Feudalism and Manorialism

Need to know!!

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The decline of roman influence in Western Europe left people with little protection against invasion, so they entered into

feudal agreements: landholding lords who promised them protection.

What was Feudalism?

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The dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility (Lords) held lands from the Crown (King) in exchange for military service (Knights), and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord’s land and give him homage (formal public acknowledgement of feudal allegiance), labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection (from the lords and knights).

Why Feudalism?

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1. Invasions shattered Roman protection over the Empire
2. Feudalism emerged gradually between the fall of the Western Roman Empire (fifth century) and the collapse of the Carolingian Empire (tenth century) as a means of work for protection.

Feudalism

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Feudalism - an economic system in which landholders gave protection to people in return for work

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• One guy owns the land and another works on it
• The king owns ALL land

Basics of Feudal society during the Middle Ages

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Fiefs - an estate of land, especially one held on condition of feudal service.

Vassals - a holder of land by feudal tenure on conditions of homage and allegiance… to put it another way, a person or country in a subordinate position to another

Serfs - an agricultural laborers bound under the feudal system to work on their lord’s estate.

Feudal obligations - Feudal duties were the set of reciprocal financial, military and legal obligations among the warrior nobility in a feudal system. (aka what each person or level in the system was required to do)

The Feudal System

Taxes ultimately end up going to the king. Peasants work, knights protect, nobles collect, king gets rich.

The Manor/Manorial System or Manorialism

The economic system structured around a lord’s manor, or estate.

• Rigid class structure
• Self-sufficient manors

The Three-Field System

European farmers used a technique called crop rotation

• Each year, one field was planted while the other was left fallow (unplanted)

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The three-field system was later developed

• ⅓ of the land was planted in spring crops (wheat)
• ⅓ of the land was planted in summer crops (beans/peas)
• ⅓ of the land was left fallow

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Two major advantages:

• Increased the amount of land planted each year
• Protected farmers from starvation if one of the crops failed

Peasant Life

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Peasants did hard, physical work and received very little for it.

Even simple things like wood had to be paid for.

Knights

Knights were hired to protect the land in Europe.

In return for their service, knights were given land.

The Tournament

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Knights would gather to play a series of “games”

(Usually to impress the ladies)

• They had archery contests, wrote poems, and the joust (“Full Metal Jousting”).
• The tournament was a very important part of Medieval culture.
• People would root for knights as we root for sports teams.
• It also gave the knights a chance to train for battle.

Going to War

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At first, being a knight was pretty boring since there wasn’t much going on

By about the year 1,000 though war was pretty much constant

Knights more often ended up fighting against other knights than foreign invaders.

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