The Rise of Feudalism
ca. 850 - 1000
Feudalism is a term invented in the sixteenth century by royal
lawyers to describe the decentralized and complex social, political, and
economic society out of which the modern state was emerging. The word is based
on the German vieh, or "cow," the measure of wealth among the early
Germans. It gave rise to the medieval word fief, which generally meant
"something of value." In the agricultural world of the time,
"something of value" was usually land.
“In the
isolation and chaos of the 9th and 10th centuries, European leaders no longer
attempted to restore Roman institutions, but adopted whatever would work. The
result was that Europe developed a relatively new and effective set of
institutions, adapted to a moneyless economy, inadequate transportation and
communication facilities, and a constant threat of armed attack by raiders such
as the Vikings, Magyars, and Saracens”[1]. The most well-known of the institutions were
manorialism which is the organization of
the peasants, monasticism which means the organization of the churchmen, and
feudalism which is known also as the institution of the aristocracy. We are
accustomed to a capitalist economy, good communication and transportation, and
to solving our problems at the state or national level, so we tend to think
that decentralized authority is primitive and ineffective. This is not
necessarily so, and feudalism is not completely foreign to American society.
Let me try to discuss feudalism from two different aspects. The paragraphs in
italics will refer to an example of American feudalism with which most of you
are familiar, if only through films and TV.
When a freeman wished to
"commend himself," as it was called, to the protection of a lord, he
went down on his knees before him, put his hands between the hands of the lord,
and swore to be "his man"that is, to serve him. Then the lord raised
his "vassal," as the man was thenceforth called, and gave him the
kiss of peace. This was called "doing homage" to the lord. Next the
vassal swore to be faithful to his lord in all things; this was the "oath
of fealty."
If the man had land in
his own right, he usually gave it up to the lord, and the lord then gave him
back the use of it. If he had no land before, the lord granted him the use
of some of his own land; and a lance, or a twig, was given him at the time he
did homage, in sign of this. Thenceforth the lord was the real owner of the
land, but the vassal had the use of it till his death. When he died, his son
would do homage and swear fealty to the lord, and then he would be given the
land his father held. Such a piece of land was called a "benefice" or
a "fief," and the name which is given to the whole system was
"feudalism," or the "feudal system." [2]
As a result of this
system the ordinary freemen gained the protection which they so much needed and
the state could no longer furnish. Thenceforth they had a place of refuge, in
the lord's castle, to which they could flee when robber bands appeared; and
they also had a powerful protector to defend them against the attacks of other
lords.
"But," you may
ask, "what good was all this to the lord of the castle? Why was he willing
to admit these men to become his vassals, and even grant them parts of his own
lands as benefices?" That is a question which is easily answered. The lord
needed men to help him guard his castle, and fight his battles; and that
was what the vassals supplied. Every year they might be called upon to serve
their lord as armored knights for forty days in the field, besides rendering
him other services. In this way the lord obtained military followers, who were
closely bound to him by ties of homage and fealty; and the more vassals he had,
the more powerful he became.
The lords themselves in
turn often became the vassals of some greater lord above them, and bound
themselves to bring all of their followers to serve him, when called upon
to do so. In the completed system, the king of the land stood at the head; then
under him were his vassals, and under them were their vassals,—and
so on until we come down to the peasants. They were not looked upon as worthy
to be the vassals of anybody; they were called "serfs" or
"villains," and had to till the soil, and raise the food which
supported all the classes above them.
From
what you have been told you might think that feudalism was an organization only
for fighting; but it was something more than this. It came to be an
organization for governing the land as well. The power of the kings became so
weak that the feudal nobles were able finally to take into their own hands most
things that the head of the state ought to have done. In this way it came about
that the feudal lords had the right to make war, coin money, make laws, and
hold courts in their fiefs. Sometimes they had their own gallows on which to
hang offenders. The power that ought to have been in the hands of the head of
the state was thus split up into many bits, and each of these great lords had
part of it.
“The growth of the
feudal system was going on everywhere in Western Europe from about the eighth
to the eleventh centuries. It grew slowly, but it grew surely; for in the
weakened condition of the state it was the form of organization that best met
the needs of the people.” [3].So
everywhere, in Spain, in France, in England, in Germany, and in Italy we find
the feudal castles arising; and men everywhere gave up their free land,
received it back as fiefs, and became the vassals of lords above them.
