Feudelism

Introduction

  • The term feudalism originates from the word feud, which means “conditional ownership of land.” This system, which emerged during the Medieval period (600–1500 AD), became a dominant social and economic structure in Western Europe and eventually spread to other parts of Europe. Feudalism divided society into rigid hierarchical classes, lacked a centralized political authority, and revolved around self-sufficient village economies that produced minimal surplus for trade. As a result, the period was characterized by a decline in both trade and urban development.
  • The Middle Ages or the Medieval Period in Europe was the period from 600 AD to 1500 AD. During this period many social and economic changes took place, especially in Western Europe. A new system of social and economical that was very different from rest of the world developed in Western Europe during the medieval period. It came to be known by the name of ‘Feudalism’.
  • Also, there was lack of a central political authority and it were the numerous Feudal Lords who controlled the affairs of the society. The King was not very powerful. The peasants were exploited by the Feudal Lords and ‘Serfdom’ became an important feature of Feudalism. Moreover, influence of the Church extended beyond religious affairs in Europe.

Table of Contents

Why did Feudalism developed ?

  • Feudalism developed due to lack of a single central political authority in Western Europe as it had disintegrated into many small and big kingdoms. In such a system the local Lords became more powerful than the King and controlled the affairs of the society.

Feudal classes and loyalties

  • feudal society in western Europe Soon developed a hierarchy on graded organisation in which every person was alloted a Position.
  • Every Feudal lord was expected to Pay homage to his overlords and then could be invested with Some formal rights.
    No vassal owned and land he only held the land as of his overlord.
    The feudal hierarchy was so Strong that even the king would not call a baron  knight directly.

Feudal Lords

  • All were lords according to the hierarchy except king and peasant. Since king was at the highest level of the hierarchy, there was no lord above him and peasant was at the lowest level, hence he had no lord.
  • Each Lord had the ultimate power over his own land and each had its own soldiers.
  • He levied taxes on those who lived in fief. And he used to act as their judge and also punished them if they made a mistake.
  • Lords had become so powerful that they began to ignore the king’s and it’s decision. Soon this system became hereditary

Features of Feudalism

  • The economy in the Feudal system was village based and the villages were self sufficient. There was a decline in towns as well as trade during this period. Land, not money, was the main source of power.

The manor

  • The peasants worked on the land of the Feudal Lord, which was organized into many Estates or Manors. Each Manor had a Castle (home of the Lord), farms for peasants to work, houses for peasants to stay, workshops for peasants to produce non-agricultural goods and common woods for lumberjacks to cut. Whatever was produced on the Manor was consumed by the Lord and the inhabitants, while very little was traded. The workers on the Manor included the Serfs and the Tenant farmers. The farm was divided into strips of land. While some were given to the tenants who paid a share of the produce as tax to the Lord, rest of the land belonged to the Lord.

Peasants

The Peasants were classified into following:

  1. Serfs: they worked on the land of the Lord for free and had to perform all labour for him as he desired. They were not free and were tied to the land. This meant that their owners changed with the change in ownership of the land from one Lord to another. This system came to be known as Serfdom.
  2. Freeholders: they got their lands from the Lord. They were free and only paid a tax fixed by the Lord.
  3. Villeins: they also got their land from the Lord. For a fixed number of days they worked for the Lord but otherwise they were free and paid tax in form of a part of their agricultural produce.
  4. Freemen: they were the Serfs freed by their Lords on their discretion.

The King and the Noblemen:

  • The Feudal Hierarchy consisted of the King at the top. Noblemen below the King were also arranged in a hierarchy of overlords and subordinate lords. Every nobleman was a vassal, of and only of his overlord. Being a vassal means owing allegiance or being loyal, in return of which the vassal got some formal rights. This hierarchical system was unbreachable i.e. a lower Lord would only follow commands of his immediate overlord and not of Lords further higher in the hierarchy. Thus couplets of command developed with a command having legitimacy just between two immediate levels. The King could only order the Dukes and the Earls who would then order their subordinate Lords and so on. The Dukes and Earls got military support from the Barons who were like Military Generals who further depended on the Knights, the actual warriors.
  • Further, any Lord himself was not the direct owner of the land under him. He held land in the name of his overlord. Thus legally, all territory belonged to the King. It was the King who only had the authority to grant Knighthood to son of a Nobleman who could then affix ‘Sir’ to his name.
  • Each Lord had his own soldiers and was the sole authority in his estate. Thus there was no central authority in functional terms and King was a central authority only in legal terms resulting in very little political unity.
  • Gradually, this Hierarchy became Hereditary. The sons of a Lord would become the next Lords and the next generation of their father’s vassals would become their vassals.

Conclusion

  • It is quite evident that feudal society was divided into rigid classes with no scope for social mobility. The King had no real authority and the powerful Lords did not think about welfare of the people, majority of whom were peasants. There was economic stagnation, since most of the produce was wasted by Lords in luxurious living. There was no freedom of movement for the peasants as they were tied to the land and individual entrepreneurship was absent.

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