The Feudal System
By Mr. Educator (not me)
The year is 1015. You live with your family on a manor, or large estate, in rural France. Because it is a warm spring evening, you decide to hitch up a cart and visit a friend who lives on another manor a short distance to the south. You whistle happily as you wave good-bye to your parents and proceed down the cobblestone road. What is wrong with the above scenario? Several things. If you guessed that no one—child or adult—would venture out alone in the year 1015, you are correct. If you further guessed that most people who lived on manors were serfs with neither access to a cart nor permission to leave of their own free will, you are right again. And if you pointed out that there may or may not have been a decent road, you are extremely clever! There is nothing particularly significant about the year 1015. It was just one year in a period of the Middle Ages known as feudal times. The word feudal refers to “feudalism,” the economic, political, and social system that characterized medieval Europe from about 1000 to 1300. Here is how it all came about. For more than a thousand years, a people known as the Romans controlled most of Europe and all the lands bordering on the Mediterranean Sea. They built magnificent buildings and constructed fine roads. Some of their roads are still in use today, as are some of the aqueducts they used to transport water. Aqueducts were bridge-like structures that carried water to cities throughout the far-flung world of the Romans. The Romans were as skilled at government administration as they were at building things. From the city of Rome to the outlying provinces, efficient government and just laws made for an orderly society. This was particularly true during the first two hundred years of Rome’s empire period, extending from about 27 BC to AD 180. Taxes were collected and manufacturing and trade flourished. People in general were happy and traveled about the empire without fear for their safety. One of many aqueducts constructed by the Romans. Some Roman aqueducts are still in use today. But then, as the old saying goes, “the bottom fell out.” Within the Roman Empire, economic conditions deteriorated and citizens lost interest in civic affairs. Civil wars became the order of the day, and the army installed one emperor after another on the throne. Twenty-five emperors were murdered within one fifty-year period. Outside the empire, the sinking of land in northern Europe and pressure from Asian peoples to the east set off mass migrations across the borders of the Roman Empire. It took more than two hundred years, but in AD 476, one tribe, the Visigoths, conquered the city of Rome. Although the eastern part of the Roman Empire continued for another thousand years, in the west the Roman Empire came to an end. The fall of Rome led to the development of feudalism. Many Germans had lived under Roman rule or had been allies of the Romans against other invaders. In fact, the leader of the Visigoths who conquered Rome was Odoacer, a German who was serving as a general in the Roman army. But Europe was living in a state of almost continual warfare, and few people wrote accounts of the time. Because we know so little about this period of history, people call the period the Dark Ages. For the most part, the Germans and Celts lived in tribes under local rulers. But in the eighth century, one Germanic king managed to bring much of Europe under his control. That king was Charlemagne, or “Charles the Great,” the first Holy Roman Emperor. Charlemagne was king of a German tribe known as the Franks. Does that name ring a bell? It should. It is from Franks that the name France is derived. Charlemagne ruled from 768 to 814. During his long reign, there was stability in western Europe. But when Charlemagne died, his grandsons were unable to keep his empire together. The result was a breakdown in central government again, although Charlemagne’s laws survived as the basis for the medieval kingdoms of France and Germany. Matters were made even worse by the regular invasions of the Vikings. Also known as the Northmen or Norsemen, Viking pirates swept out of Scandinavia (Norway, Sweden, and Denmark) in the ninth century, raiding and plundering. The accounts of the Vikings that survive come from the monasteries that were the targets of their raids. A common prayer of the time was, “From the fury of the Northmen, O Lord, deliver us!” Although remarkably democratic and civil among themselves, the Vikings were very warlike, showing no sympathy for the people they attacked. They killed women and children with their long-handled axes just as easily as they killed men. After looting and then burning everything in sight, they sailed home in their long, sleek boats. The lack of a central government led to the development of the feudal system mentioned earlier. This feudal system grew out of people’s need for protection. With no strong kings to maintain law and order, people turned to local lords for help. At the heart of the system were personal arrangements between two parties. Feudal arrangements involved kings, powerful lords, and lesser nobles. Even though kings had little power, they were still kings, and on occasion they needed to raise an army, as did dukes and nobles. To do so, they granted tracts of land to the lords beneath them. A king or lord who gave land to a lesser lord became the latter’s overlord. The one receiving the land became the vassal of the one who granted it. The land itself was called a fief. A vassal who received land from a king or higher lord was obligated to fight for him for a certain number of days a year. If the vassal himself had vassals, they were obligated to fight also. Specially