Introduction
Feudalism during the medieval period was not fully systematic throughout Europe; instead, differing forms and customs were built upon the concept of traditions rather than legal construction.
This article will discuss the issues surrounding the nature of feudalism—focusing on the historiography of the early medieval period. It will explore how the nature of kingship differed between the early medieval period and the late medieval period because of cultural change.
It will explain the differences between forms of property that could be found across Europe—considering how the ideas of nobility may have affected the receipt of property; the expression of property during the period, and the role that the church played in governing it (alongside the important social role of the church within the feudal system).
All of these roles, institutions, cultural norms, and geographical differences contributed to the feudal structure as it evolved throughout the medieval era.
Sources, Terminology and Background
Before committing to an explanation of how systematic feudalism was, one must acknowledge several questions about the relevant source material and our historical access to the medieval period.
For example, it is important to be aware of the extent to which sources from the early medieval period can be properly taken as records of individual instances of judicial decisions, as opposed to examples of common practices based on strict legal precedent. This is particularly relevant for the early medieval period, often referred to as the Dark Ages due to the serious lack of primary source documentation available for historians to work with.
For this essay, the "medieval period" will refer to the period starting around the ninth century and ending around the sixteenth century (at the latest).
It is important to note that the vast and ever-changing borders of kingdoms, empires, and principalities throughout medieval Europe make it implausible that any consistent form of feudalism could have existed or evolved evenly across the continent. It is similarly implausible that a society with its diverse set of languages and little literacy in Latin could have given rise to the strict bureaucratic systems required for stringent rules of law.
Therefore, it is unlikely that land, inheritance, taxes and military organisation of resources were handled by top-heavy administrations.
These administrations only became more prevalent as circumstances and new institutions such as universities were able to streamline education and academic works, and an educational elite began to appear.
There is also the historiographical issue that older views on feudalism and medieval society originated in the sixteenth century—at a time when twelfth-century sources understandably superimposed onto those Kingdoms that appeared after the Carolingian Empire’s fall.
Furthermore, Roman law is sometimes considered to have had more of a legal impact than it likely had in reality. As Susan Reynolds argues, just as Roman law had an impact on medieval Europe, it did so in the context of adding to the customary laws that already existed locally. In the Kingdoms previously under Roman administration, Roman law fused with the customs already there, creating new practices as a whole, but not an entirely new legislative system of law.
The medieval period was socially as diverse as it was diverse in the vastness of the continent and its traditions.
Medieval Kings and Princes
Characterised by its territorial kings and princes, the medieval period as a whole was never without these higher offices of ‘justice’ and their existence was as dependent upon tradition as their laws were.
Regardless of how the title of king gained the prestige it commanded throughout the early medieval period, the role and the loyalty such a position demanded seems to have been culturally cemented before the medieval period began. In Fiefs and Vassal, Susan Reynolds explains, “[o]nly kings were crowned: only kings could draw on the funds of prestige which came from the church and the Kings of the Old Testament.”
Divine authority did not necessarily mean freedom from the law, as this was under continual re-examination due to the nature of the conflict between kings and their elite subjects. Nevertheless, the fact that the church supported the role of kings is clear, and while ecclesiastical authority is unlikely to have been the origin of the position, it certainly upheld it.
When discussing new law, it was not uncommon for kings to invoke their divine responsibility as a justification for why it must be complied with. The position of the king was one of considerably more power, as a king would generally have the right to seize land and ask for, or demand, military and financial compensation from those within their borders.
Kings were also generally the only ones responsible for providing means for the elite "nobility" to gain and promote justice. This appears to have been the traditional assumption upon which their role was built.
A king did not own all of the land within a kingdom, but this will be discussed later in the essay. Moving into the thirteenth century, the extent of legal control exercised over the subjects of a kingdom became greater as the influence of criminal punishment and legal address was increasingly handled by kings' courts.
Notably, this period, which saw academic discussions on the nature of authority, law, and kings, also saw the first signs of governmental jurisdictions becoming more defined as well as the emergence of parliaments.
Authority moved (somewhat ironically) away from kings and evermore towards the abstract system of "royal courts". Simultaneously, the local forms of government that had previously existed began to dissolve as the royal courts enforced more universal rules over the people inside—so much so that the kings of the sixteenth century looked fundamentally different from those of the preceding era.
Hence, based upon the customary prestige given to them in the period, kings gained the cultural authority to enact governing powers.
Land Distribution and Ownership in Feudal Europe
The primary element of the medieval period was how land was distributed and what the ownership of land entailed in all its differing forms.
While often discussed at the level of the elite—in the form of earldoms, duchies, counties and kingdoms—it is fair to say that names of land do not necessarily equal their legal conditions to have been equal across the board.
As mentioned, while a kingdom would have a king, the king did not legally own the land, although he appears to have jurisdiction to enact justice. Similarly, land was divided primarily according to the circumstances under which the residence had originally acquired the land.
Consequently, while the terms "free" and "unfree" are usually relegated to the use of common people, they can equally be used to describe the early medieval nobility in terms of what was expected of them.
Reynolds notes that “people were free or unfree for different things or to do different things at different times.”
Another term often used is "vassal" – a term whose modern attachment to the idea of the landed nobility bears little resemblance to its medieval usage. Instead, "vassal" was used to refer to those who would normally be considered dependants – often in royal service.
