feudalism

The main form of social organization in medieval Europe; the term was first used in 1839. A system based primarily on land, feudalism involved a hierarchy of authority, rights, and power that extended from the monarchy downwards. At the head of the system the crown owned all the land. Beneath the crown, an intricate network of duties and obligations linked royalty, tenants-in-chief (such as the barons), under-tenants (knights), and villeins (serfs). Feudalism was reinforced by personal oaths of allegiance and a complex legal system and supported by the Christian medieval church.

In return for military service the monarch allowed powerful vassals (feudal tenants) to hold land, and often also to administer justice and levy taxes. They in turn ‘sublet’ such rights, usually keeping part of the land (the demesne) for themselves. At the bottom of the system were the villeins, who worked without pay on their lord's manor lands in return for being allowed to cultivate some for themselves. They could not be sold as if they were slaves, but they could not leave the estate to live or work elsewhere without permission. In medieval England, their work was supervised by a village official called the reeve. Their life was undoubtedly hard, as shown in documents such as ‘Pierce the Plowman's Crede’ (c. 1394) and picture sources such as the Luttrell Psalter (1340). The feudal system declined from the 13th century, gradually giving way to the class system as the dominant form of social ranking, partly because of the growth of a money economy, with medieval trade, commerce, and industry, and partly because of the many peasants' revolts between 1350–1550, such as the Peasant's Revolt of 1381. Villeinage, or serfdom, ended in England in the 16th century, but lasted in France until 1789 and in the rest of Western Europe until the early 19th century. In Russia it continued until 1861.