Feudalism is a subject of enduring interest to historians, sociologists, and economists.
Although definitions vary widely, the term generally designates the socioeconomic order of Western Europe in the central and later Middle Ages c. Feudalism has been the subject of intense debate and it is important to distinguish broadly between three models of the phenomenon which amount, in effect, to different definitions of feudalism: Each of these is based on different premises, though all purport to describe aspects of European society in the Middle Ages.
Feudalism derives from the Medieval Latin feudum plural: As originally employed, feudalism refers to a tenurial system based around fief-holding. It continues to be used in this strict legal sense, as we shall see, but has also taken on broader connotations.
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The pioneering work on feudalism was undertaken in eighteenth-century France. Within this context, the term French: In some languages this model is even distinguished from its other socioeconomic counterparts. Thus in German Lehnswesen denotes feudalism in a legal sense, while Feudalismus is preferred for other models, and in Dutch a similar distinction is made between leenstelsel and feodalisme.
According to the legal model, feudalism is characterized above all by feudal tenure: For tenure to qualify as truly feudal, however, the tenant must not only hold his land as a fief or benefice, but also be the vassal of his landlord. Traditional teaching holds that enfeoffment and vassalage were originally distinct, but came to be associated in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries, when the powerful Carolingian dynasty came to prominence in mainland Europe.
This period saw much infighting within Francia a region encompassing much of modern France as well as parts of Germany, the Low Countries, Switzerland, Austria, and northern Spain as well as the rapid expansion of the Frankish realm from onward. As a consequence — so the traditional wisdom — vassalage and fief-holding became associated: The result was that benefice-holding or enfeoffment, as it would later be known became related closely with vassalic status, eventually leading to the unification of the two phenomena Ganshof, Although this first emerged in the Frankish heartlands, it was soon exported across the rest of Western Europe by means of conquest and settlement.
This form of tenure in exchange for service was defined by two rituals, homage and investiture, relating respectively to the two elements of the feudal relationship the personal and the tenurial. The first forged the bond of service: The second, which generally followed on from the first, enacted the property transaction: Together these acts created the so-called feudo-vassalic contract Mitteis, There were important consequences of this for both sides: In theory, if either party failed in its obligations, then the contract was dissolved and the property reverted to the lord.
The contract also came to an end upon the death of either party.
Meaning of "Lehnswesen" in the German dictionary
In the early days of feudalism, the lord might then enfeoff a new vassal; however, fiefs had a tendency to become inheritable and from the late ninth century what tended to happen was that homage and investiture would be repeated whenever lord or man died what in German is termed Herrenfall and Mannfall. The strength of this model of feudalism lies in its precision: Its greatest danger, however, lies in its prescriptiveness. More problematic, however, is the premise on which this model rests: As we shall see, there is good reason to doubt that this took place at least so early.
Rejecting such an early unification of fief and vassalage has significant implications. Whereas Ganshof and Mitteis treated feudalism as an early medieval phenomenon, treating the development of rights of inheritance and the multiplication of vassalic bonds as signs of the weakening of this system in the central Middle Ages, it now seems that these latter phenomena an integral part of feudalism from the start. As a consequence historians increasingly see the central and later Middle Ages as the heyday of feudal tenure, rather than as a period of decadence and decline Carpenter, ; Spieb, , As noted, beside the legal there are two other distinct models of feudalism: These are broadly similar, insofar as they both treat feudalism as more than a form of tenure.
Nevertheless, they are based on very different premises: The defining feature of feudalism in the Marxist sense is the so-called feudal mode of production. According to Marx, a mode of production German: Productionweise is defined by productive forces encompassing both human labor and tools and technology and relations of production the societal relations governing production.
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Marx postulated a number of different modes, the most important of which within this context are the slave or antique mode, the feudal mode and the early capitalist mode, each of which succeeded one another in Western Europe between Roman antiquity and the Early Modern period. In all of these modes agriculture is the main source of surplus; what distinguishes them is the means by which this is generated: One of the salient features of societies dominated by the feudal mode is a tendency for competition to emerge between central authority and the ruling classes often in the form of a struggle between center and periphery ; since the latter derive their wealth from the same sources and in the same manner as the state, centrifugal tendencies are common, though by no means inevitable see, with different emphasis, Anderson, ; Haldon, Although Marx was relatively uninterested in precapitalist modes, a rich literature has developed on the theme.
The greatest problem here has been distinguishing between different modes, and these debates have important implications for our understanding of the feudal mode. Hence, though the feudal mode is often presented as a preeminently European and medieval phenomenon e. Seen in these terms, the feudal mode is the most common precapitalist mode, which is attested not only in medieval Europe, but also across much of Asia and Africa before the modern era.
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Chris Wickham points to the extraction of surplus in the form of rent and services rather than taxation as the defining feature of medieval European feudalism Wickham ; Wickham, However, it is precisely the variety witnessed within the feudal mode thus conceived which has led some commentators to call for a more restricted usage of feudalism within Marxist analysis. Jairus Banaji, in particular, argues that feudalism is in danger of losing its explanatory force when defined so broadly, suggesting that such work underestimates the differences between medieval European feudalism and other tributary forms of society Banaji Perhaps the most widely employed model of feudalism is the sociological or social historical.
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Within this work, Bloch aimed to present rather than define feudalism and it was only after having completed his two-volume survey that he felt in a position to summarize its salient features: Another important feature of feudal society was manorialism, though this was not a defining characteristic thereof. According to Bloch, feudal society developed in two stages, neither of which could be defined by tenurial developments alone: The first age witnessed the development of a feudal society: Lehnswesen L [] Sententia de feudis imperii non alienandis Reichsspruch gegen die Entfremdung von Reichlehen , Oktober [ Rudolf Hoke, Ilse Reiter, Ihnen seien die Landwirte Abgaben schuldig gewesen.
Im Anhang seines Buches stellt Stermann nicht nur die Buch eins ist dem Schafhausener Lehnswesen , der Besiedlungsentwicklung und der Familiengeschichte der Lehnsnehmer bis in die heutige Zeit gewidmet; Hierbei handelte es sich um ein System der Vergabe von Land oder Jahrhundert aus dem Lehnswesen entwickelt, wodurch die Verwaltungsform der geografisch betriebenen German words that begin with l.
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