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Longer version
1. The Later Roman
Empire
The western European feudal system grew out of the system of
the later Roman Empire (after Diocletian).
There was a state bureaucracy controlled ultimately by the
emperor, divided into civil and military powers. The civil hierarchy
had at the top a Praetorian Prefect in charge of a Prefecture,
a number of Dioceses each headed by a Vicarius. Britannia was
a Diocese; Gallia was another; Hispania, Italia, Roma and Africa
came under the western Emperor at the top. Each Diocese was made
up of a number of provinces, headed by a governor - but these
are seldom documented.
The military structure included ranks not known to the early
Roman state: Comes and Dux (probably reflecting the change of
the role of commanders: to control barbarian - non-Roman - soldiers).
In the last days of the empire in the west the Comes (plural
Comites) was a superior commander to the Dux. Thus in Britannia
the military commander in charge of coordinating defense against
the raids of the Saxons was the Comes Litoris Saxonica (usually
translated as Count of the Saxon Shore). Dux was the commander
of groups of soldiers answerable to the overall control of the
Comites. These Late Roman military ranks came to be used later
as Dukes and Counts (French Comte), reversing the command structure.
The Christian church was to provide an alternative hierarchy
in parallel to the civil. The term Diocese was appropriated to
refer to the area supervised by an Episcopus (Bishop = Overseer) - though
these were smaller and more numerous than the civil Dioceses.
The church hierarchy was to survive the demise of the Empire
itself. Throughout the feudal period the church was a means for
someone of low status to rise by education in a world where most
of the powerholders were illiterate. Church policy was to soften
the barbarian brutality with the rituals of chivalry.
2. The breakdown of the state
The empire in the west was occupied by the German tribes (see
J.P.Bury) who formed a number of kingdoms headed by German kings.
These grew gradually from the practice of the Roman Empire of
recruiting its soldiers in the west mainly from German tribes
and settling German peoples in the frontier provinces as Auxiliaries
with the duty of guarding the frontiers (from the German peoples
outside). At the beginning of this process the institutions of
the Roman state, the officials, the town councils and so on continued
in being, but gradually faded as the cities lost their wealth.
The Roman law and courts continued in being, in theory, but gradually
lost their ability to function. The new settlers came to live
in places where the native population had declined. Further weakening
occurred when whole tribes (up to 20,000 people) crossed the
frontiers and were not seriously opposed.
In the modern world the situation of the empire, especially
in the West, resembled that of such states as modern Congo where the state exists only in theory but not in practice "on
the ground".
One factor to be remembered here is that an epidemic, probably
similar to the 14th century Black Death occurred in 541-2 in the time
of Justinian. Thus large areas were depopulated.
As the state weakened, the army itself dissolved. In its place
at first were the war bands of the semi-nomadic German tribes.
As there were no longer regular taxes this army had to be paid
by other means. At first this was by more or less arbitrary plunder,
no doubt justified as "taxes". At the height of the
Feudal system the military were paid by requiring landowners
to provide mounted soldiers for the superior lord's army. Money
itself had become so rare (see Henri Pirenne) that almost all
payments were made in kind - the king had to travel round the
country to "eat his rents". So did the Counts and other
lords.
The first recorded example of a German
tribal king assigning land on feudal terms was probably Alboin
first king of the Lombards (Longobardi
= Long Beards) who had invaded and occupied parts of northern
Italy in 568. In 572 he assigned provinces to his associates.
He granted the land on condition of military service to his associates
to whom he gave titles of "Prince" or "Duke".
This act suggests that it had been the practice earlier. But
this was really an extension of the previous practice of the
imperial government settling tribes in an area on condition they
provided soldiers to defend it. This can be seen as early as
Honorius (395-422).
In a time of uncertainty and insecurity each landowner had
to make arrangements for the security of his estates. This meant
he had to maintain a private army from his own tenants and slaves,
or, as was the practice of the later Roman Empire, to pay others
to do it - mercenaries, usually Germans.
Personal Relationships
Marc Bloch emphasises that the State, where relationships were
to an abstract entity, had been replaced by a society where relationships
were personal. That is, the ceremonies by which one man swore
allegiance to another were taken seriously. The duties were mutual
and were to the person rather than to the office, as is the case
in the modern state. Thus if a vassal rebelled against his liege
lord it was a breach of morals and was condemned as such, rather
than as a political act. Instead of the word vassal "friend"
was often used instead (ami or dru).
