Feudalism

Defining feudalism is difficult because there is no generally accepted agreement on what it means. In order to begin to understand feudalism, a working definition is desirable. The definition described in this article is the most senior and classic definition and still subscribed to by many. It refers to a general set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility of Europe during the Middle Ages, revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs.

History of the term "feudalism"

In order to better understand what the term feudalism means, it is helpful to see how it was defined and how it has been used since its 17th Century creation.

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Invention of feudalism

The word feudalism was not a medieval term. It was invented by French and English lawyers in the 17th century to describe certain traditional obligations between members of the warrior aristocracy. The term first reached a popular and wide audience in Montesquieu's De L'Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws) in 1748. Since then it has been redefined and used by many different people in different ways.

Related Topics:
17th century - Montesquieu - The Spirit of the Laws - 1748

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"Feudalism" in history

The term feudalism has been used by different political philosophers and thinkers throughout history.

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Enlightenment thinkers on feudalism

Starting in the late 18th Century during the French revolution, radicals wrote about feudalism to tar the antiquated system of the Ancien Régime, or French monarchy. This was the Age of Enlightenment when reason was king and the radicals were appealing to the negative image of the Dark Ages. Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages" including Feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as a means of political gain.

Related Topics:
18th Century - French revolution - Ancien Régime - The Age of Enlightenment - Dark Ages

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Karl Marx on feudalism

Like the French revolutionaries, Karl Marx also used the term feudalism for political ends. In the 19th Century Marx described feudalism as the economic situation coming before the inevitable rise of capitalism. For Marx, what defined feudalism was that the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) rested on their control of the farmable lands, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom. ?The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist.? (The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), ch. 2). This was the definition of feudalism to Marx, a purely economic model.

Related Topics:
Karl Marx - Capitalism - Class society - Serfdom - The Poverty of Philosophy - 1847

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Historians on feudalism

The term feudalism is, among medieval historians, one of the most widely debated concepts. There exist many definitions of feudalism and indeed some have revolted against it, saying the term does not exist at all.

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Origins of English feudalism are debated

In the late 19th and early 20th Century historians John Horace Round and Frederic William Maitland, who focused on medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions as to the character of English society prior to the start of Norman rule in 1066, the former arguing for a Norman import of feudalism and the latter contending that the fundamentals were already in place in Britain — a debate which continues to this day.

Related Topics:
19th - 20th Century - John Horace Round - Frederic William Maitland - English - Norman

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Ganshof and classic view of feudalism

A historian whose concept of feudalism remains highly influential in the 20th Century is François-Louis Ganshof, who belongs to a pre-Second World War generation. He defines feudalism on very narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulted this concept in Francois-Lois Ganshof, Feudalism (Trans. Philip Grierson; New York: Harper & Row, 1964). It is Ganshof's classic definition of feudalism that is the most widely known today and also the easiest to understand. Simply, when a lord granted a fief to a vassal, the vassal provided military service in return.

Related Topics:
20th Century - François-Louis Ganshof

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Marc Bloch and sociological view of feudalism

One of Ganshof's contemporaries, a French historian named Marc Bloch, is arguably the most influential medieval historian of the 20th Century. He approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one. He developed his ideas in his book Feudal Society (Trans. L.A. Manyon; 2 volumes; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961; ISBN 0226059790). Marc Bloch did not conceive of feudalism as being limited soley to nobility, but as a type of society. Like Ganshof, he recognized that there was a hierarchal relationship between lords and vassals, but saw as well a similar relationship obtaining between lords and peasants. This radical notion that peasants are part of the feudal relationship sets Bloch apart from his peers. While the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant performed physical labour in return for protection. Both are a form of feudal relationship. According to Bloch, other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms; all the aspects of life were centered on "lordship," and so we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly (and anti-courtly) literature, a feudal economy. See Feudal society.

Related Topics:
Marc Bloch - Peasants - Feudal society

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More recently there has been a revolt by some historians regarding the use of the term feudalism, with some arguing that the term should not be used at all.

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Revolt against the term feudalism

In 1974, U.S. historian Elizabeth A.R. Brown, in "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe" (American Historical Review 79), challenged the value of using the word at all, rejecting the label as an anachronistic construct which imparted a false sense of uniformity to the concept. She noted that with so many different, contradictory feudalism definitions circulating that, in the absence of any accepted definition, feudalism is a construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back "tyrannically" into the historical record. Supporters of Brown have gone so far as to suggest that the term should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval history entirely. In Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted, Susan Reynolds expanded upon Brown's original thesis. Although some of her contemporaries questioned Reynolds' methodology, her thesis has received support from certain historians. According to Professor Philip Daileader of the College of William and Mary{{fn|1}}, support for removing the term feudalism has been most vocal among those historians who have been traditionally disadvantaged in the profession – such as women historians and historians not from the elite institutions – who gain advantage by shaking up the status quo. The historians and institutions that benefit the most from the status quo, the more conservative elements of the historical profession, are generally more interested in keeping the traditional term feudalism, such as defined by Francois-Lois Ganshof and Marc Bloch.

Related Topics:
Elizabeth A.R. Brown - College of William and Mary

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