Understanding Feudalism in the Middle Ages

• Feudalism is a term coined in the 19th century to describe the social structure of the High Middle Ages (1000-1300 AD).
• Early historians viewed feudalism as a system of land and service exchange.

Structure of Feudalism

• Most land was owned by the king and the church.
• The king granted large estates to great lords (tenants-in-chief) for military and political support.
• Great lords subdivided land to lesser lords, who in turn subdivided it to local lords and peasants.
• The system is often depicted as a pyramid with the king at the top.

Feudal Vocabulary

• Overlord: A king or lord who granted land to a lesser lord.
• Vassal: The person who received land from an overlord.
• Fief: The land granted to a vassal.
• Relationships could cross national borders; lords could hold lands in different kingdoms and owe allegiance to multiple kings.
• Even the King of England was a vassal of the King of France for inherited territories.

Limitations of the Model

• The pyramid model is seen as overly simplistic by modern historians.
• Loyalty ties were not always vertical; many feudal relationships were horizontal among equals.
• Services given for land varied: labor for peasants, alliances for landowners.
• Vassals supported overlords politically and militarily.

Decline of Feudalism

• Medieval kings became less reliant on great lords for soldiers, employing professional soldiers instead.
• By 1300, kings no longer assembled armies based on feudal obligations.
• The Black Death in 1348 reduced the labor pool, increasing the bargaining power of survivors.
• Surviving peasants could choose where to work and demand higher wages.
• The nobility gradually lost control over lower and middle ranks of society.
• The economic importance of towns, with their own charters and trade systems outside feudalism, grew.
• Towns reduced the power of the nobility, leading to the growth of prosperous urban classes.
• Money replaced manpower as the key agent of economic and political power.

Abolition of Feudalism

• Feudalism declined in England from the 14th century.
• Formally abolished in England by the Ten Years Abolition Act of 1660.
• France abolished feudalism after the 1789 Revolution.
• Russian peasants were freed in 1861.
• Remnants of feudalism in the British Isles were abolished by the Scottish Parliament in June 2000.
• The Abolition of Feudal Tenure Act took effect in November 2004.