What Was the Name of the Land That Was Given to Vassal From His Lord?

Learning Objective

Recall the construction of the feudal state and the responsibilities and obligations of each level of society

Key Points

Feudalism flourished in Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries.
Feudalism in England determined the construction of society around relationships derived from the holding and leasing of land, or fiefs.
In England, the feudal pyramid was made up of the king at the top with the nobles, knights, and vassals below him.
Earlier a lord could grant land to a tenant he would have to make him a vassal at a formal ceremony. This anniversary bound the lord and vassal in a contract.
While modern writers such as Marx point out the negative qualities of feudalism, such as the exploitation and lack of social mobility for the peasants, the French historian Marc Bloch contends that peasants were part of the feudal relationship; while the vassals performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasants performed concrete labour in return for protection, thereby gaining some do good despite their express liberty.
The 11th century in France saw what has been called past historians a "feudal revolution" or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" that increased localized power and autonomy.

Terms

homage

In the Middle Ages this was the ceremony in which a feudal tenant or vassal pledged reverence and submission to his feudal lord, receiving in commutation the symbolic title to his new position.

fealty

An oath, from the Latin fidelitas (faithfulness); a pledge of fidelity of one person to another.

vassals

Persons who entered into a common obligation to a lord or monarch in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe.

fiefs

Heritable property or rights granted by an overlord to a vassal.

mesne tenant

A lord in the feudal system who had vassals who held land from him, but who was himself the vassal of a college lord.

Overview

Bullwork was a fix of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished betwixt the ninth and 15th centuries. It can be broadly divers as a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land, known as a fiefdom or fief, in exchange for service or labour.

The classic version of feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and armed services obligations among the warrior nobility, revolving around the three central concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. A lord was in broad terms a noble who held land, a vassal was a person who was granted possession of the country by the lord, and a fief was what the land was known as. In exchange for the apply of the fief and the protection of the lord, the vassal would provide some sort of service to the lord. In that location were many varieties of feudal land tenure, consisting of armed services and non-military service. The obligations and respective rights betwixt lord and vassal apropos the fief formed the basis of the feudal relationship.

Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a issue of the decentralization of an empire, especially in the Carolingian empires, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without the ability to allocate land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a organization of hereditary rule over their allocated country, and their power over the territory came to comprehend the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres.

Many societies in the Center Ages were characterized by feudal organizations, including England, which was the nigh structured feudal society, France, Italy, Germany, the Holy Roman Empire, and Portugal. Each of these territories developed bullwork in unique means, and the way we empathize feudalism as a unified concept today is in big part due to critiques after its dissolution. Karl Marx theorized feudalism every bit a pre-capitalist social club, characterized past the ability of the ruling grade (the elite) in their control of arable land, leading to a form lodge based upon the exploitation of the peasants who subcontract these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce, and money rents.

While modernistic writers such as Marx point out the negative qualities of feudalism, the French historian Marc Bloch contends that peasants were an integral part of the feudal relationship: while the vassals performed armed services service in exchange for the fief, the peasants performed physical labour in return for protection, thereby gaining some benefit despite their express freedom. Feudalism was thus a complex social and economic arrangement divers by inherited ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economical privileges and obligations. Feudalism allowed societies in the Middle Ages to retain a relatively stable political structure even as the centralized power of empires and kingdoms began to dissolve.

Construction of the Feudal Country in England

Feudalism in 12th-century England was amidst the better structured and established systems in Europe at the time. The king was the accented "possessor" of land in the feudal arrangement, and all nobles, knights, and other tenants, termed vassals, merely "held" land from the rex, who was thus at the top of the feudal pyramid.

Below the king in the feudal pyramid was a tenant-in-chief (generally in the form of a baron or knight), who was a vassal of the king. Belongings from the tenant-in-chief was a mesne tenant—generally a knight or baron who was sometimes a tenant-in-chief in their capacity as holder of other fiefs. Beneath the mesne tenant, further mesne tenants could concord from each other in series.

Vassalage

Before a lord could grant land (a fief) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic anniversary called a commendation anniversary, which was equanimous of the two-office act of homage and oath of fealty. During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord at his command, while the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces.

In one case the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in a feudal human relationship with agreed obligations to one another. The vassal'south principal obligation to the lord was "assistance," or military machine service. Using any equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, he was responsible for answering calls to military service on behalf of the lord. This security of armed services help was the master reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition, the vassal could have other obligations to his lord, such as attendance at his court, whether manorial or baronial, or at the king'south court.

The vassal'south obligations could likewise involve providing "counsel," and so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and concord a quango. At the level of the estate this might be a fairly mundane matter of agronomical policy, merely could likewise include sentencing by the lord for criminal offenses, including uppercase penalty in some cases. In the rex'due south feudal court, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. These are just examples; depending on the menstruation of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied.

Feudalism in France

In its origin, the feudal grant of country had been seen in terms of a personal bond between lord and vassal, only with time and the transformation of fiefs into hereditary holdings, the nature of the system came to be seen equally a form of "politics of land." The 11th century in French republic saw what has been called by historians a "feudal revolution" or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" that was different the development of feudalism in England, Italy, or Germany in the same flow or afterward. In France, counties and duchies began to suspension down into smaller holdings as castellans and lesser seigneurs took command of local lands, and (as comital families had done before them) lesser lords usurped/privatized a wide range of prerogatives and rights of the land—most importantly the highly profitable rights of justice, but as well travel dues, market dues, fees for using woodlands, obligations to use the lord'southward mill, etc. Power in this menstruation became more personal and decentralized.

Sources

hillfithaly.blogspot.com

Source: https://courses.lumenlearning.com/atd-herkimer-westerncivilization/chapter/feudalism/