The oaths sworn were were explicit.
If my dear lord is slain, his fate I'll
share
If he is hanged, then hang me by his side
If to the stake he goes, with him I'll burn
And if he's drowned, then let me drown with him
The oaths suggest that the heart of relations between these
leaders of society was ritualised friendship, going back to the
tribal custom of the wandering German tribes. The modern state
is sometimes idealised as "a government of laws rather than
men" - an explicit rejection of aristocracy and feudalism.
Feudal society was emphatically a society of personal relationships
rather than laws. The oaths were influenced by the Church, anxious
to modify the tribal brutality of the invaders.
Despite these oaths, rebellions against one's feudal superior
were common.
(The Science Fiction novel by C.M. Kornbluth - The Syndic
imagines a replacement of the modern bureaucratic state by a
personal state, derived from the Mafia.)
When the lord died a new oath had to be sworn to his successor.
When the vassal died his heir had to swear an oath to the lord.
Succession was not automatic.
Payments to the king and other superior lords were called
"benevolences" or "aids" - expressions of
friendship rather than of law. But they were invitations one could not refuse.
3. The end of trade (see Henri Pirenne)
After the Muslims gained control of the Mediterranean, trade
by that sea became impossible. After the state ceased to guarantee
the safety of the roads, trade on land also faded away. Goods
that had to travel long distances became very expensive. This
meant that each area had to live on the produce they could grow
or make locally. Money became very rare. The variety of consumption
declined to a very basic level. Almost all exchange of produce
was "in kind" that is, by barter or custom. (Until
well into the Mediaeval period the kings collected their revenues
- rents and taxes - by travelling round the country and eating
them on site - English King John died while on one of those journeys.)
The basic unit became the Manor - a group of villages and
farms that could produce at subsistence level. Instead of taxes
to the no longer existing State there were Rents and Obligations
paid to the landowner (Lord of the Manor). The surplus of the
Manor went to the Lord to enable him to fulfill his obligations
to his superior, the next person up in the hierarchy. The Lord
of the Manor was usually a Knight - someone trained to fight
on horseback.
There wasn't much left to support the peasants - the people
who did the actual work. Everyone, even the lords, lived at a
fairly low standard of living - basics but few luxuries. If the
weather prevented a harvest in one area, people died because
food could not be transported.
4. The status of people
Already the great men of Rome had had huge estates manned by
workers of very low status - slaves. These had replaced the small
family farms of free workers of the period of the Republic. Gradually
the status of the slaves changed, as they acquired the rights
of serfs - the right not to be ejected from the land they lived
on, in return for physical service on the landowner's home farms.
"Free" workers and farmers, where they survived,
lost their freedom as they had to seek "protection"
from the landowners.
Thus slaves and free men alike gradually became serfs.
But the status of landowners also changed. When there was
no longer a state to protect them, smaller landowners needed
the protection of (and from) the greater landowners. Thus the
ancient Roman practice of Clientage grew into a formal obligation.
5. The hierarchy of landholding
As the state disappeared, all land was assigned, at least in
theory, from above, and the landholder owed obligations as a
vassal to a superior. The peasant, as a serf, owed service to
his immediate lord. However, the Customs of the Manor
gave him security of tenure on his land - the landowner could
sell or assign the overlordship but the peasants went with the
land and their children could inherit it. These customs required
the peasant to work on the lord's land a certain number of days
a week and make various payments in money or in produce. They
also gave him rights: such as estovers, to collect firewood,
wood for house repairs and tools; pannage, to allow his pigs
to collect the acorns in the woods and to collect berries; various
categories of grazing. These were regulated by the manorial courts
and by collective resistance against arbitrary seizures by the
lord.
As time passed all these obligations tended to become money
payments, like a modern system of rent.
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Ius primae noctis was almost
certainly not a "law" or custom but merely the collective
memory of the Squire's son behaving badly, from time immemorial.
The Church would certainly have frowned on it and condemned it,
if it had existed as a formal law, even at Manorial level.
See Droit de seigneur wikipedia and
Google droit de seigneur
Snopes deals with this question nicely.
We would not today talk of the "Footballer's Right"
when today's rich behave in the same arrogant way, as reported
in the tabloid press.
