Facts about Feudalism
The obligations and relations between lord, vassal, and fief form the basis of feudalism.
Outside of a European context, the concept of feudalism is normally only used by analogy (called "semi-feudal"), most often in discussions of Japan under the shoguns, and, sometimes, medieval and Gondarine Ethiopia.
Feudalism was practiced in many different ways, depending on location and time period, thus a high-level encompassing conceptual definition does not always provide a reader with the intimate understanding that detail of historical example provides.
Owing to the range of meanings they have, feudalism and related terms should be approached and used with considerable care.
Bloch conceived of feudalism as a type of society that was not limited solely to the nobility.
Vassalage agreements similar to what would later develop into legalized medieval feudalism originated from the blending of ancient Roman and Germanic traditions.
No writer in the period in which feudalism was supposed to have flourished ever used the word itself.
Outside of a medieval European historical context, the concept of feudalism is normally only used by analogy (called semi-feudal), most often in discussions of Japan under the shoguns.
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Ultimately, critics say, the many ways the term "feudalism" has been used have deprived it of specific meaning, leading many historians and political theorists to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.
Feudalism is a political system of power dispersed and balanced between king and nobles.
Feudalism in twelfth century England was among the better structured and established in Europe at the time.
Round argued that the Normans had imported feudalism, while Maitland contended that its fundamentals were already in place in Britain.
Ganshof defines feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself.
Three primary elements characterized feudalism: Lords, vassals, and fiefs; the structure of feudalism can be seen in how these three elements fit together.
The word, "feudalism," was not a medieval term, but an invention of sixteenth century French and English lawyers to describe certain traditional obligations between members of the warrior aristocracy.
Bloch approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one.
A historian whose concept of feudalism remains highly influential in the twentieth century is Franзois-Louis Ganshof, who belongs to a pre-Second World War generation.
In 1974, U.S. historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown rejected the label feudalism as an anachronism that imparts a false sense of uniformity to the concept.
The following are historical examples that call into question the traditional use of the term feudalism.
Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages," including Feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as a means of political gain.
Feudalism reached its most developed form in the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
Feudalism is sometimes used indiscriminately to encompass all reciprocal obligations of support and loyalty in the place of unconditional tenure of position, jurisdiction or land.
Feudalism had begun as a contract, the exchange of land tenure for military service.