We explain what feudalism is and how society was divided at that time. We also explain what its economy was based on and its characteristics.
Feudalism was a system of social organization that predominated in the Middle Ages.
What was feudalism?
Feudalism was a social system that emerged in the Frankish kingdom in the Early Middle Ages and spread throughout Western Europe during the Middle Ages (between the 11th and 13th centuries). From an economic point of view, it was a land tenure regime that favored the rural nobility and encouraged serfdom. From a political point of view, it meant a dispersion of power in favor of feudal lords with local and regional authority.
Feudal relations were contracts of mutual obligations between two free men: a lord and a vassal. The lord granted protection and lands (called “fiefs”) to a vassal in exchange for loyalty and military assistance. (or other benefits). The kings had their own vassals who, at the same time, could be lords of other vassals, and thus a pyramid of distribution of lands and obligations was formed that involved a good part of society.
In the feudal system The peasants were especially important, since the socioeconomic base was rural. On the one hand, serfs were tied to land that they did not own and had to pay rent to a lord. A land given as a fief always included the serfs who worked it. On the other hand, free peasants had their own lands but could be obliged to pay taxes or taxes to a lord with jurisdictional power.
The term “feudalism” is also used by some historians to characterize other historical experiencessuch as China during the Zhou dynasty, Japan during the shogunate era, and parts of Eastern Europe at various stages in history.
Historical context of feudalism
A precursor to feudalism was the colonate regime in the Roman Empire. In this regime The large landowners settled settlers (freed slaves or peasants) on the land.who had to work them for their own sustenance and to pay rent to their lord, from whom they obtained, in exchange, protection.
After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, Western Europe was divided into several smaller political units until the formation of the brief Carolingian Empire. This implemented a reward system for loyal nobles that involved the delivery of land in exchange for services (especially military).
Following the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century, Several areas of Western Europe were attacked by Magyars, Muslims and Vikings. Defense required speed and fell to local lords who had the resources to build fortifications and gather fighting forces without waiting for the arrival of royal troops.
This encouraged a system of political fragmentation that gave power to feudal lords and gave shape to the High Middle Ages. Nevertheless, from the end of the 11th century onwards, some kings, dukes and counts began a process of concentration of political power that placed them in a position of greater authority in their territories, such as King Louis VI of France, Count Ramon Berenguer I of Barcelona and Duke William II of Normandy who came to the throne of England.
The feudal system lost prominence from the 14th century onwards.when epidemics, peasant revolts and the growing momentum of the urban bourgeoisie diminished the power of the nobility and paved the way for the rise of centralized monarchies.
Feudal society
Social classes
Members of the nobility owned large tracts of land.
Feudal society was divided into three distinct estates:
- Nobility. The nobles owned large tracts of land, generally received as a reward for their military efforts or other services (although in practice they could also be inherited). They were organized into lineages and maintained vassalage ties with other feudal lords or with the king. Depending on their noble titles and their position in the social structure, they could belong to the high nobility (dukes, counts and marquises) or to the low nobility (viscounts, barons, knights, hidalgos, among others).
- Clergy. The ecclesiastical staff, whose highest authority was the Pope based in Rome, dealt with religious matters, which dominated human behavior at the time. Ecclesiastics could belong to the secular clergy who resided in churches and cathedrals, or to the regular clergy who followed the rule of a religious order and resided in convents or monasteries. But they also used to have the privileges of feudal lords.
- Workers. In the conception of the time, this class was made up of serfs, but some historians include in it different types of workers who later formed the so-called “common people”. Serfs were the lowest stratum of feudal society, responsible for cultivating the land and making it produce. They were not slaves but were tied for life to the land of their lord, to whom they had to pay rent in kind and, sometimes, other benefits. Their condition was hereditary. Free peasants cultivated their own land but also had to pay tributes or other obligations to the lord who had jurisdiction over a territory (generally called “seigniory”). Artisans and merchants lived in the cities and, although they interacted with other social sectors, they remained outside the feudal system.