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But the Lord of the manor owed service to his superior (liege
lord), usually in the form of supplying armed men for fighting
his superior's battles, or to supply labor for building and maintaining
the lord's castle. The next step up might be called a Baron.
The Barons themselves owed allegiance to a superior also, in
France to the Count, in England to the Earl. With his castle
and army the Baron might have to serve the superiors of the Count,
perhaps the Duke, ultimately for the king. When the king was
weak, or even the Dukes and Counts were weak or in dispute with
one another the Baron might have latitude. In the earlier days
of feudalism the Counts could not easily make the barons obey
them. Politics, cunning and muscle were needed to keep their
allegiance. An example of these might be keeping a subordinate's
sons as hostages.
Each landholding with obligations was called a fief. Some
of these fiefs were held directly from the king.
6. The System in France
(see Marc Bloch - Feudal Society)
King - the kingdom of modern France began when Hugh Capet,
Count of Anjou, was elected king by the barons (Counts and Dukes).
In theory all the lower landholders had to report to him (offer
allegiance in an act of Fealty). In practice he had little influence
over them. The history of the French kingdom is the story of
the process by which the king increased his power over the subordinate
rulers, bringing the anarchic feudal system to an end. Successive
kings accumulated the power to control these subordinates.
Dukes (Le Duc) - the rulers of large provinces, such
as Aquitaine or Bretagne (sometimes the actual duke was the king
of England). A duke usually controlled one or more counts.
Counts - Counts (les comtes) the rulers of smaller
provinces, such as Blois or Anjou, with several castles.
Barons - rulers of small areas round a castle.
Seigneur - French for lord
Other titles, such as Vicomte derive from the positions
created by Charlemagne when he attempted to build a state structure
to reinvent the Roman Empire, as he hoped.
7. Feudalism in England
Although there were some aspects of feudalism in Anglo-Saxon
England before 1066 (see Frank Stenton - Anglo-Saxon England),
William systematised it when he assigned all the land in his
kingdom to his followers, who ignored most of the rights and
customs of the previous English kingdom.
King
The king claimed to own all the land in England, by right of
conquest. He assigned it to his associates, companions and assistants,
keeping some under his direct control. In return they had to
supply him with soldiers. How they provided them was up to them.
Each of the new landholders (who could in theory be dispossessed
by the king at any time) built castles - strongpoints from where
he could control the surrounding countryside and protect himself
from attack by other barons and the Anglo-Saxon peasants. If the king had assigned a province
to one of his followers, as a Duke, in turn he assigned lands
to his associates. The basic unit of manors and groups of manors
was each to supply one knight. Each knight was assigned enough
land to provide him with the means of turning out to fight for
his superior. (The equipment of a Knight was a major undertaking).
The hierarchy was:
Dukes
Rare. Usually the close relatives of the king (wife-Duchess).
Earls (Counts) (In Latin "comes" but in English
Earl from Anglo Saxon or Danish, rather than Count from French).
His wife was called Countess.
Marquess (guardian of the frontiers or Marches: e.g.
Welsh Marches (wife-Marchioness)
Barons - owners of one or more castles, and "protector"
of Manors (wife-Lady).
Knights - someone trained in the warlike arts: sword
use, horsemanship, armor wearing and so on. In the early Mediaeval
period a knight could be made by any superior, later only by
the King. After he was "made" a knight he could use
the title "sir". A knight was usually the lord of one
or more manors - he needed its produce to maintain his expensive
armor. (Wife - lady)
Squires - assistants and apprentices to knights.
By the 18th century Squire was a category of country landowners.
He might be a Mr or a Sir.
See such literature as Henry Fielding - Tom Jones or the novels
of Jane Austen.
Baronet (not a feudal rank) King James the first of
England wanted to raise some easy money. He offered a hereditary
title "Sir" to anyone willing to pay. The title conferred
no rights to attend the Lords but made the owner feel good. The
last person to obtain this title was probably the husband of
Mrs. Thatcher and it descended to her son Mark when Denis died. His title is Sir Mark
Thatcher, Bart.
Lord
At first any superior person. The word itself comes from Anglo-Saxon
when it meant supplier of bread - Hlaford=loaf holder. Later
it had the special meaning of someone called to Parliament as
a great vassal. (Except for Lord of the Manor, just meaning owner
and power holder).
