The Problem of Feudalism: An Historiographical Essay

by Robert Harbison for His 613 Spring 1996

The term Feudalism can mean many things, depending on the context. If the person trying to define the term is not a Medievalist, then the definition would most likely be negative. As R.A. Brown says about feudal and feudalism: "in popular speech they are ignorantly intended as insults even more derogatory than 'medieval.'" The problem with the terms is that they are modern terms not medieval ones. The writers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries developed terms of denigration for the societies that they were studying, and applied them over a wide area, as a way to understand their own eras. Thus we have, still, the use of the term Feudal Europe, even though Marc Bloch states that "feudal Europe was not all feudalized in the same degree or according to the same rhythm and, above all, that it was nowhere feudalized completely," also he says that there are areas where feudalism is conspicuously absent, such as Scandinavia, Ireland and others.

An accurate definition of the term has been an apparent stumbling block in the academic community, as the recent debate on the subject in the Internet discussion list Mediev-l demonstrates. For almost a month Medieval scholars wrote back and forth about the virtues and the drawbacks of the terms, with the majority lining up on the drawback side. As a basic and simple definition one may assume that feudalism exists in a society with

1) extremely strong ties of personal dependence,

2) a strong military class at the top of the social structure,

3) hierarchical systems of land rights based on

personal dependence,

4) a breakup of central authority, with State powers distributed to powerful men (usually) in control

of large areas of land,

and

5) a body of institutions used to create and enforce

the ties of dependence.

The first 'modern' historian to tackle the term was F.W. Maitland. Maitland was an historian of medieval law, in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, at Cambridge University. Maitland understood the correct uses of the term. To quote him:

"Now were an examiner to ask who introduced the

feudal system to England? one very good answer, if properly explained, would be Henry Spelman, 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 century."

Maitland's definition of feudalism was one that emphasized fiefs, vassalage, military service and justice by the lords, the purely legalistic aspects of feudalism. And his answer to his examiner meant that the pure legalistic definition was formulated in the mid-1600s by the legal scholar Henry Spelman, and that the full definition had not been created until the eighteenth century. But even Maitland, writing in 1887-1888, recognized the vagueness of the term feudalism and the phrase feudal system.

...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, in the late 1920s, defined the main characteristics, or as he says "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...

He placed these characteristics in three stages: The Early Period, marked by the ascendancy of domination by the military elite, lasted until the twelfth century. It was ended by the advent of standing armies and the use of mercenaries. The High Period, "in which the warrior nobility brought its political influence to its highest point, in the form of particularistic separation from loose state structures, in the form of princely lordship" lasted until the sixteenth century. And The Late Period, "in which the predominant interest of the nobility was concentrated on maintaining and utilizing its members' economic and social position as lords of the land." This continued until the French Revolution and the following disintegrations of the 'old institutions.'

The next historian to work with feudalism was Marc Bloch. Bloch was a social and economic historian, in early twentieth century France. Bloch believed that history could not be understood without generalizations. Therefore feudalism as a general term was not a problem for him. His definition includes:

a subject peasantry; widespread use of the service tenement (i.e. the fief) instead of a salary...the supremacy of a class of specialized warriors; ties

of obedience and protection which bind man to man...fragmentation of authority-leading inevitably

to disorder...and...the survival of other forms of association,[such as] family and State...

Bloch's ideas have influenced many historians in France as well as the United States, either in agreement or refutation. The greatest influence in agreement with Bloch was the "Annales school," which subscribed to his Marxist views of Medieval history. This group produced Georges Duby who wrote "the single best medieval book of the Annales school," The Early Growth of the European Economy. Duby defines feudalism as a political/economic system consisting of the elements of 1) decay of royal authority, 2) military defense passing to local landlords, and 3) local lords gaining hereditary powers shadowing those of the former royal powers.

The first prominent historian to argue against Bloch's position was Joseph Strayer, the Princeton Medievalist who was to have as much an impact on American scholarship as Bloch had on French. Strayer's influence was not only felt by what he said, but by who he taught: in Norman Cantor's brief biography no fewer than four nationally recognized medievalists are directly associated with Strayer, including Cantor himself. According to Strayer,

The basic characteristics of feudalism in Western Europe are a fragmentation of political authority, public power in private hands, and a military system in which an essential part of the armed forces is secured through private contracts. Feudalism is a method of government, and a way of securing the forces necessary to preserve that method of government.

