Origins of Feudalism and the Manorial Economy

Debate and Historiographical Currents on Feudalism

Feudalism is understood as the system of government and economic, social, and political organization specific to the Middle Ages, based on ties and obligations linking vassals and lords.
Current considerations revolve around two essential ideas:
- Feudalism as a mode of economic production, from which social and political organization is derived.
- Feudalism as a political institution, from which social and economic organization is derived.
Each historiographical school has offered its view of what feudalism is.

Marxist Historiography

Defends historical materialism, considers feudalism a mode of production, successor to the slave system and predecessor to the capitalist system.
Characterized by a predominantly agrarian economy and limited development of productive forces.
Maurice Dobb (1900-1976) conceives feudalism as a mode of production with three fundamental features:
1. Servitude: Exploitation of the serf by the lord. Servitude is an obligation imposed on the producer to meet the economic demands of the lord through services, money, or in-kind payments.
2. Low Productivity Agriculture: Due to low technical development and a limited division of labor.
3. Weak Central Power: The king shares territorial power with lords, who possess conditional land rights and exercise authority (ban) over serfs.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) distinguishes feudalism from slavery:
- The feudal producer owns the means of production.
- The slave and the industrial worker do not.
Other historians with similar interpretations:
- Paul Sweezy (1910-2004).
- Pierre Vilar (1906-2003).
- Marx emphasized the differences between feudalism and capitalism, noting that industrial workers can choose their employers, while feudal producers and slaves cannot.

Legal-Institutional Interpretation

Emerged in the mid-19th century, represented by legal historian François-Louis Ganshof (1895-1980).
Feudalism is defined as a set of institutions that bind a free man (vassal) to another free man (lord), with the lord having obligations of protection and maintenance towards the vassal (Ganshof, 1985).
Emphasizes the institutions that determine the obligations of individuals and where society and politics are based on private ties.
The problem with this interpretation is that it overlooks economic aspects.
According to the legal concept, feudalism was mainly practiced in parts of Western Europe, primarily France, between the 9th and 13th centuries.

The Annales School

Founded by Lucien Febvre (1878-1956) and Marc Bloch (1886-1944), sought to unify economic and social criteria.
Marc Bloch viewed feudalism as an agricultural mode of production where lords exercise rights over serfs due to the supremacy of a warrior class (Bloch, 2002).
This is a commonly accepted view, derived from Bloch's work, "Feudal Society" (1939-1940).

Political-Ideological Alternative

Linked to Ganshof's institutional view, developed by Jean-François Lemarignier (1908-1980).
Insists on the importance of pacts and power concessions, which led to the atomization of central power.
This resulted in social consequences of dependency ties, within a stage of pre-industrial economic history.

Basic Aspects of the Historiographical Debate

Key aspects of the debate include the chronological and spatial limits and the transition to the Modern Age and capitalism.

Chronological Limits

Each historiographical school defines these differently.
Liberal historians like Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877) and François Mignet (1796-1884) marked the end of feudalism on August 4, 1789, when the French Constituent Assembly abolished the seigneurial regime.
Others equate the end of feudalism with the end of the Middle Ages, coinciding with the rise of authoritarian monarchies, the bourgeoisie, a monetary economy, long-distance trade, and the Renaissance.
The origin of feudalism is also debated.
- Institutionalists place it in the 9th century with the consolidation of the Carolingian Empire.
- Marxist historians place it in the 3rd-century crisis of the Roman Empire with the shift from a slave system to colonate.

Spatial Limits

Historian Claude Cahen (1909-1991) identifies two errors:
1. Calling institutions "feudal" that do not merit the term.
2. Considering societies feudal when they only possess some elements of feudalism.
Cahen asserts that a fully feudal system never existed and that only some medieval societies approached the feudal model. These were the societies of Western Europe and, specifically, those in the territories of the Carolingian Empire.
Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz (1893-1984) argued that Castile did not have true feudalism but rather a feudal mode of production from an economic and social perspective, but lacking feudal political institutions.
The only feudal institutions in the Iberian Peninsula during the Middle Ages were in the Astur-Leonese and Navarrese kingdoms, influenced by French vassalage via the Santiago Way.