trained warriors called knights, lived in the castles or manor houses of great lords, or received a knight’s fee, usually enough land to yield 20 pounds income a year. They paid for their keep by serving in the lord’s army. For now, it is enough to say that only after successfully passing through the ranks of page and squire did a young man attain knighthood. Sometimes feudal arrangements and agreements were quite complicated. It was not unusual for a person to be a vassal to two or more lords at the same time. Having received a fief from each, he was therefore obligated to serve both. This posed no problem unless his two overlords went to war against each other! Sometimes the vassal’s contract would say what he was to do. For example, he might have to fight for one lord but send a number of his knights to fight on the other side! A vassal had responsibilities other than to serve his lord in battle. He also had to sit on the lord’s court, where he might judge the guilt or innocence of Lithograph of a Viking warrior. The Vikings terrorized Europe in the early Middle Ages. If his lord stopped by for a visit, the vassal had to provide food and shelter for his superior and all of his party. Not the least of the vassal’s promises was to help pay the ransom demanded when his lord was unfortunate enough to get himself captured by an enemy. The lord/vassal relationship was a serious arrangement not to be taken lightly. It was initiated with great ceremony at the castle or manor house of the lord. The vassal knelt before his lord and placed his hands between the hands of the lord. He then solemnly swore that he would honor all the commitments expected of a vassal. This formal acknowledgment on the part of the vassal was called “doing homage.” At the lord’s demand, this ceremony, with its accompanying promise of allegiance, was repeated. Technically, the peasantry were not part of the feudal system, because they were not warriors. They lived a hard life under the manorial system, which existed even before feudalism. Some were serfs, who were actually bound to the land. If the land was sold, the serfs went along with it as part of the deal. Others were freedmen, tenant farmers who paid the lord in money and a portion of their crops for the right to work the land. The lord gave his serfs and tenants protection and they turned to him for justice. In exchange, the lord charged taxes, required labor, took some of the crops, and generally made sure that the peasants were too poor to leave the land. Last, not every knight was a vassal to a lord. This was especially true toward the end of the feudal period. Some knights hired themselves out to the highest bidder for their services. They were known as mercenary knights. Mercenary knights were more professional soldiers than true knights. They became important toward the end of the feudal period when kings and lords started having difficulty rounding up enough knights to fight for them. As you have seen, feudalism was a complicated system of agreements made between lords and vassals. But it served its purpose in an age characterized by a lack of government.
Medieval Towns
By Mr. Educator (still not me)
Picture yourself and a friend walking happily down a street in a town of medieval times. Together you are discussing plans for the evening, and neither of you has any idea of the catastrophe that is about to unfold. As you round a corner, you hear a shrill voice coming from the window of a house six stories above the street. The voice belongs to a lady issuing a warning that roughly translates into “look out below!” Before you can take evasive action, you are suddenly drenched with a bucket of gooey garbage. Your nose tells you it is a mixture of black pudding, beans, and the remains of eels the family on the sixth floor had for dinner. Do you angrily make your way up to the room from whence came the garbage and express your displeasure? Do you threaten to punch the lady’s husband in the nose? Of course not. You brush yourself off as best you can and go on your way. If anyone is to be scolded, it is you for not having jumped out of the way quickly enough. Garbage (and worse) being thrown into the street was a common practice in medieval towns. Even birth and rank held no privilege when it came to being hit with something unpleasant. No less a person than King Louis IX of France was himself doused with the contents of a chamber pot while strolling along a Paris street one fine day. In the absence of any kind of sanitation service, people did the natural thing and tossed their waste wherever it might fall. Had they realized the health threats involved they surely would have acted differently. As it was, they relied on pigs and other animals that roamed free to take the place of the present-day garbage truck. Sometimes a particularly hard rain would help by washing away some of the refuse. It is only natural that under such unsanitary conditions disease would run rampant. Epidemics that took the lives of large portions of the populations of medieval villages and towns were common. One such epidemic of the bubonic P A priest prays for victims of the plague. Those who became ill often died within hours plague in the fourteenth century wiped out not only entire towns but possibly a third of the population of Europe. That was the dreaded “Black Death” that appeared in Europe in the year 1347. Bubonic plague is a disease transmitted to humans by fleas from rats. When the disease appears today anywhere in the world, it can quickly be brought under control. During the Middle Ages, however, neither the nature of the disease nor a treatment for it were known. When it struck, its victims died almost immediately. Many people went to