. The Teaching Company. ISBN 1-56585-827-1
[change] Other websites
- "Feudalism". In Encyclopedia Britannica Online.
- "Feudalism?", by Paul Halsall from the Internet Medieval Sourcebook, history of the term.
- "Feudalism", by Gerhard Rempel, Western New England College
- "Feudalism, Self-employment, and the 1949 Chinese Revolution", by Satya J. Gabriel, Mount Holyoke College
[change] Bibliography
- Marc Bloch, Feudal Society. Tr. L.A. Manyon. Two volumes. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1961 ISBN 0-226-05979-0
- Francois-Lois Ganshof, Feudalism. Tr Philip Grierson. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
- Jean-Pierre Poly and Eric Bournazel, The Feudal Transformation, 900-1200., Tr. Caroline Higgitt. New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1991.
- Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 ISBN 0-19-820648-8
- Normon E. Cantor. Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth century. Quill, 1991.
- Alain Guerreau, L'avenir d'un passé incertain. Paris: Le Seuil, 2001. (complete history of the meaning of the term).
