l) fragmentation of political power;
2) public power in private hands; and
3) armed forces secured through private contracts.
Feudalism is, therefore, a method of government, and a way of
securing the forces necessary to preserve that method of government.
It is also an extreme form of decentralization. There many centers
of power. Power does not reside at a center, or at the top, even
though there a pyramidal structure in theory, with the emperor
at the top and the simple knight at the bottom. In other words,
feudalism is rather more complex than it appears to be on paper.
Feudalism came to be initially a system of local defense against
the constant dangers and uncertainties of a rather primitive existence
in northern Europe after the relative order of the Roman Empire
disappeared.
It was Charles Martel who first started granting estates for military
service in the eighth century. He had a good reason. Europe was
being invaded by a large Muslim army which came up from Spain.
Martel could not have gathered a strong enough fighting force
without giving the fighters something substantial in exchange
for their service. That was land or the right to use land for
their own purposes. Charlemagne was a stronger and more powerful
ruler. He was able to field armies strong enough to conquer most
of central Europe. But his army was an army of foot soldiers,
who were really farmers and herdsmen most of the time. It was
not a professional army in any sense of that term. The extension
of these two precedents led to the creation of a permanent fighting
force exclusively dedicated to military activity and nothing else.
Thus aristocracy of knights gradually came into being. It was
a slow evolutionary process, based on the needs of the time. Elaborate
ceremonial procedures were slowly developed to make this military
force a permanent feature of medieval life. And it became by force
of circumstance a method of government as well. By the ninth century
it was demonstrated that this was a more superior fighting force
than that provided by levied infantry men. When these organized
knights succeeded in repelling the more loosely structured Vikings
and Hungarians in the ninth century, no further proof of their
usefulness was needed.
The knights were few in number at first. Their main function was
to guard against sudden attack. They were gathered and housed
in hilltop fortifications at strategic locations. Gradually these
fortifications turned into elaborate castles. Even to this very
day some rather small but impressively-walled structures in many
parts of Europe are called castles.
Eventually a legal hierarchy of titles was created, based on generally
accepted relationship between lords and vassals. At the top was
the emperor or king, or both. The person at the top was considered
to be the sovereign lord. He, in theory, was the actual "owner"
of all the land within his loosely designated region. Firm boundaries
around a contiguous piece of real estate did not exist. A sovereign's
kingdom or empire could consist of widely scattered pieces of
land and territory.
The entire territory of kingdom was broken up into smaller territories.
These were known as fiefs. They had been granted by the sovereign
or lord to a subordinate vassal. The large fiefs were in the hands
of a so-called vassals-in-chief. There only a few of these. Further
down the ladder there were many more smaller fiefs held by individual
vassals. These could be further divided into even smaller fiefs
in an almost unlimited fashion. This process of division and subdivision
was known as subinfeudation. It led to the much deplored scattering
of power and reduction of efficiency. It tended to weaken the
unifying strength of the sovereign.
At the very bottom was the simple knight in shining armor - or
rusty armor, for that matter. So, what you have here is a feudal
pyramid, staring with the king at the top and descending down
to increasingly numerous dukes, counts, viscounts, barons, earls
or margraves. While there was considerable uniformity in this
pyramid, it did differ from one region to another. Classic feudalism
is generally believed to have existed in northeastern France.
In Germany it was somewhat different and in eastern Europe and
Russia it hardly existed at all. Full-fledged feudalism did not
come to England until after the Norman invasion of 1066. In southern
and south-eastern Europe you have pale reflections of the classic
French model.
The granting and receiving of fiefs was confirmed by a contract.
An oath of homage and fealty sealed it. It was one of the most
important feudal ceremonies. Swearing homage meant that the vassal
was to be the lord's men until death. Faithfulness in service
to the lord was a matter of life and death literally. Upon the
death of the vassal, the oath was formally renewed with the vassals
heir. It was a deeply personal and binding contract that few dared
to break.