The Church and the nobles They justified this order by arguing that each class had a function determined by God.: pray (clergy), fight (nobility) and work (serfs and peasants).
The highest authority in a kingdom was the king or emperorbut in practice this also depended on vassalage relations with other nobles. Feudal lords often had more de facto power than the king within the boundaries of their own lands.
vassalage
The lords gave their vassals a portion of their lands in exchange for loyalty.
One of the most important institutions of feudalism was vassalage. This consisted of a contract of mutual obligations between two free men: the “lord” and the “vassal”. Vassalage was a commitment of fidelity and service on the part of the vassal (mainly in military matters, although it could also be a payment) and obligations of protection or maintenance on the part of the lord.
In this way, the lord granted his vassals “fiefs”, that is, lands (with the serfs who occupied them) over which the vassals had usufruct rights. For their part, The vassals were committed to assisting their lord whenever he summoned them.Knights were also vassals of a lord (noble or king), but they did not always receive a fief in exchange for their service.
Vassalage affected a good part of feudal society. A king could be lord of a noble vassal to whom he gave a fief, and this in turn be lord of other vassals with similar commitments. The vassalage contract between nobles was formalized with an oath ceremony that included the “homage” and the “investiture.” A vassal who did not fulfill his oath incurred a felony and could lose the fief.. A lord who failed to fulfill his duties could encourage the vassal to break his oath and demand reparation.
In this kind of society, a feudal lord with numerous vassals could sometimes acquire more power than the king himself.
The Knights
Knights were warrior horsemen with a strict code of conduct.
During the times of feudalism the figure of the knight emerged, who It became a literary motif already in medieval epics. and in the chivalric novels of the 16th century (parodied in the famous novel by Miguel de Cervantes The ingenious gentleman Don Quixote of the Mancha).
The knights were Professional warrior horsemen who were in the service of a king or feudal lord. Some received a fief in vassalage. In general, before being knighted they had to complete a series of stages, starting as pages and squires, and they had to be able to acquire their own military equipment (such as swords and armor).
The cavalry was a important military component that offered mobility and attack forcebut it also became an ideal of honour and religious devotion. The knight had to follow a strict code of conduct. Their participation in the Crusades was especially important, and some Catholic religious-military orders, such as the Knights Templar and the Teutonic Knights, were born in the heat of these war campaigns.
The Catholic Church
According to the Church, the estate order of feudalism emanated from God.
One of the most important events of the 11th century was the schism that separated the Western Catholic Church from the Eastern Orthodox Church (1054). But in those years, the Catholic Church also experienced a reform movement provoked by criticism of corruption and practices such as the sale of ecclesiastical offices and religious investiture carried out by laymen (in accordance with the principles of vassalage but against the doctrine of the church).
Some of these reformist movements came from monasteries such as Cluny in France, but the dispute over the appointment of clerics (and even the Pope) pitted the Church against the Holy Roman Empire in the so-called “investiture quarrel” (between 1075 and 1122). Finally, An agreement was reached that the laity could not invest clergy or elect the Supreme Pontiff.and that he should be elected by a college of cardinals. This ensured papal supremacy in religious matters.
In feudal society, ecclesiastics (especially bishops and abbots) could enjoy the privileges offered by their position in the feudal order: they owned land and exploited serfs. But they also provided an ideological justification for the system. According to the Catholic Church, kings ruled by the grace of God.and the rigid prevailing social order, which caused all kinds of suffering to those who did not belong to the privileged classes, emanated from God and should not be questioned.
One of the most important initiatives of the Catholic Church in the years of feudalism was his sponsorship of the Crusades. The first of these military expeditions to the Holy Land arose from a call made by Pope Urban II to all of Christendom (which included the kingdoms and nobles of Western Christianity in agreement with the Byzantine Empire) in order to expel the Turkish Seljuk Empire. of the “Holy places”.
Only the first of these Crusades was successful for Christianity., but it had important consequences, such as the creation of religious-military orders, the strengthening of religious fervor and the opening of trade routes through the Mediterranean. The defeats in the following Crusades had adverse effects for the Church and other privileged sectors.