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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.
Feudalism took root in England with William of Normandy's conquest in 1066. Over a century earlier, before the unification of England, the seven relatively small individual English kingdoms, known collectively as the Heptarchy , maintained an unsteady relationship of raids, ransoms, and truces with Vikings from Denmark and Normandy from around ...
The feudal system introduced by the Normans was designed to govern rural areas which could easily be controlled by a lord. Since the system was based on the exploitation of the labour and produce of enserfed peasant farmers, the system was unsuited to governing larger towns, which had more complex economies and a greater population of free (non ...
Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold if they were hereditable or perpetual or non-free if they terminated on the tenant's death or at an earlier specified period.
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.
King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, surrounded by his baronage.Illustration from Cassell's History of England, 1902.. In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam (Latin for "by barony"), under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons.
Middle Ages c. AD 500 – 1500 A medieval stained glass panel from Canterbury Cathedral, c. 1175 – c. 1180, depicting the Parable of the Sower, a biblical narrative Including Early Middle Ages High Middle Ages Late Middle Ages Key events Fall of the Western Roman Empire Spread of Islam Treaty of Verdun East–West Schism Crusades Magna Carta Hundred Years' War Black Death Fall of ...