Feudalism

10 Key excerpts on "Feudalism"

• 

  eBook - PDF

  Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism

  Essays in Medieval Social History

  • Rodney Hilton(Author)
  • 1985(Publication Date)
  • Hambledon Continuum

    (Publisher)

  The social and economic order of medieval Europe is sufficiently distinct and recognisable, with its own laws of motion, to require some term by which it can be distinguished from preceding and following social formations. If we do not use the word 'Feudalism' we would have to invent one, and it would have to encompass within its definition both feodalite and seigneurie. The feudal organisation which is implied by the word feodalite had emerged by the eleventh century in France and England in different ways but with similar contours. Its coherence must not be exaggerated. Even in England, where the feudal institutions of the new aristocracy were formed quickly as a result of the conquest of 1066, and much less in France, there was no perfect, completed hierarchy of mutual obligation between barons and fief-holding vassals owing military service and expecting protection. One should imagine, especially in France, a series of untidy regional groupings dominated by one or two great land-owning families who derived most of their income from the rents and services of peasants. They also held jurisdictional power, not only over 228 Class Conflict and the Crisis of Feudalism their peasants but over their free vassals—landowners, some of noble pretensions, whose male members were either warriors or destined for office in the Church. By this time personal relationships between the great lords and their vassals were assuming tenurial form, the rendering of homage and fealty and the promise of military service, financial aid and counsel in return for fiefs in land. In fact the mobilisation of military service on this basis, once presented as the essence of Feudalism, was in practice by no means general. By the twelfth century, if not earlier, all the best wars were fought for pay in cash and the hope of booty. The persisting strength of 'Feudalism' in the narrower sense of relations within the landowning class, was as much ideological as it was tenurial or jurisdictional.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Myth of 1648

  Class, Geopolitics, and the Making of Modern International Relations

  • Benno Teschke(Author)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Verso

    (Publisher)

  One way to approach the controversies surrounding Feudalism is by theorizing the relation between ‘the economic’ and ‘the political’ in medieval society. A dominant line of thinking running through the literature – essentially inspired by the work of Max Weber and Otto Hintze – identifies Feudalism as a political phenomenon (Weber 1968a: 255–66, 1070–110, esp. 1090–92; Hintze 1968). Especially Weber, analogously to the significance Marx attributed to possessing the means of production, elaborates on the political significance of possessing the means of administration for the decentralized patrimonial state:

  All states may be classified according to whether they rest on the principle that the staff of men themselves own the administrative means, or whether the staff is ‘separated’ from these means of administration…. These political associations in which the material means of administration are autonomously controlled, wholly or partly, by the dependent administrative staff may be called associations organized in ‘estates’. The vassal in the feudal association, for instance, paid out of his own pocket for the administration and judicature of the district enfeoffed to him. He supplied his own equipment and provisions for war, and his subvassals did likewise. Of course, this had consequences for the lord’s position of power, which only rested upon a relation of personal faith and upon the fact that the legitimacy of his possession of the fief and the social honour of the vassal were derived from the overlord. (Weber 1946: 81)

  As a specific system of government or a hierarchical-military relationship between bearers of political power, Feudalism falls within the confines of political science, constitutional history, or the sociology of types of domination. ‘[Occidental] Feudalism [Lehensfeudalität] is a marginal case of patrimonialism that tends toward stereotyped and fixed relationships between lord and vassal’ (Weber 1968a: 1070; see also Axtmann 1990: 296–8).2 For all their erudition and meticulous conceptual differentiation, these accounts tend to abstract from the agrarian social basis of feudal political power. While Weber was, of course, not blind to the economic implications of Feudalism,3

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Rethinking Terrorism

  Terrorism, Violence and the State

  • Colin Wight(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Red Globe Press

    (Publisher)