The existence of
feudalism is one of the most important facts about the middle Ages. It is this
which makes the government of that period so different from the governments of
Greece and Rome, and also from the governments of to-day. Feudalism, moreover,
led to other important changes. In the Church it made the abbots and bishops
the vassals of the kings and nobles for the land which the Church held; and
since vassals owed military service, the bishops and abbots often became more
like feudal warriors than mild and holy servants of Christ. Because the chief
business of vassals and lords was fighting, much attention was paid to arms and
armor, and to training for war. In this way arose the wonderful coats of mail
and suits of armor of the Middle Ages; in this way also arose the long training
which one had to go through to become a knight, and the exciting
"tournaments" in which the knights tried their skill against one
another.
It has been argued that
historians have interpreted medieval documents and histories in terms of this
view, and that, when we examine the documents more closely, there is actually
very little evidence that society was really organized in such a fashion. This
may very well be true, but a new and different picture of medieval society in
the ninth through the fourteenth centuries has yet to be developed. Lacking
anything possible better, it is only reasonable that we should turn our
attention to the traditional portrayal of feudal society.
What
events led to the rise feudalism in Europe?
They are:
*the rise of Christianity in Europe
*the fall of the Roman Empire
*the rise to power of the barbarian kingdoms
*fall and division of Charlemagne's empire
*the rise of Christianity in Europe
*the fall of the Roman Empire
*the rise to power of the barbarian kingdoms
*fall and division of Charlemagne's empire
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF FEUDALISM
Ineffective central government
Feudalism is a decentralized organization that arises when central authority cannot perform its functions and when it cannot prevent the rise of local powers.The Carolingian imperial government, embroiled in civil wars, was unable to maintain law and order at the local level, to provide government direction of the economy, or to protect local areas against raiders.
At the close of the First World War, millions of young men, trained to fight and laden with "war souvenirs" returned to an America in which there were not enough good jobs for them to fill, and in which the government was busily engaged in cutting expenditures such as for policemen and was engaged in a constant struggle to stop people from drinking alcoholic beverages Prohibition.
In a feudal society, civil and military powers are assumed by local landowners or other people of wealth and power.
Much as churchmen assumed governmental authority with the fall of the Roman Empire in the West, local leaders, such as Count Robert of Paris assumed the role of local leadership. Other individuals in other areas gathered retinues of fighting men and took over the role of the government in those territories they could control. Often enough these were imperial officials whom the imperial government could no longer keep in check, but others also emerged as local leaders.
“In American cities in the 1920's, neighborhood gangs often arose. Since the neighborhoods were often ethnic, the gangs tended to be dominated by Italians, Irish, Germans, or whatever group was dominant in the district. These gangs claimed jurisdiction over their neighborhood, "territory," or "turf," and collected taxes in the form of "protection money" for the services they performed”[4]
The local leaders and their retinues begin to form a warrior class distinct from the people of their territory.
The local leaders who emerged during the decay of the Carolingian Empire were generally armed men, particularly armed men mounted on horseback and possessing a fortified residence. The Carolingians had created this force and had paid it with grants of land from the territories into which the empire had expanded. When the empire ceased to expand, these fighting men still needed lands, since they were a growing class, and were forced to take it. They first took control of the lands on which they were resident, then gained whatever lands they could from the imperial estates, and finally, began to seize nearby church lands. For the most part, the people of these lands welcomed the takeover, since they were exchanging a distant and ineffectual imperial government for a familiar local and effective one.
Municipal governments at first tried to curb the growth of the gangsters, but their police soon found that they were outclassed. The gangsters drew from the trained fighting men of the demobilized army and built and used fast armored cars, submachine guns, hand grenades, and were often highly disciplined. The city governments were no more able to keep them from organizing their territories, than the highway patrols were able to overtake their supercharged cars.
The distinction between private rights and public authority disappears, and local control tends to become a personal and even hereditary matter.
Perhaps the "aristocracy" that emerged as the local leaders in the feudal age was doing no more than the Merovingian and Carolingian monarchs had done by considering their "territory" their private possession. This was not unusual during the Middle Ages; various kings named Louis frequently signed their names "FRANCE." In any event, the feudal leaders began to treat governmental functions as private possessions, which they could loan, give, away, or pass on to their children. This allowed a feudal structure of society to emerge as local leaders gave their followers the income from some governmental post in payment for their services which could vary considerably.
