Editing Feudalism (section)

== History ==
Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the [[decentralization]] of an empire: such as in the [[Carolingian Empire]] in the 9th century AD, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure<sup>[<nowiki/>[[Wikipedia:Please clarify|''clarification needed'']]]</sup> necessary to support [[cavalry]] without allocating land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land and their power over the territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres.

These acquired powers significantly [[federation|diminished unitary power]] in these empires. However, once the infrastructure to maintain unitary power was re-established—as with the European monarchies—feudalism began to yield to this new power structure and eventually disappeared.<ref name="Gat, Azar 2006. pp. 332">{{cite book |last=Gat |first=Azar |title=War in Human Civilization |date=2006 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |isbn=978-0199236633 |location=New York |pages=332–343}}</ref>

=== Classic feudalism ===
{{See also|Feudalism in England|Feudalism in the Holy Roman Empire|Examples of feudalism}}
The classic [[François Louis Ganshof]] version of feudalism<ref name=ebo/><ref name=ganshof/> describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility based on the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. In broad terms a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal provided some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of [[Feudal land tenure in England|feudal land tenure]], consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.<ref name=ganshof/>

=== Vassalage ===
[[File:Hommage du comté de Clermont-en-Beauvaisis.png|thumbnail|[[Homage (feudal)|Homage]] of [[Clermont, Oise|Clermont-en-Beauvaisis]]]]
Before a lord could grant land (a [[fief]]) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a [[commendation ceremony]], which was composed of the two-part act of [[Homage (feudal)|homage]] and oath of [[fealty]]. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces. ''Fealty'' comes from the Latin ''fidelitas'' and denotes the [[fidelity]] owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. "Fealty" also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage; such an oath follows homage.<ref name=stephenson>{{cite book |url=https://www.scribd.com/doc/28860952/Mediavel-Feudalism |title=Medieval Feudalism |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120209083705/http://www.scribd.com/doc/28860952/Mediavel-Feudalism |archive-date=9 February 2012 |author-link=Carl Stephenson (historian) |first=Carl |last=Stephenson |publisher=[[Cornell University Press]] |date=1942 |chapter=Classic introduction to Feudalism}}</ref>

Once the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in a feudal relationship with agreed obligations to one another. The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was to provide aid or military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal had to answer calls to military service by the lord. This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition, the vassal could have other obligations to his lord, such as attendance at his court, whether [[Manorial court|manorial]], baronial, both termed [[Manorial court#Court baron|court baron]], or at the king's court.<ref>Encyc. Brit. op.cit. It was a standard part of the feudal contract (fief [land], fealty [oath of allegiance], faith [belief in God]) that every tenant was under an obligation to attend his overlord's court to advise and support him; [[Sir Harris Nicolas]], in ''Historic Peerage of England'', ed. [[William Courthope (officer of arms)|Courthope]], p.18, quoted by Encyc. Brit, op.cit., p. 388: "It was the principle of the feudal system that every tenant should attend the court of his immediate superior".</ref>

[[File:Map France 1477-en.svg|thumb|France in the late 15th century: a mosaic of feudal territories]]
It could also involve the vassal providing "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. At the level of the [[Manorialism|manor]] this might be a fairly mundane matter of agricultural policy, but also included sentencing by the lord for criminal offences, including capital punishment in some cases. Concerning the king's feudal court, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. These are [[examples of feudalism]]; depending on the period of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied.

=== The feudal revolution in France ===
In its origin, the feudal grant of land had been seen in terms of a personal bond between lord and vassal, but with time and the transformation of fiefs into hereditary holdings, the nature of the system came to be seen as a form of "politics of land" (an expression used by the historian [[Marc Bloch]]). The 11th century in France saw what has been called by historians a "[[France in the Middle Ages#Vassalage and feudal land|feudal revolution]]" or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" (Bloch) that was unlike the development of [[feudalism in England]] or Italy or [[Feudalism in the Holy Roman Empire|in Germany]] in the same period or later:{{sfn|Wickham|2010|pp=522–523}} Counties and duchies began to break down into smaller holdings as [[castellan]]s and lesser ''[[seigneur]]s'' took control of local lands, and (as [[Count|comital]] families had done before them) lesser lords usurped/privatized a wide range of prerogatives and rights of the state, including travel dues, market dues, fees for using woodlands, obligations, use the lord's mill and, most importantly, the highly profitable rights of justice, etc.{{sfn|Wickham|2010|p=518}} (what [[Georges Duby]] called collectively the "''seigneurie banale''"{{sfn|Wickham|2010|p=518}}). Power in this period became more personal.{{sfn|Wickham|2010|p=522}}

This "fragmentation of powers" was not, however, systematic throughout France, and in certain counties (such as [[County of Flanders|Flanders]], [[Duchy of Normandy|Normandy]], [[County of Anjou|Anjou]], [[County of Toulouse|Toulouse]]), counts were able to maintain control of their lands into the 12th century or later.{{sfn|Wickham|2010|p=523}} Thus, in some regions (like [[Normandy]] and [[Flanders]]), the vassal/feudal system was an effective tool for [[Duke|ducal]] and comital control, linking vassals to their lords; but in other regions, the system led to significant confusion, all the more so as vassals could and frequently did pledge themselves to two or more lords. In response to this, the idea of a "liege lord" was developed (where the obligations to one lord are regarded as superior) in the 12th century.<ref>Elizabeth M. Hallam. ''Capetian France 987–1328'', p.17.</ref>