  Finally, the strong personal bonds that had existed between ruler and vassals disintegrated over time, particularly given the short life expectancy and the manner in which control of territory was passed down through families; the heirs of the original vassals often felt little or no allegiance to the rulers. An added structural problem was that of religious inter-ference. Church institutions crossed territorial boundaries and provided a sense of commonality and shared purpose that was a direct threat to the ruler’s authority. In fact, church interference in political affairs was to remain a constant problem for all political leaders until the treaties of Westphalia in 1648 formally enforced a clear distinction between affairs of state and religious matters (Bloch, 1989). In the final analysis, such a system could only survive as long as ambitious and ruthless rulers could prevail and overcome the vested interests that ran contrary to their own ambitions, and insofar as they could inflict decisive defeats against other rulers with whom they were in competition. That is why the feudal system might best be characterized as a military/political institution, not a political institution with a military capacity. The structural logic concerning the relationship between territorial control and power at the heart of the feudal system inevitably resulted in an ever-increasing attempt to exercise control over a larger and larger territories; but this very attempt was to be constitutive of the systems’ failure. At the level of ideas, the shared understandings necessary for the maintenance of any social system were not well developed in the feudal era, and there was certainly no body of formalized or codified rules in any consistent form. Equally, spe-cific material developments, such as increasing urbanization, the building of roads and increased transport and communication links would eventually lead to the emergence of new forms of political organization.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - ePub

  The Middle Ages without Feudalism

  Essays in Criticism and Comparison on the Medieval West

  • Susan Reynolds(Author)
  • 2018(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  23 Since historians do not agree about the phenomena they want to distinguish, or where to draw the line between them, none of these attempts to distinguish the words has eliminated misunderstandings and confusions. None of the terminological distinctions has shaken the old framework in which the interpersonal relations of vassalage and property rights derived from conditional grants are seen as distinguishing features of the society of the European Middle Ages. The framework bulges but for many it still seems strong enough to hold the essential features of medieval society.

  Most European historians of medieval Europe during the twentieth century concentrated in practice on the history of their own countries, interpreting the evidence of land-holding and political relations within the framework of feudal law and society embodied in something like the Bloch/Weber definition. Some have seen the Feudalism of their own area as the most typical or complete, some have stressed its exceptional qualities, but relatively few have been ready to question whether the various phenomena they describe were all part of the same thing – whatever model or type of Feudalism they accept or imply. As a result, where evidence of some supposedly feudal phenomenon in their own country is lacking they can either interpolate it from elsewhere or explain its absence as an exception that need not affect the general picture. In England and France historians have used different bits of the Ganshof and Bloch/Weber types to describe, and by implication to explain, quite different situations. Feudalism in England is characterized by a hierarchy of property (though the word tenure, which sounds more feudal, is generally preferred to “property”) and of military service owed from “knights’ fees” – what Bloch called “service tenements.” In England, however, these Blochian characteristics are associated with a strong central power that made noble jurisdiction over peasants relatively unimportant. Feudalism in France, on the other hand, as in Germany, has been seen in terms of fragmented power, with a weak monarchy and a nobility holding “immunities” of jurisdiction over their tenants, while noble obligations to military service have had, in the absence of much evidence, to be assumed.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  A Survey of Constitutional Development in China

  • Hawkling L. Yen(Author)
  • 2019(Publication Date)
  • Columbia University Press

    (Publisher)

  (Record of Ceremonies). 4 i ] Feudalism 41 lost in the early beginnings of society. Ma Tuan-ling (13th century A. D.), the author of a Chinese political encyclopaedia, in his preface to the chapter on Feudalism said: Nobody knows the origin of Feudalism. What is known is that at the meeting of Tusan (in the modern Province of Anhui) called by Yu, numerous nations are said to be present; at the time of Tang's succession to the throne there were 3,000 nations; the Chau dynasty established five classes of vassals which numbered 1,773; and by the time of The Spring and Autumn only 165 were recorded in the Classics. For the sake of conven-ience we may say that Feudalism ended in 221 B. C., when the first Emperor of the Chin dynasty divided the country into thirty-six administrative districts. The feudal system at its height is described in the writings of the Confucian school, from which the follow-ing survey is taken. A. Structure. 1. The king. At the head of the feudal hierarchy is the king, who reserves to himself a domain of 1,000 li l by length and breadth to defray his public and private expenses, distributes honors and emoluments, sees that the royal constitution is upheld, and appoints advisers and assistants to carry out his work. 2. Feudal princes. Under and created by the king there are five classes of feudal princes, namely, the duke, the marquis, the earl, the count, and the baron. The feudal principalities of the first two classes are called large states ; those of the third, middle states; and those of the last two, small states. 3. Royal and feudal functionaries. Directly under 1 A modern It is equal to 1894.12 English feet, but an ancient li was less than this.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  The Birth of Europe

