Feudalism

Category: Fields of research

Feudalism is a specific political and economic system that existed in Western Europe in the Middle Ages. The political system of feudalism had a shape like a pyramid, on the top was the monarch, and directly subjected to him were aristocratic lords, who ruled over their fiefdoms, those lords had power over their vassals, those vassals had their retainers and knights, and in the bottom were peasants, who were in most cases serfs. All participants in this system were bound by contracts that included allegiances and obligations from both sides – those who had more power protected their vassals, while in turn they fought the enemies of their liege. The economic system of feudalism was based on manorialism, i.e., large parts of agricultural land were owned by lords, who gave those lands to their tenants – serfs of free peasants, to work on and pay the rent for it.

Marc Bloch’s most famous work is the two-volume book Feudal Society (1939–1940). In it, he studies the social, political, and economic structure of societies in Western and Central Europe between the ninth and thirteenth centuries. Bloch divides societies in that geographic area into those with indigenous feudal systems (France, Germany, and Italy), those with imposed feudal systems (England), and societies where feudalism wasn’t adopted (Scotland and Scandinavia). He also examined cases of feudalism outside of Europe, like in Japan. Since his field of study was geographically and historically very wide question of the uniformity of feudalism as a system arose. While some historians argued that feudalism was one uniform system through all of this area and time, others state that differences across time and place were too wide for feudalism to have any semblance of a unified system. Bloch took the middle ground in those debates as he argued that feudalism existed in a similar form all over said period and area. The main feature of feudalism is that it was a hierarchic and contractual system based on reciprocal dependence of actors. Feudalism came into existence in specific geographic area and historical moment because those circumstances allowed subjects of monarchic rule to seek more freedoms and limit the power of their rulers by installing reciprocal binding contracts. Bloch distinguished two periods in the development of European feudalism, the first period was the outcome of invasions and devastation, and the later period, where the economy expanded and culture experienced an intellectual revival. With the spread of towns, market economy, and national monarchies feudal system declined, but it left a significant mark on the notion of political contract as the fundamental basis of a political system.

Paul Hirst and Barry Hindess, In their book Pre-capitalist Forms of Production (1975), critique the classical Marxist view of feudalism and the Asian mode of production. They believe that the key relationship for feudalism is the economic appropriation of surplus by the owners of the land, from those who cultivate that land, regardless of the legal form (tax, rent) of appropriation of surplus. In addition, the specific legal position of those who cultivate the land is not important for feudalism, unless they are slaves. Feudalism, as an economic form, can be applied to any agrarian society, regardless of whether it is at the state stage or not.

Perry Anderson wrote two books concerning feudalism, both published in 1974 - Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism and Lineages of the Absolutist State. In the first book, he explores the dynamics of the slave-owning system of production in antiquity and especially focuses on class struggles in the period of the declining power of the Roman Empire. He further explores how this dynamic influenced the emergence of various forms of feudalism in Europe. In Lineages of the Absolute State, Anderson explores the development of fourteenth-century feudalism. During that period, feudal relations in England and France weakened, but so did those relations in Eastern Europe. He believes that feudalism was reconstructed then because the domination of the aristocracy was transferred from the local feudal estates to the absolutist central state. The absolutist state implemented measures that protected the collective interests of the aristocracy, and it was these measures, although unintentional, that enabled the emergence of the bourgeoisie. The increase in the power and wealth of both the state and the bourgeoisie was made possible by the monetization of taxes and land rents, the purchase of positions within the state administration, and the protection of domestic monopolies and colonial conquests. The different paths of development of feudalism in different states depended on several factors: the strength of the aristocracy in each state, the level of autonomy of cities, and military successes and failures. In this way, Anderson explained how the bourgeoisie emerged within certain absolutist states. Apart from being a theorist of Marxism, he has recently become known as a theorist of postmodernism.

