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Feudalism

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Feudalism the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord’s land and give him homage, labour, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection

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. 

Investiture of a knight (miniature from the statutes of the Order of the Knot, founded in 1352 by Louis I of Naples)

The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944),1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ganshof-1) describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs.1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ganshof-1) 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 feodum or feudum (fief),2(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-2) 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.3(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-3) 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.10(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-10)

Definition

The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1405, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century,4(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ebo-4) paralleling the French féodalité.

According to a classic definition by Ganshof,1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ganshof-1) 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,1(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ganshof-1) 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.11(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-FOOTNOTEBloch1964-11)[_[page needed](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citing_sources “Wikipedia:Citing sources”)_] This order is often referred to as a feudal society, echoing Bloch’s usage.

Outside its European context,4(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ebo-4) 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,12(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-jessee1996-12) which had some feudal characteristics (sometimes called “semifeudal”).13(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-13)[[14]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-14) 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, India until the Mughal dynasty and the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in the American South.12(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-jessee1996-12)

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.15(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-15) 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.4(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ebo-4)[[5]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-ebrown-5)

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.16(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-16)[[17]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-17)[[18]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-18)[[19]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-19)

Etymology

Herr Reinmar von Zweter, a 13th-century Minnesinger, was depicted with his noble arms in Codex Manesse.

The word feudal comes from the medieval Latin feudālis, the adjectival form of feudum ‘fee, feud’, first attested in a charter of Charles the Fat in 884, which is related to Old French fé, fié, Provençal feo, feu, fieu, and Italian fio.20(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-:0-20) 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.20(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-:0-20)

One theory about the origin of fehu was proposed by Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern in 1870,21(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-21)[[22]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-22) being supported by, amongst others, William Stubbs23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23)[[24]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-24) and Marc Bloch.23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23)[[25]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety1-25)[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety2-26) 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”.25(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety1-25)[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety2-26) 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.”25(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety1-25)[[26]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-bloch-ety2-26)

Archibald Ross Lewis proposes that the origin of fief is not feudum (or feodum), but rather foderum, the earliest attested use being in Vita Hludovici (840) by Astronomus.27(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-arlewis-27) In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant, which can be translated as “Louis forbade that military provender (which they popularly call “fodder”) be furnished.”23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23)

Initially in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service was called a beneficium (Latin).23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23) Later, the term feudum, or feodum, began to replace beneficium in the documents.23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23) The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier.23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23) The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below.23(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-lubetski-23)

The term “féodal” was first used in 17th-century French legal treatises (1614)28(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-28)[[29]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-29) 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).30(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-cheyette-30) 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.31(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-earbrown160-31)[[32]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism#cite_note-32)

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