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Feudalism in Medieval Europe

Feudalism has historically been a major source of debate and controversy among historians. The main issue is the ambiguity of the term. There is no accepted definition of what the term feudal is, how this differs from feudalism and what constitutes a feudal society. In this essay I will initially focus on the different definitions of the word and consider whether feudalism actually existed and was there such thing as a Ð''feudal' society. I will then spend the second part of the essay arguing whether this can be applied to medieval Europe and how uniform was the spread.

The classical definition was proposed by FranÐ"§ois-Louis Ganshof in his book Feudalism. He saw feudalism narrowly in legal and military terms, arguing that relationships only existed within the nobility. Simply, a Lord would grant a fief to a vassal, which was usually but not explicitly land, and in return the vassal would offer military assistance when requested by the Lord.

Marc Bloch in his book published in 1961 viewed feudalism in a broader sense, looking at it from a sociological angle. He saw an additional relationship between peasants and lords whereby they would provide labour service or part of their farming output in return for land and protection given to them by the lord. Thus because of the absence of a strong central authority, a system of feudal government This was what Bloch defined the concept of a 'feudal' society as, including all aspects of life like government, the church structure and the economy.

This hypothesis was accepted by many until Elizabeth A. R. Brown published her article in 1974. She argued that that feudalism as a concept was invented well after the middle ages and was never challenged and therefore historians Ð''began to accept the concept of a uniform feudal government and to concentrate on the system, the construct, instead of investigating the various social and political relationships found in medieval Europe'.# As well as this she argues that although there may be some evidence of relationships which were similar to aspects of feudalism, it would be incorrect to conclude that there was a widespread uniform scheme focused on lords, vassals and fiefs. #

Feudalism has therefore been accepted and applied often indiscriminately as a term without much contemplation of what it actually means and its use creates an oversimplified model of what was a very complex and diverse society. Furthermore although she didn't explicitly argue against the existence of a feudal society, one might intuitively deduce that if feudalism wasn't widespread, then a feudal society couldn't have existed.

Reynolds expanded on Brown's beliefs in her book Fiefs and Vassals. She concedes that the book is a study of feudalism in the narrow sense of the word focusing on fiefs and vassalage, however again it seems unlikely that a feudal society could have existed without the existence of fiefs and vassals as this would have been the base upon which a society could have been created. She writes that fiefs and vassals weren't the fortifying features of medieval society but instead purely interpersonal bonds were the main unifying influences.# She denies that fiefs were ever associated in medieval times with a type of asset which was exchanged. Another of her main conclusions was that