Year 8 History — Sequence 3: Feudal System, Social Structure and Perspective

92 atomic flashcards covering the origins and structure of feudal society after 1066, the reciprocal obligations of kings, nobles, knights and peasants, key medieval vocabulary (fief, vassal, homage, fealty, manor, serf, tithe), evidence about social hierarchies and the roles of women, the skill of determining perspective and bias in a historical source, and the decline of feudalism through the Black Death and the growth of towns. Built for active recall and spaced repetition.

Which empire's collapse left Western Europe unstable and open to invasion?

The Roman Empire

Feudalism was a system for organising the use of _______ and the control of people.

Land

What did feudalism offer ordinary people in return for their service?

Protection

Apart from protection, what effect did feudalism have on people's daily lives?

It placed restrictions and controls on how they lived

Which Norman leader introduced feudalism to England?

William of Normandy (William the Conqueror)

In which year did William of Normandy invade England?

1066

At which battle did William defeat King Harold?

The Battle of Hastings

After the conquest, who claimed ownership of all land in England?

The king

Why did William divide English land among his followers?

To reward those who had stayed loyal to him

Which Scandinavian raiders threatened Europe before feudalism developed?

The Vikings

Why could early medieval kings not protect their communities?

They were too weak to defend their lands against raids and invasion

What survey did William order in 1086 to record who held land and wealth?

The Domesday Book

What is the name of the period in European history in which feudalism operated?

The Middle Ages (the medieval period)

What word describes a society ranked into fixed layers of power?

A hierarchy

Under feudalism, a person's place in society was mostly decided by _______.

Birth

Who sat at the top of the feudal pyramid?

The king

Which group sat directly below the king?

The nobles (barons)

Which group sat between the nobles and the peasants?

The knights

Which group formed the base of the feudal pyramid?

The peasants

Which group made up the great majority of medieval society?

The peasants

Which group produced the food that everyone else depended on?

The peasants

What is the term for land granted by a lord in return for service?

A fief

What is the term for a person who received land and owed service to a lord?

A vassal

What is a liege lord?

The lord to whom a vassal owed his highest loyalty

What did the king grant to his nobles?

Land (fiefs)

What did nobles owe the king in return for land?

Loyalty, taxes and armed men for war

What did nobles grant to their knights?

Land and a place in the household

What did knights owe their lord in return for land?

Military service and protection

What did a lord grant to his peasants?

Land to farm and protection

What did peasants owe their lord in return?

Labour, a share of the harvest and taxes

In feudalism, obligations flowed upward while land and _______ flowed downward.

Protection

What is the name for a peasant legally bound to the land they worked?

A serf

What was the main legal difference between a serf and a free peasant?

A serf could not leave the manor without the lord's permission

What was the estate held by a lord and farmed by peasants called?

A manor

What was the payment of one tenth of produce to the Church called?

The tithe

Which ceremony made a man publicly become another man's vassal?

Homage

Which sworn promise bound a vassal to be loyal and faithful to his lord?

The Oath of Fealty

Which institution held large amounts of land alongside the king and nobles?

The Church

What code of conduct were knights expected to follow?

Chivalry

Which group gained the most from the feudal system?

The king and the nobles

Which group had the least power and the fewest rights?

The peasants and serfs

Does the Oath of Fealty in Source A have a named author?

No, it was a standard formal agreement rather than one person's work

Who were the two parties to an Oath of Fealty?

A lord and his vassal

What was the purpose of the Oath of Fealty?

To put a binding relationship of loyalty into a formal, spoken and written form

Who was the intended audience of the Oath of Fealty?

The lord, the vassal and the witnesses present

What object did the vassal swear on to make the oath sacred?

A holy relic

The oath promises loyalty "according to God's law", showing the influence of _______ on feudal duty.

Religion

What condition did the vassal attach to his own loyalty in the oath?

That the lord keep his side of the agreement and treat him as he deserved

When was the Oath of Fealty in use?

Throughout the Middle Ages, while the feudal system operated

Whose personal feelings are absent from the Oath of Fealty?

The vassal's

Name one group affected by feudalism whose voice is missing from the Oath of Fealty.

Peasants, serfs or women

What bias does the Oath of Fealty show towards the feudal system?

A positive bias, presenting it as legitimate and binding

What does the Oath of Fealty reveal about how power was enforced?

Power rested on personal, sworn obligations of obedience and service

What does determining the perspective of a source mean?

Identifying the viewpoint or position of the person or group who created it

Determining perspective is about working out whose _______ a source represents.

Side

Which source analysis step asks who created the source?

Author

Which source analysis step asks why the source was made and for whom?

Purpose

Which source analysis step asks when and where the source was made?

Origin

Which source analysis step asks what values or attitudes are reflected?

Bias

What is bias in a historical source?

A leaning towards one viewpoint that favours some interests over others

Which question exposes the silences in the historical record?

Whose voices are missing?

What is an inference?

A conclusion drawn from evidence in a source rather than stated directly

Why does it matter whether a source was made close to the event or much later?

Later accounts can be shaped by faded memory and hindsight

What is a primary source?

A source created at the time of the events being studied

What is a secondary source?

An account created later by someone who did not witness the events

Which sentence starter is used for a perspective statement?

"This source shows the perspective of… because…"

What must follow the claim in a perspective statement?

Evidence from the source and reasoning about its author, purpose, origin and bias

Why can two sources about the same event disagree?

Their creators held different positions, interests and experiences

Why is perspective useful to historians even when a source is biased?

It shows how people at the time understood and justified events

Whose perspective is most often missing from medieval written records?

Women's, especially lower-class women

Why were women's voices rarely recorded in medieval writing?

Most writing was produced by literate men of the Church and the elite

When written records are silent, what other evidence reveals women's work?

Artefacts and other material objects

Name one type of work carried out by medieval peasant women.

Dairying, baking, brewing, spinning or harvesting

Which medieval woman ran a stonemasonry business making royal tombs?

Domina Agnes Ramsey

Which medieval woman worked as a blacksmith at the Tower of London?

Katherine of Bury

During which war was Katherine of Bury working at the Tower of London?

The Hundred Years' War

What do women stonemasons and blacksmiths show about medieval work?

Women worked in skilled trades, not only in the household

What kind of source is the November calendar page showing threshing and pig feeding?

An illuminated manuscript page, made about 1510 to 1520

What farm work is shown on the November calendar page source?

Threshing grain and feeding pigs

Why treat an illuminated manuscript cautiously as evidence of peasant life?

It was made for wealthy patrons, so it may idealise or simplify the work shown

Why should an inference be revisited after new evidence is studied?

New evidence can correct or deepen the original conclusion

Which pandemic from 1347 killed roughly one third of Europe's people?

The Black Death

How did the Black Death change the supply of peasant labour?

It caused a severe labour shortage

What happened to peasants' wages after the Black Death?

They rose, because workers had become scarce

Which uprising of 1381 showed growing peasant resistance in England?

The Peasants' Revolt

What gradually replaced labour service as the way peasants paid for land?

Money rent

The growth of _______ gave peasants an alternative to life on the manor.

Towns

What could a serf gain by living in a town for a year and a day?

Freedom from their lord

What were medieval associations of skilled craft workers called?

Guilds

What document granted a town rights of self-government?

A charter

Name one lasting legacy of the decline of feudalism.

A money-based economy, growing towns, or a merchant middle class