Transition to Capitalism

The Marxist school has extensively studied this transition.
Three differentiated tendencies:
- Maurice Dobb emphasizes endogenous causes, stating that the transition from feudalism to capitalism was precipitated by the inefficiency of feudalism as a mode of production.
- Paul Sweezy points to exogenous causes, such as the emergence of a monetary economy linked to long-distance trade, and the rise of the bourgeoisie.
- Pierre Vilar combined criteria, suggesting that the transition was decisive when political changes allowed for the creation of authoritarian monarchies from the 15th to the 16th centuries.
Most historians agree that the height of feudalism was from the 10th to 13th centuries (High Middle Ages), with a formative period from the 7th to 9th centuries (Early Middle Ages), and decline in the 14th and 15th centuries (Late Middle Ages).
Its geographical scope was Western Europe, particularly the Carolingian Empire.

Origin and Development: The Institutions

Origins of Feudalism

Two opposing views:
- Feudalism from Above: Related to the institutional interpretation, involving the formation of political clientelism initiated by the Merovingians and continued by the Carolingians.
- Feudalism from Below: Related to the Marxist interpretation, associated with the ruralization process of the Late Roman Empire from the 3rd century.

Feudalism from Above

Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) argues that the situation that led to feudalism was generated in the Carolingian era.
The unity of the Roman world was maintained during the Merovingian period, but the Muslim expansion caused the decline of Roman unity and the emergence of feudal political clienteles to confront the Islamic invasion.

Feudalism from Below

Georges Duby (1919-1996) traces the formation process to the era of the Late Roman Empire during the 3rd, 4th, and 5th centuries.
Rome began its decline due to economic crisis, military power, civil conflicts, and invasions.
This era saw the beginning of the conditions that paved the way for feudalism.
The process began with the military anarchy of the 3rd century and political instability.
From the 4th and 5th centuries, urban life, the monetary economy, and commerce declined.
The economy became centered on the latifundium (large estates), which tended toward economic self-sufficiency and was the direct predecessor of the manor.
The latifundium began to function as an autonomous unit, with the lord and his personal army protecting the colonists, who were obligated to obey him.
The progressive decline of slavery, the rise of the freed slave (liberto) tied to the land, and the increase in personal dependency led to such a situation.
Libertos became coloni, the predecessors of feudal serfs.

Development of Feudalism

Miguel Ángel Ladero Quesada (1943) identifies the following stages:
1. Formation of the first Merovingian clienteles.
2. Emergence of the first feudal-vassal forms with the Carolingians.
3. Classical feudalism between the 10th and 13th centuries (Ladero, 2010).
The early clientele systems formed in the 7th century with the Merovingian dynasty due to general insecurity.
These systems established dependency ties:
- Between colonists and their lords.
- Between lords and the king.
The king granted benefits or lands to the lord to govern in his name and under his authority.
The appearance of the first feudovassal forms happened with the Carolingians (8th-9th centuries), when the political clienteles took the form of feudovassal relations.
The political authority crisis in Western Europe (due to Muslim, Avar, Magyar, and Viking invasions) and the inability of Germanic kingdoms to control them made personal dependency ties more frequent among free men, who became dependent on their lords.
There was a decline of urban life, reduction of the monetary economy and trade, and a considerable decrease in tax revenues.
Officials were recruited from the nobility and paid with land grants in beneficium.
The number of vassals increased in the time of Charlemagne, as he tried to consolidate the vast empire through missi dominici, who also had their vassals.
These practices contributed to the dissolution of royal power.
In 877, Charles the Bald (823-877), in the Capitular of Quiercy, established the hereditary nature of these benefits.
Lands/benefits became hereditary, leading to an autonomous blood nobility.
Through an oath of fidelity, lords gained immunity (authority) in their fiefdom to wield their power over serfs.
Between the 10th and 13th centuries, feudovassal relationships were consolidated in Western Europe, which can be called classical feudalism.
The contract of vassalage became more complex, involving a homage ceremony, oath of fidelity to the monarch, and investiture of the fiefdom to the lord (symbolized by a flag, scepter, or ring).
French historian Robert Boutruche (1904-1975) described the ceremony.

The Institutions

The homage ceremony was practiced at different scales: between the king and the high nobility, and between the high nobility and the low nobility.
The lord gave his vassal the fief/feudum (land), offices, material possessions, or money.
Occasionally, there was a written contract between the parties.
Besides fidelity, the vassal owed services to his lord:
- Auxilium: Military aid in the forms of hueste (large military expeditions), cabalgada (devastating actions), and guardia (armed surveillance).
- Arrière-ban: The king's call to every man capable of arms, whether noble or not.
- Consilium: The obligation to advise the lord as a member of the curia, an advisory and judicial body of nobility and clergy.
The main element of the feud was the castle (or monasteries, cathedrals, and ecclesiastical buildings in the case of the Church).
Castles acted as the main residence, center of justice administration, rent and tribute collection, provision store, and shelter for the area's inhabitants.
It was common for one person to be a vassal to several lords; this gave rise to conflicts.
Homenaje ligio was established as the homage that, in the event of a dispute, should prevail.
Failure to meet the commitments of vassalage was called felony, which meant the dissolution of the feudovassal contract and the loss of the feud.
Since the Capitular of Quiercy, benefits and fiefs became hereditary.