Perhaps the gangs simply followed the pattern set by city governments of the time, which put their political workers on salary by giving them a position in the city government where they could enjoy a regular income while still devoting their full time to advancing the political fortunes of their bosses. In any event, the gang leaders, or "bosses" that emerged began to divide up their territories, giving their followers, or "boys" the right to a share of the income from a given district.
The feudal leaders often take over responsibility for the economic security of their territories, and dictate how resources are to be used, while at the same time establishing monopolies over some activities. This strengthens their presence at the local level and also makes their possessions even more valuable.
The feudal lords of Western Europe, through the men to who they had distributed fiefs, began to exert economic control over the villages and districts under their control. The woods became the lord's possession, and hardwoods useful for building and weapons could not be cut. All fuel had to be used sparingly, and the lord was paid for wood taken from the woodlands, game caught there, pigs put to pasture there, and so on. The lords also build over’s, baths, grain mills and the like as monopolies. Villagers had to patronize the lord's monopolies and pay for the privilege. This gave the lords the opportunity of granting fiefs other than land, such as the income from a mill in a certain village, or the revenue from fishing rights in a certain stream.
THE gangs were soon aware that people wanted things that the government did not want them to have primarily alcohol, gambling, and prostitution and that the government could not prevent the gangs from providing those amenities. They were soon "licensing" or actually establishing illegal activities within their territories brothels, the numbers game, casinos, and, most of all, saloons who were known as "speakeasies". The gangs grew wealthy enough so that they could purchase the services of underpaid local officials, increase their own full- time personnel, and still have considerable income left over to invest in "legitimate" businesses
The feudal aristocracies are usually organized on the basis of private agreements, contracts between individuals
By the 900's, some local lords the duke of Aquitaine, the count of Toulouse, the count of Flanders, and other had become powerful enough that they began to absorb the lesser lords and territories around them. Sometimes this was a simple matter of conquest, but more often the result of a feudal war was an agreement between the two opponents in which one turned his lands over to the other and received them back as a fief in exchange for service.
“In many cities of America, various territorial gangs absorbed their lesser neighbors, and began to take over the turf of their more formidable adversaries. This process, known as "muscling-in," usually took the form of attempting to infringe on one or more of one's neighbor's monopolies, such as the sale of whiskey, but it often led to open warfare. The war in Chicago between the Italian and Polish gangs of the South Side under the leadership of Al Capone against the North Side Irish-German mob of Dion O'Bannion and his successor, Buggsy Moran, were particularly bloody and famous, ending with the St. Valentine's Day Massacre of 14 February 1927. Within a few years, each major city was under the control of a single individual -- the "Godfather" -- who managed the boys in his "family" and conferred with the Godfathers of the families of other cities to keep the peace and work together effectively. It was in this fashion that the "syndicate" emerged.”[5]
CONCLUSION:
As far as I have observed ,feudalists were the key components and historic role in Middle Ages and the rise of Christianity in Europe, the fall of the Roman Empire ,the rise to power of the barbarian kingdoms ,fall and division of Charlemagne's empire all these reasons led the rise of feudalism ion Europe and this rise rose up and spread up in Asia also, which was very devastating and harmful period for Asia but gradually with the development this issue was also resolved but yet there are some countries in Asia where this feudal Lord system has been converted in Master Slave system in Asia, Especially in Pakistan .My topic is just to cover the main issues of rising up of feudalism in Europe so I did as best as I could .Thanks
BIBLOGRAPHY
Ø Bisson, Thomas N. "The 'Feudal Revolution.'" Past
and Present 142, 1994
Ø Bloch, Marc Léopold Benjamin. Feudal Society. Translated by L. A.
Manyon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
Ø Coulborn, Rushton, comp. Feudalism in History. Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1956
Critchley, John. Feudalism..California: Printed by Allen & Unwin. 1978
Critchley, John. Feudalism..California: Printed by Allen & Unwin. 1978
Ø Toynbee, Arnold P., A. L. Kroeber, .Conference on Feudalism. Princeton:
Institute for Advanced Study. 1950
Ø Herlihy, ed., The History of Feudalism, London, Humanity Books, 1970;
Ø J. R. Strayer, Feudalism, New York, Krieger Publishing Company, 1979
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