General History: Notable Concepts & Systems

Feudalism (All Facts)

• System that emerged during the Middle Ages

• System of exchanges of land for loyalty that

  • was a form of decentralized political organization

  • characterized European civilization in the Middle Ages / Medieval Period

• Provided people with some protection from bandits, rival lords, and invaders such as the Vikings from northern Europe

• At its core, it was a system of mutual obligations:

  • A monarch (king) granted tracts of land (fiefs) to lords

    • In return, a lord became a king’s vassal, a person who owed service to another person of higher status

  • Lords then provided land to knights

    • In return, knights became vassals of the lord, and pledged to fight for the lord or king

  • Lords also provided land and protection to peasants

    • In return, peasants were obligated to farm the lord’s land and provide the lord with crops and livestock, and to obey the lord’s orders

• Provided

  • Some security for peasants

  • Equipment for warriors

  • Land to those who served a lord

• Under it, wealth was measured in land rather than in cash given that this entire system was based on agriculture

• System which incorporated a code of chivalry

Code of Chivalry (All Facts)

• Unwritten set of rules for conduct focusing on honor, courtesy, and bravery as a way to resolve disputes, typically incorporated within a feudal system

Manorial System (All Facts)

• System that emerged during the Middle Ages

• System consisting of the namesake large fiefs or estates

• Provided

  • Economic self-sufficiency

  • Self-defense

• Produced everything that people living on one required, limiting the need for trade or contact with outsiders

  • This helps explain why trade was limited during the Middle Ages

• Serfs typically spent their entire life on the namesake large fief or estate, unaware of the events occurring throughout the rest of Europe

Three-Field System (All Facts)

• System that emerged during the end of the Middle Ages

  • It emerged alongside the gradual improvement of climate and technology, contributing to the gradual increase in the amount of arable (farmable) land

• System in which crops were rotated through three fields:

  • The first field was planted with wheat or rye; crops that provided food

  • The second field was planted with legumes such as peas, lentils, or beans;’ crops that made the soil more fertile by adding nitrogen to it

  • The third field was allowed to remain fallow (unused) each year

• System which led to population growth in the late Middle Ages

  • The agricultural surplus it produced encouraged the growth of towns and markets that could operate more frequently than just on holidays

Primogeniture (All Facts)

• System under which the eldest son in a family inherited the entire estate, leaving a generation of younger sons with little access to wealth and land

Monarchy (All Facts)

• Political system which eventually outgrew feudalism, in which kings outgrew in power at the expense of feudal lords, in which the king employed his own bureaucracy and military, with his employees working directly for him

Guilds (All Facts)

• Professional associations of artisans and merchants who oversaw the practice of their craft / trade in a particular area that was especially popular and widespread in medieval Europe

• They contributed to the upward mobility of many throughout Europe, especially those who had not been born into the royalty, aristocracy, or merchant classes

  • Failure to join in some towns meant the difference between prosperity and starvation

• However, they frequently operated monopolies

  • As a result, the masters who ran them wielded real economic power

  • These monopolies were most pronounced in continental Europe, where rich merchants dominated the master class

  • Acquiring such a master status required submission of a masterpiece (of a particular craft) and payment of a large tax

    • While the price may be high, masters considered their status a passport to wealth

• The namesake masters

  • Fixed prices

  • Dictates standards of quality

  • Decided on the eligibility of members