Because the king asserted ownership of the whole kingdom it
means that, although the structure looked like that in France,
the king was never as powerless as the king of France at that
time. 100 years later during the struggle between Stephen of
Blois and Matilda the firm hand of the king was relaxed and so
the barons all became free to behave as they wished, but order
was restored by Henry II and feudal anarchy never came back. He ordered many of the new castles to be dismantled, and enforced his order.
Those who wanted freedom of action migrated to Wales and Ireland.
Younger sons
The eldest son inherited the land and rights. However, he had
to be approved by the superior lord. If the eldest son was a
minor - too young to bear arms - the superior would appoint a
guardian, often himself, and take a proportion of the profits.
Before being installed the new baron had to pay a large sum to
his superiors, including the king. These "fines" were
an important source of revenue. If there was no son but a daughter,
she would be put under guardianship and married off.
Younger sons did not inherit. Thus if trained as knights they
had to find their own living, by fighting, perhaps hoping to
conquer a nice fief. Some might join the Church and learn to
read and write. Others might hire out as mercenaries (study Sir
John Hawksmoor), or go on Crusade. Daughters were to be married, to
increase the landholding of the husband if possible, or they
went into Nunneries.
Serfs (Villeins)
At the bottom of society was a large class of people who were
not free to move where they liked. The ordinary peasant did not
own his land but held it from a landlord. In return he had to
work on the landlord's main farm - often called the demesne (in Scotland the Mains).
His obligations were many. They were listed in the records of
the Manor. They included a set number of days' work a year, the
provision of certain items of produce - rents in kind, such as
fowls, pigs or grain. He also had to pay a tithe of his produce to the Church.A serf could not leave his land without
permission. As well as obligations he had rights: to collect
firewood from the lord's woodlands (estovers), the right to graze
his animals on the common land (pannage). Rights and duties were decided
by the manor courts and were frequently disputed in cases, whose
records often survive.
8. How it ended
Feudalism came to an end as the kings increased their power and
forced the lesser landowners to obey their orders. The economy
in Europe grew again as trade revived. One factor in this was
the growth of a trans-national organisation that moved its produce
about the continent under armed guard. It was the religious Order
of Knights Templar
which owned land in every state, had a centralised management
and soon became richer than the kings because it bought in one
place and sold in another at a higher price. It also operated
the first bank able to operate across the conventional boundaries.
Its wealth helped finance the Cathedrals that were built and
around which grew the new cities. The Cistercians also revived
the economy by opening up unused land and developing monastery
industries.
As economic activity revived the towns grew again and provided
the kings with taxable wealth. The towns did not fit into the
classic feudal structure and undermined it as soon as they appeared.
In Italy they superseded the Feudal lords with a collective government
- Republics ruled not by Lords but by merchants.
Rebuilding the state
In England a formal, non-feudal state came into being. One sign
of this is Magna Carta (1215). This document sets out laws which
the barons wanted the king to agree to. The rights confirmed
in Magna Carta are those the barons thought they were entitled
to in the feudal situation but the Charter itself is the foundation
of a post-feudal system of enforcing those rights. Even more
so was the calling of what is regarded as the first Parliament
by Henry the third (1258). Parliament began to include representatives
of the towns - merchants who were expected to pay taxes. Laws
made by the King in Parliament began to supersede feudal custom
and became the Statutes by which modern Britain is governed.
The hierarchy of land holding gradually ended. Some people became
ordinary tenants, paying for the right to remain with a simple
money rent. The small landowners ceased to have obligations to
higher landholders, other than the king. The king's rights to
land evolved into the rights of the Crown (that is, the state,
an impersonal body).
Henry the seventh (England)
He came to power as the result of a military coup in 1485 against
his predecessor Richard the third. In fact his victory in battle
(Bosworth) was the last act of the Wars of the Roses in which
the fact that various great landowners controlled their own armies
was a major cause. He called these "overmighty subjects"
and banned the private ownership of armies, making it a monopoly
of the king and therefore of the state. This ended military feudalism in England, though it continued in Scotland until the 18th century.
Black Death
- a serious epidemic of an infectious disease disrupted the feudal
system by reducing the number of peasants able to support the
superiors in the hierarchy. Many serfs moved to the towns to
become free.
However, the leaders of Feudal Europe passed on their privileges
and personal codes of honor to become an aristocracy.
