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Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
The feudal system, in which the land was owned by a monarch, who in exchange for homage and military service granted its use to tenants-in-chief, who in their turn granted its use to sub-tenants in return for further services, gave rise to several terms, particular to Britain, for subdivisions of land which are no longer in wide use.
The legal concept of land tenure in the Middle Ages has become known as the feudal system that has been widely used throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia Minor.The lords who received land directly from the Crown, or another landowner, in exchange for certain rights and obligations were called tenants-in-chief.
Lacking a feudal system of vassal loyalty made it impossible for any prince, early on, to gain enough influence and power to project a strong force against any invaders. In contrast to other European forms of serfdom and feudalism there was a lack of vassalage and loyalty to the lord whose land the serfs worked. It took a much longer period for ...
Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. [1] These duties developed in both Europe and Japan with the decentralisation of empire and due to lack of monetary liquidity, as groups of warriors took over the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres of the territory they controlled. [2]
A fief (/ f iː f /; Latin: feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments.
Others forms of land tenure under the feudal system included serjeanty (a form of tenure in return for a specified duty other than standard knight-service) and socage (payment of a fee). Under King Henry II, the Dialogus de Scaccario already distinguished between greater barons (who held their baronies per baroniam by knight-service), and ...
Feudalism is generally regarded as having ended in western Europe around 1500, although serfs were not finally freed in Russia until 1861. [27] The Manor. Agricultural land in the Middle Ages under feudalism was usually organized in manors. The medieval manor consisted of several hundred (or sometimes thousand) acres of land.