It is called feudalism to the special form that the social organization of European countries acquired during the Middle Ages and that consisted in the appearance of two great classes:the Lords and the Vassals . After the disintegration of the Carolingian Empire, the weakness of the kings became evident. His successors were forced to cede much of their authority to the counts and marquises, in order to gain their support. To ensure the loyalty of these nobles, the monarchs gave them land:the fiefdoms .
On the other hand, the invasions of Vikings, Saracens and Hungarians increased the general insecurity, which forced the kings to entrust the nobles with the defense of their territories.
The crisis of power and the climate of insecurity , added to the decline of trade and industry, contributed to the birth of a new social, economic and political system, feudalism , and of an institution:the cavalry .
Feudalism was based on a characteristic social relationship:vassalage . Through her, a powerful man offered protection to a weaker man who, in return, swore fealty. The first was the lord, the second became a vassal. Feudalism reached its most characteristic forms in the XI, XII and XIII centuries. .
Characteristicsoffeudalism
Feudalism did not evolve in the same way, nor did it arise or end at the same time in Western Europe. However, this social, economic and political system had similar characteristics in all countries:
- The central power disappeared and it was fragmented in the different fiefdoms. In them, the lord monopolized the functions of the State, such as, for example, legislating, imposing taxes and administering justice.
- The ties of dependency became personal:the conception of man linked to a state and territorial laws disappeared and the dependence of one man with respect to another originated. .
- Land acquired enormous economic importance as trade and monetary circulation diminished. For this reason, agriculture It was the basis of the economy. The rural life prevailed against the urban.
- The economy was self-consumption , since each fief consumed only and exclusively what it produced.
- The strongly hierarchical society was dominated by two privileged social groups :the nobility and the clergy.
- The Catholic Church it was consolidated as an institution of enormous religious, political and economic power.
TheFeudalSociety:TheWarriorNobility
feudalism was constituted on the basis of three estates clearly differentiated:the nobles , who had to fight, the ecclesiastics , destined to pray and the peasants , whose mission was to work to support others.
The feudal nobility was made up of lords and vassals who participated in relations of vassalage:at its head was the king, who was nobody's vassal and who, theoretically, was lord of all. Among the members of the nobility there were great differences , although all were part of the aristocracy.
The great vassals they were the counts, viscounts , Dukes and Marquises owners of extensive fiefdoms. At the intermediate level, there were the vassals of the vassals or vasvessores , with smaller fiefdoms. Lastly, there were the lesser vassals , the gentlemen, who were the majority. They had no fief or vassals, but they went to war on horseback and with an important set of weapons.
All the feudal nobility were warriors out of necessity, out of a desire for adventure and out of greed for booty, and they were educated in this spirit. War represented for her a prospect of fame and fortune, while peace was considered misfortune.
The feudal dwelling, the castle , was designed for the demands of defense and combat. Daily occupations were limited to the administration of justice and the surveillance of subordinates. Leisure periods were long, and during them the lord dedicated himself to entertainment, especially hunting. and the tournaments .
The castles
At first the castles were made of wood. It was not until the 12th century that they were made of stone. The castle was built on a hill and was a walled place surrounded by a deep moat saved by a drawbridge. Inside there was a patio that communicated with the different rooms of the castle:the pavilions for the troops and the servants, the warehouse, the stables and the chapel. The most important part was the building that served as housing for the nobleman and his family. In it, the tower of homage stood out, the one with the highest elevation. Life in the castle was generally uncomfortable and unhealthy due to the rudimentary facilities available, poor ventilation and lack of hygiene. Likewise, it was a monotonous life, especially for the women, who hardly left the castle.
The tournaments
To compensate for the hours of tedium in the castle, the feudal lords frequently organized hunts and tournaments. The tournament was the favorite entertainment. It was celebrated in the vicinity of the castle, where numerous nobles from other regions came to set up their shops there. Then, the most skillful and vigorous warriors prepared for combat. The tournament normally lasted two days. The first was dedicated to individual combats between the nobles:riding at high speed two nobles faced each other, armed with a wooden spear. The one who knocked down his contender was the winner. On the second day, however, there were clashes between entire units of warriors. With some frequency, some people died in tournaments. Even so, great banquets and dances were held throughout this dangerous game.
The Quarter Quell
The linking of social relationship to the feudal nobility was called vassalage . The origin of vassalage, which was a personal bond from man to man, dates back to the Germanic peoples, whose members were linked to the king by ties of personal fidelity. In the Frankish kingdoms, the vassal officiated as a warrior and was used by kings, such as Charlemagne, to strengthen their power in the kingdom.
In feudal times, vassalage ceased to be a practice necessarily linked to the king and became a contract or verbal commitment between two free men :the first requested protection from the lord, and the latter, more powerful, gave it to him.
In this way, a social hierarchy was formed, whose main characteristic was that free men became vassals of other more powerful .
Duties and rights
Through the vassalage contract, the lord acquired power over the vassal, since the latter promised him fidelity, obedience and respect but this contract also determined certain obligations and rights for both parties.
While the vassal undertook to support his lord with advice and military and economic aid, the lord, for his part, undertook to protect the vassal and to give him material compensation that depended on his generosity:horses, weapons, luxurious clothes and above all else. all,, lands .
Mutual duties between lord and vassal
The duties of the vassal were called auxilium and consilium . The auxilium It consisted, mainly, in fulfilling a military service 40 days a year. Certain vassals only performed this service personally, but others were aided by knights:their own vassals, who became subvassals of the lord of him. When fulfilling military service, the vassal participated in wars or guarded the lord's castle. In addition, there were other services of the auxilium such as helping the lord financially, administering feudal domains, transmitting messages or being part of the lord's escort.