Did their codes of honor create the patriotism that gave rise
to the British
Empire?
Technological change
By the 15th century armies were largely paid soldiers. The king
might still call out his feudal vassals - but they could send
money instead, and in fact the king preferred that (the words
called for his vassals; the meaning changed to a demand for money).
The invention of gunpowder rendered the Castles useless, except
by very expensive rebuilding, and made the feudal army pointless.
Philosophical change
The 13th century changes in the church and universities also
played a role in this period. The works of such people as Thomas
Aquinas, Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon changed the intellectual
climate and the attitude of the Church to politics. Aquinas in
particular introduced the idea of popular sovereignty which eventually
led to democracy.
9. Legal Remnants
In Scotland the remnants of the feudal system persist as a financial
device in that many householders have to pay feu duty to a landowner.
Until recently in Britain the descendants of Feudal lords had
hereditary seats in the House of Lords. In France the fossilised
remains of feudalism were abolished by the Revolution of 1789;
in England they faded away in a long gradual process.
Some remnants can be found in the Channel Islands - the fragments of the Duchy
of Normandy still owned by the British Crown. The island of Sark
only gave up hereditary membership of its tiny "parliament"
- the Chief Pleas - on 10 December 2008. Its government officials
still have feudal names - Seneschal for chief judge and speaker
of the parliament. Its system of government had been ruled incompatible
with human rights by the Court of Human Rights of the Council
of Europe and elections were held for a new parliament.
In England some of the peasant rights were removed by the
landowners, especially by the 18th century Enclosures when thousands
of people lost their rights and were forced to move to the industrial
towns. The rights to firewood (Estovers) still exist but even
in October 2008 there are rumours that the Forestry Commission
would like to extinguish these rights, first confirmed by the
Forest Charter, shortly after Magna Carta.
Poaching - the taking of animals for food - on the landowners'
estates went on until the present day. In the 18th century especially
the Commoners dispossessed by the Enclosures took deer, birds
and rabbits from the land where they used to have rights. (See
E.P.Thompson) The landowners, who controlled Parliament, passed
ferocious laws against poaching. Thus some of the original disputes
of the feudal period have never ended but were continued by the
aristocratic landowners.
10. Outside Europe
Wherever the state is weak its functions are liable to be assumed
by the Big Men, the landowners. Spanish colonists took feudalism
to the New World and to the Philippines. The king was far away
and his officials had to work with the landowners who wanted
the same power that they had in Spain itself, or more.
Japan is perhaps
the best example of a feudal system outside Europe. As in Europe
the state was usually weak and the regional landowners were strong
in their local areas. The Samurai class had many similarities
to the Knights of European countries. They were professional
soldiers and highly ritualised - even more so than European knights.
In those colonies where the system of plantations became entrenched,
democracy usually failed to emerge, even after Independence.
Most of Central
America provides numerous examples.
There are today "failed
states" where there is a lack of government. In these
too the outlines of feudalism emerge. The "lords" are
usually called Warlords in the news items from such countries
as Congo
Kinshasa or Somalia.
Street gangs
It can be argued that street gangs show how feudalism or tribalism
can grow, if there is lack of attachment or allegiance to the
State - lack of what Ibn Khaldun called
"group feeling". (But what they lack is the code of
honor expressed in the oaths).
In the modern world Corporations often have more power
over people than the state has, and often control more money
than any but the largest states - and try to make themselves
immune from democratic controls. Their owners dislike paying
taxes and influence governments to reduce their taxes. Is this
a modern version of the Overmighty Subjects that English
kings complained of until the end of the Wars of the Roses? But
they operate not in one of the historic states or nations but
in the world as a whole. Classic feudalism came to an end as
the kings regained the power that the Roman Empire once had.
Could a worldwide power grow up to control trans-national corporations?
Medieval feudalism can be seen as a kind of "protection
racket" and a means of acquiring the lion's share of wealth
to the owners. Modern neo-feudalism extracts the wealth through
"investment banks". What perhaps these institutions
and individuals lack is the sense of obligation expressed in
the oaths and code of honour. The antidote to early medieval
feudalism was urban trade. The antidote to merchant bank neo-feudalism
would be cooperatives, credit unions and mutually owned building
societies - the devices of the British 19th century working class
movement. Now that the banks have collapsed, perhaps we all ought
to start these devices up again? See Gilk
See also Crusades.
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