Feudalism

Because the feudal relationship was contractual, false actions on either side could cause breach of contract. When the vassal failed to perform required services, the lord could bring charges against him in his court before the other vassals, and if they found their peer guilty, he would be declared to have forfeited his fief, which would return to the lord’s demesne. If the vassal chose to try to defend his land, the lord might have to go to war against him to win control of the forfeited fief. But the fact that the vassal’s peers had found him guilty meant that they were morally as well as legally obligated to enforce their judgment, and it was a rare vassal who would war against his lord and all his peers. On the other hand, if a vassal felt that his lord had failed to live up to his obligations, he could defy the lord—that is, formally break faith with him—declaring he would no longer accept him as lord but would continue to keep the fief as his own demesne or take it to another lord who might accept him as vassal. Because the lord often regarded defiance as rebellion, defiant vassals had to have strong support or be prepared for a war they might lose.

Monarchs during the feudal period had other sources of authority besides their feudal suzerainty. The renaissance of classical learning included the revival of Roman law, with its traditions of powerful rulers and territorial government. The church looked on rulers as divinely ordained and by its anointment gave them a sacred character. The resurgence of trade and industry brought into being towns and a powerful urban class that looked to princes to maintain the freedom and order required for business activities. These townspeople also demanded a role in government commensurate with their wealth. In Italy they organized communes that won control of the countryside from the feudal nobles and even forced them to live in some of the cities. North of the Alps the townspeople sent representatives to the monarchs’ councils and developed parliamentary institutions to give them a voice in government equal to that of the feudality. With the taxes from the towns, the princes were able to hire civil servants and professional troops. Thus, they were able both to impose their will on the feudality and to make themselves largely independent of the service of their vassals.

During the 13th century feudalism reached the zenith of development and also began to decline. Subinfeudation had reached the point where superior lords had difficulty obtaining the service to which they were entitled. Vassals typically preferred to give money payments—called scutage, or shield money—instead of personal military service to their lords, and the lords themselves tended to prefer the money because it enabled them to hire professional troops that were often better trained and disciplined than the vassals. Moreover, a revival of infantry tactics and the introduction of new weapons, such as the longbow and the pike, made cavalry tactics less certain of victory. In the 14th and 15th centuries the decline of feudalism accelerated. During the Hundred Years’ War, the chivalry of France and England fought bravely and gloriously, but the battles were largely won by professional men-at-arms and especially by the archers on foot. The professionals fought in companies whose leaders took oaths of homage and fealty to a prince, but under contracts that were not hereditary and usually for a term of months or years. This “bastard feudalism” was but a step away from purely mercenary fighting, and in Italy the Renaissance condottieri, some of whom were Englishmen trained in transalpine war, had indeed made that transition.

The fief was embedded in the customary law of western Europe, and the incidents of feudalism, such as wardship and marriage, escheat and forfeiture, continued to flourish after feudal military service died out. In England feudal tenures were abolished by statute in 1660, but they lingered on in parts of the Continent until the customary law was replaced by Roman law, a process completed by Napoleon. Roman law substituted other legal notions for feudal ones on the Continent, but in England the common law continued to be basically feudal law. Wherever English people settled in the modern era, they took their common law with them and thus established feudal principles all over the world. English constitutionalism is fundamentally feudal, based on the contract theory of government. When John Locke wrote his treatises on government in the 17th century, he was seeking to generalize for all persons the feudal contract that limited the rights of the suzerain over his vassals and retained for them the German warrior’s independence. The U.S. Declaration of Independence was a classic act of feudal defiance, as the Continental Congress enumerated the tyrannical acts of the king and declared the colonists no longer bound by their allegiance to him. Nineteenth-century liberalism and 20th-century libertarianism owe their basic premises to feudalism. In sum, feudal ideas were important to the political development of Western civilization, reconciling authority with liberty by way of contract.