This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, he was responsible for answering calls to military service on behalf of the lord. The vassal’s principal obligation to the lord was “aid,” or military service. Once the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in a feudal relationship with agreed obligations to one another. From a manuscript of a chanson de geste, c. Roland (right) receives the sword, Durandal, from the hands of Charlemagne (left). Roland pledges his fealty to Charlemagne. Feudalism allowed societies in the Middle Ages to retain a relatively stable political structure even as the centralized power of empires and kingdoms began to dissolve.

Feudalism was thus a complex social and economic system defined by inherited ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations. While modern writers such as Marx point out the negative qualities of feudalism, the French historian Marc Bloch contends that peasants were an integral part of the feudal relationship: while the vassals performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasants performed physical labour in return for protection, thereby gaining some benefit despite their limited freedom.

Karl Marx theorized feudalism as a pre-capitalist society, characterized by the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce, and money rents. Each of these territories developed feudalism in unique ways, and the way we understand feudalism as a unified concept today is in large part due to critiques after its dissolution. Many societies in the Middle Ages were characterized by feudal organizations, including England, which was the most structured feudal society, France, Italy, Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and Portugal. 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. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief formed the basis of the feudal relationship.įeudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire, especially in the Carolingian empires, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without the ability to allocate land to these mounted troops. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of military and non-military service. In exchange for the use of the fief and the protection of the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord. A lord was in broad terms a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the land by the lord, and a fief was what the land was known as.

The classic version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. It can be broadly defined as a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land, known as a fiefdom or fief, in exchange for service or labour. The 11th century in France saw what has been called by historians a “feudal revolution” or “mutation” and a “fragmentation of powers” that increased localized power and autonomy.įeudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries.While modern writers such as Marx point out the negative qualities of feudalism, such as the exploitation and lack of social mobility for the peasants, the French historian Marc Bloch contends that peasants were part of the feudal relationship while the vassals performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasants performed physical labour in return for protection, thereby gaining some benefit despite their limited freedom.This ceremony bound the lord and vassal in a contract. Before a lord could grant land to a tenant he would have to make him a vassal at a formal ceremony.In England, the feudal pyramid was made up of the king at the top with the nobles, knights, and vassals below him.Feudalism in England determined the structure of society around relationships derived from the holding and leasing of land, or fiefs.Feudalism flourished in Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries.Structure of the Feudal State in England.

Feudalism in the middle ages pyramid