The Trouble With the Word
No term in medieval history is more contested than feudalism. Later lawyers and writers invented it after the French Revolution to describe the old order.
Historians offer competing definitions:
- F. L. Ganshof gave a narrow legal view: relations between lord and vassal, created by homage and fealty, and sealed with a fief.
- Marc Bloch defined a whole society of subject peasants, dispersed power, and warrior elites.
- Susan Reynolds argued in Fiefs and Vassals that Ganshof's tidy system never existed in reality.
What is not in doubt is the seigneurie, the rural estate as an economic unit:
| Element | What it was |
|---|---|
| Demesne | Land worked directly for the lord |
| Tenures | Peasant holdings owing rent or labour |
| Week-work | Fixed labour days on the demesne |
| Banalités | Compulsory paid use of the lord's mill or oven |
| Justice | Fines from the lord's private court |
A tenant owing three days of week-work gave roughly 43 per cent (43) of their year to the lord.
Orders and Revolutions
Contemporaries held a different view of society. Around 1025 and 1030, Adalbero of Laon and Gerard of Cambrai described the three orders:
- Oratores: those who pray
- Bellatores: those who fight
- Laboratores: those who work
Historians also debate the feudal revolution. Some argue public authority collapsed around the year 1000, turning free peasants into serfs. Reynolds and others see gradual change instead.
Church councils attempted to control the violence:
- Peace of God (from 989): protected non-combatants
- Truce of God (around 1027 or by 1030): banned fighting on holy days
Common pitfall: using "feudal" to mean both the lord–vassal tie and the lord–peasant relation. One links armed elites; the other extracts labour from cultivators.