Feudalism

C

Reasons for the Feudal Pattern

Warfare was endemic in the feudal period, but feudalism did not cause warfare; warfare caused feudalism. Nor was feudalism responsible for the collapse of the Carolingian Empire; rather, the failure of that state made feudalism necessary. The Carolingian Empire collapsed because it was based on the rule of one man, who did not have institutions sufficiently well developed to carry out his will. The empire’s disappearance threatened Europe with anarchy: thousands of individual seigneurs ruling their people entirely independent of any suzerain authority. The bonds of feudalism reknit the local seigneuries into a loose unity, under which the seigneurs gave up only as much of their freedom as was essential to effective cooperation. Under the leadership of their feudal lords, the united vassals were able to fend off invaders and then to create feudal principalities of some size and complexity. When feudalism proved its worth on a local basis, kings and emperors adopted it to strengthen their monarchies.

III

Maturity

Feudalism reached its maturity in the 11th century and flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries. Its cradle was the region between the Rhine and Loire rivers, but in the late 11th century rulers of that region conquered southern Italy and Sicily, England, and, with the First Crusade, the Holy Land. To each place they took their feudal institutions. Southern France, Spain, northern Italy, and Germany also adopted some degree of feudalism in the 12th century. Even central and eastern Europe came under its spell to a limited degree, especially after the Byzantine Empire was feudalized following the Fourth Crusade. But the “feudalisms” of ancient Egypt and Persia, or of China and Japan, were not related to European feudalism and generally were only superficially similar. Perhaps the Japanese samurai most resembled medieval knights, particularly under the Ashikaga shoguns (1336-1573), but the relationships between lords and vassals in Japan were different from those of Western feudalism.

A

Characteristics

In its classical form Western feudalism assumed that most or, in England, all of the land belonged to the sovereign prince—be he king or duke, marquis or count—who held it “of no one but God.” The prince then granted fiefs to his barons, who made their oaths of homage and fealty to him and were required to give him political and military service according to the terms of the grant. The barons, in turn, might grant portions of their fiefs to knights who swore homage and fealty to them and served them according to their grants. Thus, if a king granted a fief of a dozen seigneuries to a baron and required the service of ten knights, the baron could grant ten of the seigneuries to ten knights and thus be prepared to provide the required service to the king. Of course, a baron might seek to keep all his fief in his demesne (his personal domain) and keep his knights in his hall, feeding and arming them out of his own pocket; but this was resisted by the knights, who wanted to be seigneurs themselves. Knights might acquire two or more fiefs, and then they too might find it desirable to subgrant what they needed to provide the service for which they were obligated. By such subinfeudation, a feudal pyramid was created, providing the suzerain at the top, and each mesne lord below, with a feudal force of knights to serve him at his summons.

Complications occurred when a knight accepted fiefs from more than one lord, but the institution of liege homage was invented to enable him to declare one of his lords his liege lord, whom he would serve personally, while he would send his vassals to serve his other lords. It was also the rule in France that “the lord of my lord is not my lord”; thus, it was not rebellion for a subvassal to fight against his lord’s lord. In England, however, William the Conqueror and his successors required their vassals’ vassals to take oaths of fealty to them.

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B

Duties of a Vassal

Military service in the field was basic to feudalism, but it was far from all that the vassal owed to his lord. When the lord had a castle, he might require his vassals to garrison it, a service called castle-guard. The lord also expected his vassals to attend his court in order to give him advice and to participate in judgments of cases concerning other vassals. If the lord had need for money, he might expect his vassals to give him financial aid. During the 12th and 13th centuries many conflicts between lords and their vassals arose over just what services should be rendered. In England it was the Magna Carta that defined the obligations of the king’s vassals; for example, they did not have to give financial aid except on the occasion of the marriage of the king’s eldest daughter, the knighting of his eldest son, and the king’s own ransom. In France it was common to find a fourth occasion for feudal aid: a lord’s crusade. Giving advice also led to a demand by the vassals that their assent be sought on those of their lords’ decisions that involved them, whether it be war, marriage alliance, taxation, or legal judgment.

C

Inheritance and Wardship

Another area of feudal custom that required definition was that of the succession to fiefs. When fiefs became hereditary, the lord reserved an inheritance tax called a relief, and the size of the relief was often a matter of conflict. Again, in England, the Magna Carta established the relief as £100 for a barony and £5 for a knight’s fee; elsewhere, custom varied from fief to fief. Lords reserved the right to secure a useful and loyal holder of a fief. If a vassal died and left a son of full age who was a good knight, the lord had no reason to object to his succession. If the son was a minor, however, or if the heir was female, the lord would want to control the fief until the heir was of age or the heiress married to a man the lord approved of; thus arose the lord’s right of wardship for a minor or female heir and his further right of marriage, which might, in some fiefs, lead to his choosing the partner himself. The widow of a vassal had a lifetime right of dower in her husband’s fief (commonly a third of the value), and this also led to the lord’s interest in her remarriage; in some fiefs he had a full right to control such a remarriage. In the event a vassal died childless, the relationship of his heirs to the lord could vary: Brothers were usually acceptable but cousins might not be. If no heirs were acceptable to the lord, the fief was declared an escheat and returned to his full control; he could then keep it in his demesne or grant it to any knight he chose to make his vassal.