The Manorial Economy

Based on the system of serfdom in agriculture.
Guilds in manufacturing.
Limited development of the commercial sector.
The invasions that Europe suffered for over one hundred years that the Roman Empire and the subsequent weakening of the Carolingian Empire slowed down economic activity until the year 1000.
From the 11th century, there was significant agricultural expansion and a commercial renaissance.

Agriculture

Characterized by low productivity per hectare.
Use of rudimentary tools.
Limited use of biological fertilizers.
No capital investment.
Production aimed at self-consumption.
Predominance of cereal-based staple crops like wheat and barley.
The manor was the basic economic unit.
The manor tended to be self-sufficient.
Maurice Dobb: "The manorial economy has an agricultural base of low productivity due to the low level of technical development and the little division and specialization of labor” (Dobb and Hilton, 1980).
The manor was divided into three parts:
1. The demesne (terra dominicata): Land exploited directly for the lord.
2. The tenures (terra indominicata): Corresponded to the rest of the manor, divided into mansi where the serf lived and worked- in theory, mansi had enough land to feed the peasant and his family.
3. Common lands: Meadows and forests from which wood and food for livestock were obtained.
From the 11th century, Europe experienced an economic renaissance.
Marked by technological developments applied to agricultural production:
- The use of water and wind through mills.
- The use of draft animals such as horses and oxen.
- The generalization of the plow with wheels and moldboards.

Commerce

Suffered significant regression compared to the High Roman Empire.
Medieval commerce was characterized by limited products to trade small items, and high value such as minerals, metals, spices, weapons and luxury manufactured goods.
Scarce infrastructure and primitive transportation.
Inland trade consisted of weekly/bi-weekly local markets and the exterior trade was organized by means of fairs.
There were two important commercial centers: Venice in the Mediterranean, and Flanders (County of Flanders) on the Atlantic.
From the 12th century, an important commercial revival took place. This was related to several causes.
Increasing population, the revival of cities and of monetary life and the reconstruction of infrastructure such as bridges facilitated pilgrimages.
Mercantile activity established an important economic circuit with two main centers: Flanders and the Hansa in the north, and Italy in the Mediterranean, and the Champagne fairs as a regulatory center between them.
- Flanders' prosperity was based on cloth manufacturing in cities such as Arras, Amiens, and Cambrai.
- The Hansa was a league of commercial cities that was born from the German penetration into the Baltic and the founding of new trade enclaves in the second half of the 12th century.
- Italy's economic activity was concentrated in Venice and Genoa and was oriented toward trade with the East.
- Until the year 1300, the relationship between the Italian group and the North Sea group was conducted through the Champaña plateau, in France. At the Champaña fairs, wool and fur cloths were exchanged for oriental products (spices, silk or cotton fabrics, jewelry, perfumes, etc.).

Feudal Society

Feudal society must be addressed within two domains, mobility, and social hierarchy.
Class historiography shows social agents circumscribed in tight groups with barely any movement.
This thesis fits the idea of history as progress between the Roman Empire and the Modern Age.
Christopher Dyer (1944) and Sandro Carocci (1956) state that medieval society is mobile and sensitive to endogenous and exogenous changes.
Internally derived factors such as the imbalance between population and resources or the domestic dynamics of expansion in Latin Europe are products of the rotation and expansion of productive areas by establishing new relations of power and dependency.
External factors entail episodes of famine that shake the social configuration.
In the case of social hierarchy, it describes a model of trifunctional society tutored by the Church in rural areas and the Institutions in the urban world where social agents were reduced in 3 categories being the clergy, nobility, and serfs.
The former belonged to the privileged class while the latter lacked any type of privilege.