The basic element of the feudal contract was an exchange of rights
over land, given by the lord, for military and other honorable
services, given by the vassal. While the contract was taken quite
seriously, it was not in writing. Solemn promise was good enough
and also made it more personal. But the fact that it was not in
writing led to frequent quarrels over the exact duties and obligations
which had been incurred. It should be obvious by now that these
contracts varied considerably in terms of detail, if not in overall
uniformity.
So, the vassal swore to be lord's "man" and the lord
swore to defend the vassal's cause and protect him from unlawful
molestation. The vassal also agreed to make certain money payments:
when his daughter married, for instance, or when his son was knighted,
to give just two examples. The vassal was obliged to attend the
lord's court, whenever he decided to get the boys together for
a palaver or merely to make himself feel important. Court could
also be held in a more formal legal sense. In these situations
the methods of the judicial process, if you can call it that,
were very simple and crude.
While fiefs were not hereditary in the beginning, they gradually
and frequently became hereditary. The holding of a fief was considered
to be both an office and private property. As private property
a fief could, of course be divided, whereas an office could not
be divided. This situation led to the practice of primogeniture.
This simply means that the oldest son always inherits the office,
although the property that goes with it can be divided among all
the heirs, if the holder decides to divide it. This also was fertile
ground for discontent and conflict. It contributed to what has
been called "feudal chaos" and produced all too frequent
warfare. One obvious example is the invasion of England by the
Duke of Normandy and the famous Battle of Hastings. The start
of the Hundred Years War between England and France is another
case in point. There are many other examples.
There was clearly a large gap between theory and practice.
The feudal hierarchy arose as a makeshift for defense against
Moslems, Vikings, Magyars and other invaders. This practical origin
gave it a provisional and flexible character. A strong right arm,
a pugnacious character and lack of scruple often counted for more
than legal rights. The County of Flanders and Duchy of Acquitaine
arose in this manner. Strong characters created a feudal domain
for themselves by war and chicanery.
Feudalism maintained a sort of fiction of central power but did
nothing to restore it in reality. For example: The duke of Normandy
controlled all the castles in Normandy. His will in the duchy
was supreme. It was only nominally that he recognized the King
of France as overlord or seignior. The top feudal lord in France
was the king, but he only controlled the Ile de France, a tiny
territory around Paris. A petty fief holders frequently was able
to defy the nominal feudal superior, even if he was the King of
France.
During the period of ripe feudalism the distinction between public
rights and private property collapsed. The feudal lord had private
rights of possession, such as rents, and public rights, such as
the administration of justice. There was a kind of rude egalitarianism
among the knightly class, but in reality a knight, vassal, or
lord is measured by prowess in battle. The sword was the ultimate
arbitrator. The king was merely first among equals. All members
of the feudal class are bound to obey the feudal oath.
It should also be clear that the theory and the practice of feudalism
varied from place to place and from time to time. The petty quarrels
of vassals could and frequently did involve their lords. It, of
course, also worked the other way around. In fact, it was more
normal to expect that the quarrels of the lord would automatically
involve their vassals. It depended on how weak or strong the vassals
were. A strong vassal might refuse to participate in the lord's
quarrel and get by with it. All of this led to much private warfare.
The feudal system created a formidable military force, well equipped
and trained to withstand enemies outside Europe, but it did not
necessarily bring peace to the continent.
Feudalism in Germany was different from that of France and
England. The old Germanic tribes which plagued the Roman emperors,
emerged again after Charlemagne's successors lost power. Four
stem duchies eventually emerged as the most powerful in Germany:
Saxony , Franconia, Swabia, and Bavaria. One strong duke, Otto
of Saxony (936-973) tried to establish lordship over the other
dukes. He invaded Italy, starting a long tradition of German interference
in that peninsula, and made himself King of Italy. He was then
crowned emperor by the pope himself (962).
Thus once again, as in the case of Charlemagne, the ghost of the
Roman empire was summoned to sanction the successful state building
of a semi-barbarian King. As compared with France, the German
state retained a much more effective central power. Otto was preeminent
in Europe during his lifetime. After him the emperorship changed
hands, but the empire remained until Napoleon's time.