Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of various customs and systems that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944),François Louis Ganshof (1944). Qu'est-ce que la féodalité. Translated into English by Philip Grierson as Feudalism, with a foreword by F. M. Stenton, 1st ed.: New York and London, 1952; 2nd ed: 1961; 3rd ed.: 1976. describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society".
Although it is derived from the Latin word or (fief),feodum – see which was used during the medieval period, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown's "The Tyranny of a Construct" (1974) and Susan Reynolds's Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society.
Some scholars have also applied the label outside of Europe, including feudal Japan, medieval Ethiopia, Spring and Autumn period China, ancient Egypt, the Parthian Empire, India until the Mughal dynasty, the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in the American South, and premodern Mongolia and Central Asia.Academician Sh. Natsagdorj. “The Economic Basis of Feudalism in Mongolia.” Modern Asian Studies 1, no. 3 (1967): 265–81.Christopher Atwood. Encyclopedia of Mongolia and the Mongol Empire (New York: Facts on File: 2004), p. 217
Definition The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1406, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, paralleling the French .
According to a classic definition by Belgian medievalist François Louis Ganshof, feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs, though Ganshof himself noted that his treatment was only related to the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word."
A broader definition, as described in Marc Bloch's 1939 Feudal Society, includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and those who lived off their labour, most directly the peasantry, which was bound by a system of manorialism. This order is often referred to as a feudal society, echoing Bloch's usage.
Outside its European context, the concept of feudalism can be extended to analogous social structures in other regions, most often in discussions of feudal Japan under the shoguns, and sometimes in discussions of medieval Ethiopia, which had some feudal characteristics (sometimes called "semifeudal"). Some have taken the feudalism analogy further, seeing feudalism (or traces of it) in places as diverse as Spring and Autumn period China, ancient Egypt, the Parthian Empire, and India until the Mughal dynasty.
The term feudalism has also been applied—often pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions and attitudes similar to those in medieval Europe are perceived to prevail.Cf. for example: Some historians and political theorists believe that the term feudalism has been deprived of specific meaning by the many ways it has been used, leading them to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.
The applicability of the term feudalism has also been questioned in the context of some Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, with scholars observing that the medieval political and economic structure of those countries bears some, but not all, resemblances to the Western European societies commonly described as feudal.
Etymology
The word feudal comes from the medieval Latin , the adjectival form of 'fee, feud', first attested in a charter of Charles the Fat in 884, which is related to Old French , , Provençal feo, feu, fieu, and Italian . The ultimate origin of feudālis is unclear. It may come from a Germanic word, perhaps fehu or fehôd, but these words are not attested with this meaning in Germanic sources, or even in the Latin of the Frankish laws.
One theory about the origin of was proposed by Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern in 1870,"fee, n.2." OED Online. Oxford University Press, June 2017. Web. 18 August 2017.H. Kern, 'Feodum', De taal- en letterbode, 1( 1870), pp. 189-201. being supported by, amongst others, William StubbsMeir Lubetski (ed.). Boundaries of the ancient Near Eastern world: a tribute to Cyrus H. Gordon. "Notices on Pe'ah, Fay' and Feudum" by Alauddin Samarrai. Pg. 248–250, Continuum International Publishing Group, 1998.William Stubbs. The Constitutional History of England (3 volumes), 2nd edition 1875–78, Vol. 1, pg. 251, n. 1 and Marc Bloch. Kern derived the word from a putative Frankish term *fehu-ôd, in which *fehu means 'cattle' and -ôd means 'goods', implying "a movable object of value". Bloch explains that by the beginning of the 10th century it was common to value land in monetary terms but to pay for it with objects of equivalent value, such as arms, clothing, horses or food. This was known as feos, a term that came to mean paying for something in place of money. This meaning was later applied to land, where land was used as payment for fealty, such as to a vassal. Thus, the old word feos, meaning "movable property," eventually shifted to feus, meaning the exact opposite: "landed property."
Archibald Ross Lewis proposes that the origin of fief is not (or ), but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Vita Hludovici (840) by Astronomus. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says , which can be translated as "Louis forbade that military provender (which they popularly call "fodder") be furnished."
Initially in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service was called a (Latin). Later, the term , or , began to replace in the documents. The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier. The origin of the and why it replaced has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below.
The term "" was first used in 17th-century French legal treatises (1614) and translated into English legal treatises as an adjective, such as "feodal government".
In the 18th century, Adam Smith, seeking to describe economic systems, effectively coined the forms "feudal government" and "feudal system" in his book The Wealth of Nations (1776). The phrase "feudal system" appeared in 1736, in Baronia Anglica, published nine years after the death of its author Thomas Madox, in 1727. In 1771, in his book The History of Manchester, John Whitaker first introduced the word "feudalism" and the notion of the feudal pyramid.
Another theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū (the plural of fay, which literally means 'the returned', and was used especially for 'land that has been conquered from enemies that did not fight').Alauddin Samarrai. "The term 'fief': A possible Arabic origin", Studies in Medieval Culture, 4.1 (1973), pp. 78–82. Samarrai's theory is that early forms of 'fief' include feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others, the plurality of forms strongly suggesting origins from a loanword. The first use of these terms is in Languedoc, one of the least Germanic areas of Europe and bordering Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Further, the earliest use of feuum (as a replacement for beneficium) can be dated to 899, the same year a Muslim base at Fraxinetum (La Garde-Freinet) in Provence was established. It is possible, Samarrai says, that French scribes, writing in Latin, attempted to transliterate the Arabic word fuyū (the plural of fay), which was used by the Muslim invaders and occupiers at the time, resulting in a plurality of forms – feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others—from which eventually feudum derived. Samarrai, however, also advises to handle this theory with care, as Medieval and Early Modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically "fanciful roots" to support outlandish claims that something was of Arabian or Muslim origin.
History Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire: such as in the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century AD, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure[clarification needed] necessary to support cavalry without allocating land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land and their power over the territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres.
These acquired powers significantly diminished unitary power in these empires. However, once the infrastructure to maintain unitary power was re-established—as with the European monarchies—feudalism began to yield to this new power structure and eventually disappeared.
Classic feudalism
The classic François Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility based on the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. In broad terms a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal provided some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.
Vassalage
Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a commendation ceremony comprising an act of homage and an oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces. Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. "Fealty" also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage; such an oath follows homage.