Social Pyramid

The king was at the top of the feudal pyramid. He was the highest authority in his domains.
All the inhabitants of the kingdom were tied to him through vassalage, the high nobility directly and their vassals indirectly.
The ruling classes were mainly occupied with war, and their economic support came from the exploitation of their manors through serf labor.
The next level was the high nobility: dukes, marquises, counts, viscounts, etc who held "feuds of dignity," which corresponded to the old districts of the Carolingian Empire and were granted directly by the king.
Military feuds were divided by the high nobility and delivered to their direct vassals constituting the “military feuds”.
These were, in turn, subinfeudated into "knighthood feuds."
Lords controlled the life of their vassals and exercised control over their possessions.
Feudal lords had assumed judicial and fiscal command: they had the ability to judge their vassals, collect tributes, taxes, rents, tolls, etc.
The manor had become the fundamental unit of power of the feudal system and the rights of the lord were called ban, in the territories of the Carolingian Empire.
Churches, as orders within the ruling class, also had prerogatives similar to those of the secular lords and could administer justice and collect taxes and rents.
There was variety of social groups within the lower classes. Slaves were few in number. Smallholder freeholders had little presence and their social class was in regression over the Middle Ages. Some went into servitude willingly and pledged themselves to large landowners or suffered violence at the hand of the lords.
Semilibertarians were the serfs who could not have any rights and depending on the territory, several types with different names existed.
Serfs were bound to pay in the form of services or a canon, in exchange for protection of the land.
Serf services included labor performed for the lord and payment for the land received.
From the 12th century onward, Lords preferred payment to be in coin due to the urban renaissance.
Women played a secondary role, marked by their sex and discriminated against.
The generalization of worship and devotion to the Virgin Mary improved the view of women.
The role of women varied depending on the social group to which they belonged being noble, religious, or peasant women.

Urban Society

Before the urban rebirth of the 11th-13th centuries, modest attempts to restore the urban landscape took place at the hand of the monarchies.
From the 11th century, cities were of commercial origins being regional agricultural markets and their development was possible to due to population increase improvements in works and increasing commercial exchanges.
The consolidation was also associated with the rapid emergence of a new social group, the bourgeoisie.
Burghers formed a commune occupied in the defense of their city and chose their mayors through democratic forms.
Burghers led revolts against their lords in defense of their freedoms, independence, and interests.
Commerce differs greatly from the 11th to the 15th centuries because the office of the merchant was professionally accepted.
Greater commercial traffic provided considerable impulse to finance which became more powerful.

Expansion and Crisis of Feudalism

Expansion of Feudalism

From the 10th century, the feudal system and the manorial system were fully consolidated in the territories of the Carolingian Empire.
Paradoxically, although the organization and situation of the Carolingian Empire helped to generalize and systematize the feudal system, its crisis and fragmentation contributed to relaunch and consolidate feudalism in Western Europe definitively.
The increase in the number of families with noble titles derived from Carolingian concessions brought with it an expansion of the territories established as manors, and with it, the cultivation of new lands that allowed the lord to live off peasant exploitation. This meant increased rents and better profits.
In this period, feudalism was installed in the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula, in Central and Eastern Europe and, also, in the Nordic regions and England.
There was a considerable increase of cultivated lands that were organized around feudalism.
Church took on colonization initiates.
The Church was the only one to provide ideology, once feudalism was consolidated and generalized.
Military orders and the crusades played a role.
Crusaders created feudal states in the territories of the Byzantine Empire.

Crisis of Feudalism

The crisis and end of feudalism have been protagonists for decades of an intense debate involving chronological, spatial, and conceptual aspects.
There are two different positions that are not entirely incompatible. The first position suggests the end of feudalism by a crisis of a prolonged and gradual transformation, while the second entails processes of revolutionary aboliions.
There appears to be consensus in saying that the feudal form of society disappeared ca. the 14th-15th centuries.
To understand this ending of feudalism one must analyze multiple factors and the transformation of the society's economic base.
Monarchies strengthened due to a greater concentration of economic, judicial, and military power was in the hands of the kings.
Frequent social distress and revolts amongst the serfs was apparent amongst the lords.
Lords also had to get closer to the court of the crown to become noble courtiers.
War was present among kingdoms/lords, causing large masses of civilian and mercenary armies to show up.
Military protection fell onto the semi-professional armies who took responsibility of the crown, this diminished value away from the ties of being a vassal and being protected.
War became a way of creating taxes to consolidate new public policies and stronger organized states.
Socio economic transformations were tied to strong urban developments with the decreasing of manorial ties to the farmers/peasants.
With this the creation of large fortunes and banking families created better agreements among the city classes which showed ties to more urban economic policies that resulted in the end of feudal rule/structure.

Conclusion

Feudalism was a form of political, social, and economic organization based on relations of dependence.
that characterized the European Middle Ages.
The polemic of the discussion from a historical perspective is caused the the modification of the system that provided the germ for new political economic and social structures leading to the modernization of the area.
Knowing the Middle Ages enriches present times and increases our ability of reflection, we study history to be able to live with critical thought within this world.