===End of European feudalism (1500–1850s)===
{{Further|Abolition of feudalism in France}}

Around this time, rich, "middle-class" commoners chafed at the authority and powers held by feudal [[Lord|lords]], [[Overlord|overlords]], and [[Nobility|nobles]], and preferred the idea of [[Autocracy|autocratic]] rule where a king and one royal court held almost all the power.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Slosson |first=Preston W. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/12782511 |title=Pictorial History of the American People |publisher=Gallery Books |year=1985 |isbn=0-8317-6871-1 |edition=Revised |location=[[New York City|New York]] |pages=13 |oclc=12782511}}</ref> Feudal nobles regardless of ethnicity generally thought of themselves as arbiters of a politically free system, so this often puzzled them before the fall of most feudal laws.<ref name=":1" />

Most of the military aspects of feudalism effectively ended by about 1500.<ref>"The End of Feudalism" in J.H.M. Salmon, ''Society in Crisis: France in the Sixteenth Century'' (1979) pp 19–26</ref> This was partly since the military shifted from armies consisting of the nobility to professional fighters thus reducing the nobility's claim on power, but also because the [[Black Death]] reduced the nobility's hold over the lower classes. Vestiges of the feudal system hung on in France until the [[French Revolution]] of the 1790s. Even when the original feudal relationships had disappeared, there were many institutional remnants of feudalism left in place. Historian [[Georges Lefebvre]] explains how at an early stage of the French Revolution, on just one night of 4 August 1789, France abolished the long-lasting remnants of the feudal order. It announced, "The [[National Assembly (French Revolution)|National Assembly]] abolishes the feudal system entirely." Lefebvre explains:

{{blockquote|Without debate the Assembly enthusiastically adopted equality of taxation and redemption of all manorial rights except for those involving personal servitude—which were to be abolished without indemnification. Other proposals followed with the same success: the equality of legal punishment, admission of all to public office, abolition of venality in office, conversion of the tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, prohibition of plural holding of benefices&nbsp;... Privileges of provinces and towns were offered as a last sacrifice.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lefebvre|first=Georges|author-link1=Georges Lefebvre|title=The French Revolution: Vol. 1, from Its Origins To 1793|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bd-JDOw8v5QC&pg=PA130|year=1962|publisher=Columbia U.P|page=130|isbn=9780231085984}}</ref>}}

Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than a quarter of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners.<ref>{{Cite journal |jstor = 650023|title = The Survival of the Nobility during the French Revolution|journal = Past & Present|issue = 37|pages = 71–86|last1 = Forster|first1 = Robert|year = 1967|doi = 10.1093/past/37.1.71| issn = 0031-2746 }}</ref> The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the [[tithe]] to the church.<ref>Paul R. Hanson, ''The A to Z of the French Revolution'' (2013) pp 293–94</ref>

In the [[Kingdom of France]], following the French Revolution, [[Abolition of feudalism in France|feudalism was abolished]] with a decree of 11 August 1789 by the [[National Constituent Assembly (France)|Constituent Assembly]], a provision that was later extended to various parts of [[Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)|Italian kingdom]] following the invasion by French troops. In the [[Kingdom of Naples (Napoleonic)|Kingdom of Naples]], [[Joachim Murat]] abolished feudalism with the law of 2 August 1806, then implemented with a law of 1 September 1806 and a royal decree of 3 December 1808. In the [[Kingdom of Sicily]] the abolishing law was issued by the [[Sicilian Parliament]] on 10 August 1812. In [[Piedmont]] feudalism ceased by virtue of the edicts of 7 March, and 19 July 1797 issued by [[Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia|Charles Emmanuel IV]], although in the [[Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861)|Kingdom of Sardinia]], specifically on the island of [[Sardinia]], feudalism was abolished only with an edict of 5 August 1848.

In the [[Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia]], feudalism was abolished with the law of 5 December 1861 n.º 342 were all feudal bonds abolished. The system lingered on in parts of Central and Eastern Europe as late as the 1850s. [[Slavery in Romania]] was abolished in 1856. [[Serfdom in Russia#Abolition|Russia finally abolished serfdom]] in 1861.<ref>John Merriman, ''A History of Modern Europe: From the Renaissance to the Age of Napoleon'' (1996) pp 12–13</ref><ref>Jerzy Topolski, Continuity and discontinuity in the development of the feudal system in Eastern Europe (Xth to XVIIth centuries)" ''Journal of European Economic History'' (1981) 10#2 pp: 373–400.</ref>

More recently in Scotland, on 28 November 2004, the [[Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000]] entered into full force putting an end to what was left of the Scottish feudal system. The last feudal regime, that of the island of [[Sark]], was abolished in December 2008, when the [[2008 Sark general election|first democratic elections]] were held for the election of a local parliament and the appointment of a government. The "revolution" is a consequence of the juridical intervention of the [[European Parliament]], which declared the local constitutional system as contrary to [[human rights]], and, following a series of legal battles, imposed [[Parliamentary system|parliamentary democracy]].