  • Jacques Le Goff(Author)
  • 2009(Publication Date)
  • Wiley-Blackwell

    (Publisher)

  The feudal domain designated the territory dominated by a castle and encompassed all its lord’s land and peasants. It thus included land, men and the income obtained both from the cultivation of the land and from the dues paid by the peasants. In addition, as the master in command, the feudal lord enjoyed a number of rights, known as the ‘‘ban.’’ Given that this system of organization operated throughout practically the whole of Christendom, some historians have suggested replacing the expression ‘‘feudal system’’ by ‘‘seigneurial system,’’ for Feudalism designates a more limited organization in which the lord was the master of a fiefdom that was ceded to him, as a vassal, by his overlord. Strictly speaking, the meaning of the term ‘‘feudal-ism’’ was of a legal nature. Village and Cemetery Most seigneurial domains contained settlements of peasants and subjects known as villages. The village, which replaced the scattered rural settle-ments of antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, became a major feature of eleventh-century Christendom generally. In the Europe of today, the status of castles in the landscape is simply that of a memory and a symbol, frequently in a state of ruin. In contrast, the medieval village, as a form of habitat, survives throughout western Europe. The village originated from houses and fields that were grouped around two essential elements, a church and a cemetery. Robert Fossier rightly believes that the cemetery was the principal element here and may in some cases have antedated the church. Here we have evidence of one of the most deeply rooted characteristics that medieval society has bequeathed to Europe. It concerns the relations be-tween the living and the dead. In the West, one of the most important changes that distinguished antiquity and the Middle Ages was the way that the living took to making a place for the dead, first in their towns and later in their villages.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Islam Under the Crusaders

  Colonial Survival in the Thirteenth-Century Kingdom of Valencia

  • Robert Ignatius Burns(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Princeton University Press

    (Publisher)

  This dialogue between sociopolitical forms characterized a number of contemporary king- doms. King James's realm differed from these not only in the inten- sity of its legal renaissance, but in the nature of its feudal forms and in the ambient nonfeudal society modifying them. THE MUSLIM AS VASSAL The classic textbook Feudalism of northern Europe was organized around serfdom on communal manorial estates and rooted in an immemorial array of military magnates, interlinked with their vas- sals by a psychology of personal loyalties and possessed of a range of governmental powers over their territories—a system recendy dis- 273 THE POLITICAL-MILITARY MILIEU turbed by the intrusion of burghers and by a series of ambitious kings. The textbook picture, though too neat to fit the complexities of life, is not unjust as a general or introductory description. This arrangement did not prevail in the Arago-Catalan kingdom. An approximation might have been found in the rural hinterland, espe- cially in the more backward province of Aragon proper—and by reflection later in the northwest uplands of Valencia where Aragonese settlement waxed strongest. A class of landed magnates and lords was indeed abroad, preoccupied with military adventure and land, owing armed service to the crown, high-handed, family-proud, conserva- tively clinging to special interests, defending themselves readily by rebellion, indignant against taxation or interfering kings, and inclin- ing to demand onerous burdens from their tenants.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Contemporary Russia as a Feudal Society

  A New Perspective on the Post-Soviet Era

  • V. Shlapentokh, Kenneth A. Loparo, Joshau Woods(Authors)
  • 2007(Publication Date)
  • Palgrave Macmillan

    (Publisher)