Strayer was heir to the Wilsonian progressivism that emerged in the beginnings of the twentieth century. Progressivism was a conscious effort to promote European Protestant culture and views. It maintained that an educated elite were the most qualified rulers. Catholics, Mediterranean, Slavic and Jewish peoples could move up in the social system if they adopted the culture of the European Protestants. So, for Strayer, Feudalism was a system of social power, by elite groups of people who would be most able to wield it.

In the 1940s Carl Stephenson, of Cornell University, wrote two articles for the American Historical Review (v. XLVI, 1941 and XLVIII, 1943) outlining the origin of feudalism and its influence upon England, respectively. In these he defined feudalism as a "phase of government developed by the Frankish kings through the granting of benefices to their vassals." By making their military retinue subordinate vassals, the kings sought to create an army of well-armed horsemen, the medieval tanks. By also mandating that all governmental officials had to be vassals, they tried to reinforce their control in the administration.

Of the historian's definitions mentioned above there is one common element: Europe. By the early 1950s there was an intellectual movement, prompted in majority by Arnold Toynbee, towards comparative world history. The discipline of Medieval history was not immune to this movement. In the subsequent years the movement caught on in many academic circles. In 1950, a conference was held at Princeton University to test the 'uniformity' of the concept of feudalism in history, the ideas discussed were collected in book-form, after the conference, in 1956. Out of the eight essays that resulted from the conference, only one dealt with Western Europe, another discussed the Byzantine Empire. Six out of eight discussed the Near East and the Far East. Bloch makes mention of Japan, but on no more than six pages. Since the 1960s it has become vogue to study the 'feudal ages' of many of the cultures of the world, from Japan and China to the United States and South America. This could be one of the reasons scholars recently have been challenging the 'concept theory' of feudalism. A term originally created to explain the society of France in the Early Middle Ages, has been applied to so many other societies, some of which are of very doubtful féodalité. Feudalism has become (or finally been recognized as) too vague, too general to be of much academic use. Most historians, from Maitland to the present have always expressed unease, if not outright hostility to the term, but almost all accept it as either a necessary evil to aide teaching, or as an unchangeable reality of the secondary sources.

Of those with outright hostility, there is Elizabeth Brown. In her article Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe, Brown attacks the horrid demon "Ism" that has seduced Academe. Throughout her article one can see the author's fist raised in anger against the ignorance of constructs. She praises historians who have turned from the use of the construct to its avoidance, or, even better, those who never used it in the first place. She also displays her disappointment at those who still use the term. Although Brown discusses the history of the term and those who used it adequately, one problem with her diatribe is that as much as she denounces feudalism she does not promote any alternative, other than stating "the terminology and word usage of those who lived in the Middle Ages must be emphasized..." Her conclusion states her purpose succinctly "...putting an end to the elaboration of arid definitions and the construction of simplistic models. The tyrant feudalism [and apparently also the rest of his evil brother isms] must be declared once and for all deposed."

However, Thomas Bisson, H.C. Lea Professor at Harvard University and the immediate past President of the Medieval Academy, in two recent articles obviously felt comfortable using the term, at least as a frame of reference. Bisson does offer a possible reason for the discrediting of the term as well. Feudalism has been defined in so many different ways, that it is not possible to reach a true definition.

Many people have different notions about what is and is not feudal. Now the tendency is to just get rid of the term, rather than defining it with authority, as with Brown. This would be a mistake. As a constructed term feudalism fulfills its purpose as a generalization: it gives students and lecturers a springboard from which they can leap to higher, more complex ideas and concepts, without losing much along the way. However much some scholars may 'deplore' the term feudalism, however much popular speech mangles the meaning behind feudal, with the proper definition and a brief explanation, they can open up many facets of Medieval European society and culture.

Bibliography

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_____The Feudal Revolution Debate: Reply in Past and Present, 155 (1997) p. 208-225.

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