Feudalism

Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, religious, and political institutions and customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.

The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and the peasantry, all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society".

Although it is derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), which was used during the medieval period, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown's "The Tyranny of a Construct" (1974) and Susan Reynolds's Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society.

Some scholars have also applied the label outside of Europe, including feudal Japan, medieval Ethiopia, Spring and Autumn period China, ancient Egypt, the Parthian Empire, India until the Mughal dynasty, the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in the American South, and premodern Mongolia and Central Asia.

Definition

The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1406, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, paralleling the French féodalité.

According to a classic definition by Belgian medievalist François Louis Ganshof, feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around the key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs, though Ganshof himself noted that his treatment was only related to the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word."

A broader definition, as described in Marc Bloch's 1939 Feudal Society, includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm: the nobility, the clergy, and those who lived off their labour, most directly the peasantry, which was bound by a system of manorialism. This order is often referred to as a feudal society, echoing Bloch's usage.