  4 C h a p t e r 1 0 Personal Relations as a Core Feature of Feudalism Introduction One of the most important elements of Feudalism in contemporary society is the role of personal relations in politics, the economy, and other spheres of public life. Personal relations can be separated into two types. One is based on the interaction between independent sub- jects who try to achieve their goals through mutual help, and the other is based on clientele principles (or suzerain-vassal relations), which suppose a hierarchy in the relations between people. The sec- ond type of relations is more socially important and will be the main subject of this chapter. 1 The high role of personal relations and kinship in social life is one of the main characteristics that separate Middle Ages societies (or so- cieties close to the feudal model) from the totalitarian and liberal so- cieties. This circumstance should not be considered a plus or a minus of Middle Ages societies or other primitive societies where these rela- tions were so important. In some cases, personal relations help orga- nize social life and create order. For many people, even in the United States, the high impact of the personal factor on decisions in the economy or politics is considered a normal aspect of life and not a form of corruption, with which personal relations are often linked. Adam Bellow, in his book In Praise of Nepotism: A Natural History, recognizing the great scope of nepotism in American society, con- tended that a “New nepotism” in America was beneficial for the econ- omy and other spheres of social life. 2 V. Shlapentokh, Contemporary Russia as a Feudal Society © Vladimir Shlapentokh 2007 This opinion is widely shared by ordinary Russians, who do not consider the high role of the personal factor and nepotism as a major evil in society. They are much more hostile toward extortion, bribes, and embezzlement than toward the impact of personal relations on the behavior of officials or businesspeople.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Feudal America

  Elements of the Middle Ages in Contemporary Society

  • Vladimir Shlapentokh, Joshua Woods(Authors)
  • 2011(Publication Date)
  • Penn State University Press

    (Publisher)

  One of the most obvious elements of Feudalism in contemporary society is the role of personal relations in politics, the economy, and other spheres of social life. There are two types of personal relations. One type is based on the inter- action between independent actors who attempt to achieve their goals through mutual cooperation. The other type is based on the clientele principle, or suzerain-vassal relations, which suppose a hierarchy in the relations between people. The second type serves as the main subject of this chapter (Godbout 2000). A feudal form of personal relations is seen when people use their scarce resources to acquire other benefits, advantages, or “rent,” exceeding the level expected by the authoritarian or liberal models. The major social actors who benefit from feudal relations include rich people and corporations, govern- ment officials, and individuals who control networks of influential people. Personal relations play a key role in the process of choosing people for im- portant positions in society, particularly leadership posts in corporate man- agement, politics, and culture. The use of personal relations in the selection of cadres influences the efficiency of major social institutions, as well as the levels of political, economic, and social stability. While in most cases personal preferences and nepotism clearly have a negative effect on the efficiency of social institutions, they also, at times, solidify the social and political order. In general, there are three ways of selecting cadres and controlling their per- formance. First, the democratic principle of selection and supervision is based on the merits and competence of workers and on rational decision making, as described by Weber (1978) and Parsons (1951). It supposes that the electorate 6 Personal Relations in American Politics and Business: A Feudal Phenomenon

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book
• 

  eBook - PDF

  Why Europe?

  The Medieval Origins of Its Special Path

  • Michael Mitterauer, Gerald Chapple(Authors)
  • 2010(Publication Date)
  • University of Chicago Press

    (Publisher)

  178 Probably one of the most vital movements emerging from the Caro-lingian heartland was the dissemination of the feudal system, which swept over the major part of the European continent. Europe as a his-torically developed social space was broadly identical with this “feudal Europe”; it was congruent with the Europe of the Estates system, the outlines of which are even clearer, as is its internal division into core and peripheral countries. Even today, some traditional structures of the feudal and Estates systems influence Europe’s political and social orga-nization, for all its internal differences. The feudal system, as a uniquely European path of Feudalism, owed its genesis primarily to a military innovation in the Carolingian Frank-ish Empire: the buildup of an armored cavalry based on vassalage. But in the long-term historical view, it was the system’s lordship that ulti-mately flourished and not its military side. The creation of the great Carolingian Empire would have been absolutely impossible without the armored knight, but the cavalry was unable to secure the empire permanently; this would be the achievement of later dynasties that capitalized on constructing fortifications. Western and central Euro-pean knights were certainly the most highly evolved type of armored horsemen that were originally found in much of the ancient world in late antiquity and the early Middle Ages. From a military point of view, knighthood would ultimately disappear, in spite of centuries of triumph. After the late Middle Ages, the future would belong to disci-plined foot soldiers, firearms, and the fleet—the foundations of mili-tary domination by Europe’s great powers, the building blocks of their C H A P T E R F O U R 140 future expansionism. Chivalry could not possibly have exploited this particularly problematic aspect of Europe’s special path. Not to put too fine a point on it, chivalry amounted to a military dead end.

  Sign up to read

  Learn more about book