feudilism

A detailed Summary of feudilism

The term feudalism is derived from the Latin feodum, for "fief," and ultimately from a Germanic word meaning "cow," generalized to denote valuable movable property. Feudalism began around 450 AD after German invaders had conquered Rome. Its origins were between the Rhine and Loire rivers, but it soon spread from France to Spain, Italy, and later Germany and Eastern Europe. It reached its maturity around the 11th century and proceeded to grow into the 13th century. Feudalism continued in all parts of Europe until the end of the 14th cent.

Feudalism origined out of the failure of the centralized government in the 9th century, which made Europeans insecure. Feudalism is a system of human relationships i.e. mutually beneficial personal agreements between people for the purpose of protection and justice. Agreements consisted of private contracts wherein one person accepted the position of being a dependant of another and this agreement was guaranteed by grants of land called fief.

In an ideal feudal society the ownership of all land was vested in the king. Beneath him was a hierarchy of nobles, the most important nobles holding land directly from the king, and the lesser from them, down to the seigneur who held a single manor. The p

A typical manor consisted of several hundred acres with arable land for raising crops, having poultry and farm animals and usually natural supply of water. A half of this was cultivated and reserved as a domain for the lord's support and remaining was allotted to the peasants for their own support. These peasants were known as serfs who were at the lowest level of feudal hierarchy.

The feudal system rested on the unsettled conditions of the times and thus on the need of the lord for armed warriors and the need of the vassal for protection. The nobility was essentially a military class, with the knight as the typical warrior. Since equipping mounted fighters was expensive, the lord could not create his armed force without the obligation of the vassal to supply a stipulated number of armed men, a number that varied from the service of the vassal himself to the service of hundreds in private armies. The gradations of nobility were, therefore, based on both military service and landholding. At the bottom of the social scale was the squire, originally the servant of the knight. Above the knight were classes that varied in different countries-counts, dukes, earls, barons, and other nobles. The vassal owed, in addition to military service, other dues and services that varied with local custom and tend to become fixed, as in the case of aids. The obligation of the overlord in the feudal contract was always the protection of the vassal.

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Approximate Word count = 1522
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: History