Marvin Harris argues that when the Western Roman Empire fell in the fifth century, areas of Western Europe did not fall into the "Dark Ages" but continued to function on the principle of local agriculture within feudal kingdoms. However this feudal order was not the same as before the rule of Rome. The population grew and became completely sedentary. Feudalism was more rigid and formal, and serfs were assigned permanently to the new aristocracy. In Europe in the Middle Ages, unlike hydraulic empires, there was no bureaucracy, no centralized collection of taxes and labor. The basic units were independent, self-sustaining manors with rain-fed agriculture. Because medieval rulers could not deny their subjects water or the conveniences brought about by projects requiring massive labor, the feudal aristocracy could achieve political independence, as it needed no help from the central government to rule independently. At the beginning of the sixth century AD, the population density north of the Alps was very low, but due to the greater accessibility of steel axes and saws, more and more forest areas were cleared and areas for agriculture were created. The invention of the horseshoe increased the importance of the horse as a draft animal, and the new plow made it possible to cultivate the land much better. A new crop rotation system was developed. All this enabled a huge increase in the population in these areas.

The feudal lords participated in trade and encouraged the development of cities and the crafts and trade that were carried out in them. At the beginning of the second millennium, the population increased, agriculture improved, and cities and trade flourished throughout Europe. Harris believes that it took 500 years for cities and markets to overturn the feudal order because serfs and free peasants were able to maintain a relatively high standard of living from agriculture during that time. As the population grew and the efficiency fell, the feudal lords began to look for an additional source of income in raising sheep for wool, which further limited the area of arable land, reduced peasant holdings and drove the majority of the peasant population into complete poverty. The plague that struck Europe in the fourteenth century contributed to a period of intense political and economic turmoil. There were massive peasant revolts, messianic movements, the extermination of Jews, dissension in the Catholic Church, and the organization of the Inquisition. The consequence of reaching the ecological maximum of the population under the feudal system is the development of technology, science, capitalism, colonialism, and finally parliamentary democracy.

In The Development of Capitalism in Russia (1899), Vladimir Lenin claims that Russia in the nineteenth century represented a feudal society in which the peasantry continued to live in serfdom, while at the same time, the cooperative form of ownership persisted. However, Russian feudalism is not characterized by only one form of production (agricultural-feudal), but it forms a "social formation" that includes other forms of production, and above all, the beginnings of the capitalist form of production. Russian feudalism, as an economic order, operates within a strong and centralized absolutist state. Lenin concludes that Russia is going the "Prussian way", that is, it is going through the same form of transformation that happened in Prussia. As in Prussia, in Russia, the feudal lords slowly became an agricultural bourgeoisie (similar to the Junkers in Prussia) as they began to employ workers to produce goods for the market. This path of development leads to the breakdown of rural cooperative life and rapidly divides the peasantry into several strata. At the top is the agricultural bourgeoisie, in the middle is the middle peasantry, and at the bottom of the pyramid are the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians. In Lenin's opinion, this stratification is positive because it creates natural allies for the industrial workers from the rural proletarians and semi-proletarians, to carry out the communist revolution.

Bryan Turner argues that in the age of feudalism, religion was not of equal importance to all classes. The peasantry was mostly indifferent to religion because they mostly practiced a combination of paganism, folk religion, and magic. Religion was important to the feudal lords because it regulated marriage and family relations, and the most important area of regulation was the right to inherit property within the family. Religion legitimized the right of primogeniture, which prevented the division of property, which would lead to the loss of the economic basis of feudal power.

References:

Anderson P. Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (1974);

- Lineages of the Absolutist State (1974);

Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society (1939);

Duby, Georges. L’ Europe au Moyen Ậge (1984);

Elias. On the Process of Civilisation (Volume 3) (The Collected Works of Norbert Elias) (2012);

Giddens. A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Vol. 1: Power, Property and the State (1981);

- A Contemporary Critique of Historical Materialism, Vol. 2: The Nation State and Violence (1985);

Hirst. Pre-capitalist Modes of Production (1975);

Holton, Robert J. The Transition from Feudalism to Capitalism (1985);

Kovalevski. Modern Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia; Being the Ichester Lectures for 1889-90 (2010);

Mann. The Sources of Social Power, Vol. 1: A History of Power from the Beginning to AD 1760 (1986);