Terms commonly used when discussing forms of property include fiefs, allods, and benefices. These terms are not universal and fluctuate over periods within different literary sources. However, they are useful to historians as broad representations of how land would be owned or governed in the medieval period.
Fiefs, generally, were lands gifted – sometimes for service and sometimes received through generational inheritance – although the land continues to be owned by the original owner.
In reference to this, S. E. Thorne illustrates the principle:
“[I]f I hire my gardener’s son after his father’s death, and my son hires his son after him, the place as gardener has descended through three generations of the same family. Yet it is obvious that it has come to each by gift, and that the son and grandson of my gardener can in no way be said to have inherited it. What we have is a fief held by successive tenants in return for service, each succeeding by gift.”
Thus, a fief would remain the land of their lord.
In contrast, allods can be considered the equivalent of the modern idea of ‘private property’—albeit without the added element of relatively more governmental freedom and no standard “taxes”. However, while allods technically were owned regardless of the status of a King, their situation still may entail some form of homage being owed to the sovereign.
Conversely, fiefs due to time and changes in circumstance might come to be considered by the holder as though they were an allod—potentially demanding more autonomy in governing and monetary benefits than their lord may have intended.
In short, property and homage were in proportion to the circumstance under which it was held and, in principle, were always allodial to someone.
Nobility During the Medieval Period
Similarly to the pre-existence of royalty, nobility was ubiquitous throughout medieval Europe but had the problem of not being properly defined.
While royalty is easily distinguished from the upper elite and the poorest of peasants by virtue of having the least social mobility, what classifies one as "nobility" appears to have no set place—nor does it have any quality unique to it.
Originating from the Latin words, nobilis and nobilitas, the term's use throughout the medieval period seemed to have been primarily in a social sense—and includes many qualities such as land, wealth, prestige and governing roles (although not necessarily together). It was potentially used primarily by the ecclesia to refer to certain individuals—or the families descended from those persons.
Consequently, rather than gaining special treatment due to class, it would be better to say that the concept of a ‘noble class’ aligns more with the modern understanding of elites: those whose benefits are circumstantial based on family, wealth, connections and occupation—rather than based just on birthright.
Similarly, the concept cannot be reduced to simply the holding of certain estates—noble estates—as land could change family hands regularly during this period.
Indeed, elite children—not just daughters—would more often than not find themselves within convents or the church. Nevertheless, it should be said that as a class, the nobility was a fairly closed group. Opportunities were limited to that class and few people would be likely to gain access to the class in less than a few generations.
The Church in the Feudal Structure
Finally, the last element to be considered is how closely the church was intertwined with the secular sections of medieval society. Throughout this essay, I have alluded briefly to certain ways the church would intersect within the secular realm of the medieval period.
On a local level, the community of the parish was one such element of local governance that was noticeable. It was significant both for the lords and the general community as—next to a manor house—the parish could be said to be the place in which inhabitants could have a sense that they were a community.
However, parish buildings were not the only land owned by the church—especially in England, where a quarter of the land was considered "Church land" during the eleventh century.
Nevertheless, protection of this land often fell either under royal protection—sometimes legally, and sometimes physically—which meant that they might be sometimes more susceptible to royal demands. Moreover, Church land was generally considered to be inalienable from the church and, as such, any benefice that was given did not remove it as church property.
And yet, it was sometimes necessary that when disputes arose regarding church property, the matter would involve secular assistance—whether measured by the resident clergy or not. Further still, if Roman law is discussed regarding its preservation throughout the Medieval period and into the Late Medieval period, it must be in connection with the Church, rather than customary law throughout the Kingdoms.
Ultimately, many of the clerks and judges came from clerical backgrounds—because of their reliance on the church and the universities that started as church seminaries—and they would almost always be found on kings' councils. As a result, the educational elite during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was to some extent the result of papal influence.
As such, the church was greatly influential with legal, cultural and property law as well as maintaining social cohesion within communities.
Conclusion
In conclusion, feudalism in the medieval period was not a systematic form of government but rather an expression of the local situation and the needs of the day.
This essay has explained the issues surrounding this topic, and it is clear that this is a subject often dependent upon conjecture by historians who impose high and late medieval sources and concerns upon those of the early medieval period.
Furthermore, the paper has explained that the position of a king was not so much a legal one as one that retained prestige and authority due to culture. Consequently, a king's power was only as great as the situation allowed.
It has also been found that property and homage were as dependent upon circumstance as the position of kings, and that not all property within a kingdom was held with the same degree of ‘services’.
Moreover, early medieval nobility, which is often applied primarily to landowners, was originally intended as a social term rather than a term denoting birthright. However, an elite social group did exist, with all the requisite privileges.
Additionally, this paper outlines the place that the church played through its participation in customary laws within kingdoms, the preservation of Roman law as a distinct form of law, and finally, the church's influence in the renewed use of Roman law in the later medieval period.
Hence, it cannot be said that feudalism was a distinct legal system during the period. Rather, the term can be said to be synonymous with medieval society itself.
Disclaimer: Artificial Intelligence (AI) software was used to assist in editing this essay. If you notice any errors, please notify the editorial team.
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