Feudalism — A Stage in Every Nation’s Development or Historiographic Ghost?

I. Western Europe during the Time of the Muslim Expansion

A. Decline and Isolation

1. Decline of Trade and Industrya. How would one conduct long-distance trade at this

time?b. Vikings (“nomads of the sea”) as response

2. Decline of Culture and Learninga. Did Charles Martel save “Western civilization” at

the Battle of Tours in 732?b. Baptistry at Poitiers

3. Dissolution of Centralized Government

Viking Activity 8th to 10th Centuries

II. Political, Social, and Economic Relations in the Middle Ages

A. Manorial Self-Sufficiency

1. Estates: Division by Function

a. 1st Estate: Those Who Pray (clergy)

b. 2nd Estate: Those Who Fight (nobility)

c. 3rd Estate: Those Who Work (peasants)

Medieval Manor

II. Political, Social, and Economic Relations in the Middle Ages

B. Feudalism — A Stage in Every Nation’s Development or Historiographic Ghost?

1. Standard Textbook View

2. Use of the Term by Researchers

II. Political, Social, and Economic Relations in the Middle Ages

B. Feudalism — A Stage in Every Nation’s Development or Historiographic Ghost?

3. Question about Its Origins

a. Montesquieu (18th cent.) — German tribal comitatusb. George Waitz (1880s) — Roman clientage and patronagec. Heinrich Brunner (1890s) — fusion of comitatus and

clientaged. Lynn White (1964) — importance of stirrup

II. Political, Social, and Economic Relations in the Middle Ages

B. Feudalism — A Stage in Every Nation’s Development or Historiographic Ghost?

3. Question about Its Origins

e. Karl Marx (1848) — class struggle

II. Political, Social, and Economic Relations in the Middle Ages

B. Feudalism — A Stage in Every Nation’s Development or Historiographic Ghost?

4. Another Possibility — Muslim iqtā‛

Definition of “feudalism” by F. W. Maitland, late 19th-century historian

“Now were an examiner to ask who introduced the feudal system to England? one very good answer, if properly explained, would be Henry Spelman [17th-century juridical scholar], and if there followed the question, what was the feudal system? a good answer to that would be, an early essay on comparative jurisprudence.” “If my examiner went on with his questions and asked me, when did the feudal system attain its most perfect development? I should answer, about the middle of the last [18th century] century.”

Definition of “feudalism” by F. W. Maitland, late 19th-century historian

(continued)

“the feudalism of France differs radically from the feudalism of England, that the feudalism of the thirteenth century is very different from that of the eleventh. The phrase has become for us so large and vague that it is quite possible to maintain that of all countries England was the most, or for the matter of that the least, feudalized; that William the Conqueror introduced, or for the matter of that suppressed, the feudal system.”

Otto Hintze (1861−1940), German historian

“the three functions within which feudalism operated: 1) The military − the appearance as a separate group of a highly trained, professional, military class bound to a lord by fidelity, founded on a private contract, who won for themselves a privileged position.2) The social and economic − the development of a landlord-peasant form of economy assuring this privileged military class an unearned rental income.3) The local position of these warrior noblemen as lords, and their predominant influence within the state (or even separation from it, to form their own)−within a state that was predisposed toward such influence...”

Georges Duby (1919−1996) French historian

The Early Growth of the European Economy:

1) decay of royal authority2) military defense passing to local landlords3) local lords gaining hereditary power shadowing those of the former royal power

Carl Stephenson (1886−1954), American historian

A “phase of government developed by the Frankish kings through the granting of benefices to their vassals”

−AHR articles, 1940s

Thomas Bisson, H. C. Lea Professor of Medieval History emeritus, Harvard

UniversityUses the term as a frame of reference, but acknowledges that the term “feudalism” has been used in so many ways that a “true definition” cannot be arrived at.