Through the consilium, on the other hand, the vassal advised his lord, for which he went before him whenever he asked for it.
The lord's duties were to protect and maintain his vassal. Through protection, the lord was obliged to defend against his enemies and protect his vassal before the court, assist him with protecting his vassal before the court; assist him with his advice and be fair to him. Through maintenance, the lord had to keep the vassal in his castle or grant him a fief.
Vassal ceremonies:tribute and investiture
The vassalage was confirmed through two ceremonies:the homage and the investment . In the act of homage, the future vassal knelt before his lord; he swore allegiance to her, offering to fight alongside him and granting her all kinds of help, and asking her to accept him as a vassal. If the gentleman accepted he gave way to the investiture.
In the investiture ceremony, the lord took the vassal's hands in his and asked him if he wanted to be his man:the pact was sealed with a kiss on the mouth and the lord's giving of a sword, a bouquet of flowers or a handful of earth that symbolized the delivery of land or some other object to his vassal.
If either party violated the oath of vassalage, they became a felon , or traitor:in the Middle Ages treason was considered the worst crime a man could commit.
The vassalage contract was maintained until the death of one of the parties. However, the heirs could renew it by repeating the ceremonies.
On the other hand, a vassal could make this contract with several lords and thus acquire several fiefdoms. When this happened, the vassal owed total fidelity only to one of his lords, to whom he paid absolute homage:the Ligio homage .
The Feudo
Through the vassalage contract, the vassal acquired a material benefit from his lord:various objects, a position of importance, the right to a collection, rent or land. In the beginning, this compensation was called profit . Then it was called a fiefdom and ended up designating almost exclusively the profit on land .
Instead, the fief devoid of any territorial basis was called stock market fiefdom and was presented in various guises:it could consist of the delivery of a sum of money to the vassal, or in a rent fixed.
When the fief was a land property, it had a variable extension and housed the essential sources of wealth:agriculture, livestock and forestry. It was an autonomous economic unit , in which what was produced was consumed.
Trade, on the other hand, was almost non-existent. At that time, commercial relations were limited, on the part of the lord, to the occasional purchase of luxury objects or itinerant merchants, and on the part of the peasants, to small exchanges between neighbors. Also, craft production declined.
The territorial lordship
All fiefdoms revolved around the habitual residence of the feudal lord:the castle or the abbey. Nobles rarely farmed all of their land. That's why they gave a good part of them to other people. Granting the land was equivalent to acquiring a power:that of participating in the resources of the families to whom it was given. The arable land was divided into three different parts:
- The reservation they were the lands for the exclusive use of the lord:he exploited them directly, employing a workforce that was mostly servile. All the products of the reserve fell into the hands of the lord.
- The meek they were small plots entrusted to free peasants, settlers, who in return, worked certain days a year for the lord and gave him a part of the harvest or money from him. The serfs were also given plots to cultivate, in this case they spoke of servile hand .
- The communal lands of common use were, fundamentally, forests and pastures for cattle.
The abbey as a fief
Around the 11th century, vassals of great importance were very often given a church with its abbey as a fief. With this type of fiefdom, the vassals received all the income that arose from its domain or from the exercise of the ecclesiastical ministry itself:tithes, which were a tenth of the church, and offerings from the faithful, among other income. These incomes of an ecclesiastical nature, and especially tithes, were among the most coveted objects for their concession in fiefdom, since great fortunes could be amassed with them.
The right over the fief
One of the problems that historians consider when studying the fief is the type of right they had over the fief, the lord who granted it and the vassal who received it. At the beginning of the feudal period, the nature of this right was unquestionable:the lord was the owner and the vassal only had the right to usufruct the fief, that is, to appropriate its production, but without making any kind of exchange on this territory. . However, throughout feudalism, the vassal acquired more and more power over the fief, since his service was indispensable for the political or military enterprises of the lord. That is why, in the long run, the vassals disposed of their fiefs as they pleased:they dismembered it to distribute it to their children and modified their crops according to their own needs.
The inheritance of a fief
The vassalage contract could be renewed between the heirs:that is why the fief was also inherited. To regulate this inheritance, a custom was established in almost all countries:primogeniture . However, as the fief was increasingly seen by the vassal as an element of his personal fortune, the vassal tried to benefit all of his sons with his landed estate, not just his eldest.
This is why, in the long run, fiefdoms tended to fragment greatly, especially in countries like France and Germany.
The Cavalry
From the eleventh century, horseback combatants became the main protagonists of warfare. The rise of the cavalry was due, in large part, to some technical innovations, such as the stirrup, which facilitated the movement of the rider.
Originally, knights were free peasants who could buy and maintain weapons and horses, which was extremely expensive. These men were placed at the service of the feudal lords, to form part of their private armies. Over time, the cavalry became an increasingly closed group that only nobles could access.
Ceremony to be a knight
As in feudal times people could not read or write, written contracts were hardly used, people confirmed everything through ceremonies. Through one of them, one entered the cavalry after a long period of apprenticeship as a squire, serving at the side of a lord. The act began at night, when the future knight stayed awake next to his weapons, watching over them. The next morning, after hearing mass and taking communion, the knight was armed. After swearing to fulfill all his own obligations of such a condition, his godfather put on his right spur and with the sword, hit him on the back of the neck:the accolade . Thus, he entered the cavalry.