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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 ...
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]
During the Middle Ages, in England, as in most of Europe, the feudal system was the dominant social and economic system. Under the feudal system, the monarch would grant land to the monarch’s loyal subjects in exchange for the subject’s loyalty and military service when called by the monarch.
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 ...
A vassal [1] or liege subject [2] is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain .
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.