the middle ages feudalism in the middle ages answer key

The second variant is most often associated with the great French historian and Second World War resistance fighter, Marc Bloch (d1944), who wrote a celebrated book called Feudal Society ( La Société Féodale) in 1939. By this definition, many parts of the world for much of recorded history could be defined as feudal, not just medieval Europe. These tenants, or peasants, were constrained by various extra-economic ties to their landlords, but retained a great deal of autonomy in how they organised their labour within a family structure. Feudalism in this tradition became a label for an economy where most work was done not by enslaved people (as Karl Marx imagined had been the case in the ancient world), nor by wage labourers (as is the case in industrialised societies), but by tenant farmers. Here feudalism refers not so much to the legal technicalities of fiefs and vassalage, but to the economic circumstances which underpinned them. The first to emerge was a Marxist understanding. (Image by Getty Images)įrom this original concept of feudalism, historians developed two other approaches. In the oldest understanding of feudalism, explains Prof Charles West, a landed estate would be granted by a lord to someone, sometimes called a vassal, in exchange for a promise of loyalty. Many of these questions were first aired systematically in a work known as the Libri Feudorum (‘Books of Fiefs’), a mid 12th-century legal compilation made in northern Italy.Ī vintage engraving of a medieval lord receiving a grant of land from a king. Could a vassal sell their fief to a third party? Was a fief hereditary? What could a lord reasonably ask their vassal to do? Did vassals have obligations to their lord’s lord? And so on.

From the later Middle Ages, lawyers piled elaboration after elaboration on this basic relationship, exploring all the implications in great technical detail.

A fief was typically a landed estate which was granted by a lord to someone, sometimes called a vassal, in exchange for a promise of loyalty, sometimes termed homage. This thinks of feudalism as a post-Roman legal system, based on the fief (Latin: feodum). In fact there are three distinctive historiographical traditions within which feudalism has played a major role – or, put differently, three slightly different answers to the question: ‘What was feudalism?’ The first, and the oldest, is a legal tradition, stretching back to the French philosopher Montesquieu (d1755). The peasants made or produced almost everything they or their Lord needed for daily life.This wasn’t always the case.

Peasants: Peasants were poor citizens who would farm or practice another service on the lords land in exchange for fiefs, or land. Knights: Kights were mounted warriors who pledged to defend their Lord's land from invaders, in exchange for fiefs, or land. The Lords would live in Manors, castle-like houses, while the Kights and Peasants would live in cottages spread around the Lord's land. For living on the Lord's land, Peasants had to pay high priced taxes, like taxes on grounding grain in the Lord's mill and getting married. Nobles: In the Feudal System, Nobles were rich land owners who would grant fiefs, or land to vassals in return for them to take care of the land or protect the land using military force. The Nobles in this cycle would be the Lords who would give fiefs to peasants in exchange for the peasants to work the land. The wealth of these Lords came from the labor of the pesants. The lords would also give land to Kights, who in return would protect the land from invaders. The cycle of Feudalism mainly revolved around Lord's, Knights, Priests, and Peasants. The citizens of the country were still loyal to the King, but they were mostly preoccupied with being loyal to their Lord. King: In Feudalism, the King who ruled over the country was not very involved in the cycle. In the feudal system, wealthy Nobles, or Lords will give a fief, or land to a vassal in exchange for military protection or other services. The feudal system is based on mutual obligations between Lords and vassals.

The middle ages feudalism in the middle ages answer key