bed perfectly healthy and died before the sun rose the next day. The term Black Death came from the fact that black spots appeared on the bodies of all who contracted it. Before it ran its course, the disease took the lives of some fifty million people. The series of plagues that swept Europe actually played a role in weakening feudalism. The dramatic population decline led to a severe labor shortage, making serfs’ and peasants’ labor much more valuable. Therefore, they were able to negotiate more rights and better conditions from their lords. In addition, the population of towns recovered more rapidly, so towns became more important than feudal estates. Although towns in the Middle Ages were dirty, unsafe, and dangerous, they represented a step forward from the instability of the Dark Ages. The uncertainty of feudal life caused people to seek safety either near the castle of a powerful lord or on the grounds of some remote monastery. This need for safety actually led to the reappearance of towns. As more and more people gathered around places that could afford them protection, castle and monastery grounds began to take on the appearance of villages. In time these villages became towns. As these towns grew in population and prospered, many were able to buy their freedom from the feudal lord who controlled them. Others won their independence through armed uprisings. A dramatic increase in population in the twelfth century also led to more urbanizations. More towns appeared as travel became safer and trade increased. Some towns sprang up at crossroads, where traders and merchants came and went. Others developed near rivers or along seacoasts. Some towns, such as Paris, France, and Florence, Italy, were quite large. Most, however, averaged between five thousand and ten thousand people in population. Towns that developed while national governments were weak and conditions were still unstable had high walls for protection. It was the presence of such walls that made medieval towns crowded. With only so much ground space available, it was necessary to construct buildings as high as six and seven stories. As each story was added, the builder extended it out somewhat over the street to make it larger. By the time the building reached the sixth or seventh level, the occupant of the top floor could literally reach out and touch the building across the street. How’s that for close neighbors? It was this closeness of the buildings that made fire an ever-present threat. Because most structures until the Renaissance period were built of wood, fire spread quickly once it started. Some towns were partially or totally destroyed by fire a number of times. London burned four times in the twelfth century, and Rouen, France, the city where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake in 1431, was totally consumed six times between 1200 and 1225. Later, when stone was used for construction and fire brigades introduced, the number of fires were reduced dramatically. Appearance-wise, medieval towns were generally laid out in the same way. In the center was a large open area variously referred to as a square, a place, or a piazza. If the town was very large, the square might also be the location of a cathedral. Towns squares were hubs of activity where tradesmen and merchants set up stalls and conducted business. Sometimes strolling actors drew crowds as they performed a play for all who would stop and listen. So too did jugglers, tumblers, and clowns. Between 8:00 and 9:00 P.M. the curfew bell rang, and most citizens retired for the night behind the safety of their doors. Streets were dark and danger ever-present, and there were few policemen to guarantee the safety of any person who dared to venture out. Those who did were required to carry a light and have a good reason to be outside. Who were the inhabitants of these early towns? Most were members of a new middle class of merchants, traders, and craftsmen referred to as the bourgeoisie. Bourgeoisie is a French term meaning “town dweller.” In the German language, the term becomes burgher or burger. A free town with the right of self-government was called a borough, or in German burg. You are probably beginning to see the influence on America by now. What about Monteriggioni, in Tuscany, Italy, is an example of a walled town from the later Middle Ages. And hamburger? Supposedly, immigrants from the German city of Hamburg brought that American favorite with them when they arrived in the 1800s. The merchants and craftsmen monopolized business within the walls of a city. They formed guilds, which in some ways resembled early labor unions. Membership in the appropriate guild was mandatory for all merchants and craftsmen. A young man had to pass through a training stage before becoming a full-fledged member. First, beginning about the age of seven, a boy desiring to learn a trade was apprenticed to a master craftsman. When he acquired the skills to earn a living, he became a journeyman. As such, he could then work for anyone who would hire him. If he wanted to become a master craftsman and own his own shop, he had to pass a strict exam supervised by leading members of the guild. This involved creating a masterpiece of work showing that he had mastered his particular skill. Merchant and craft guilds became increasingly powerful through the Middle Ages as towns grew. Whereas knights lived for war, peace and stability were in the best interests of traders and craftsmen who wanted to conduct a profitable business. Therefore, town guilds often supported the king against troublemaking nobles, further weakening the feudal system. Most of the other inhabitants of medieval cities were laborers who took any job they could find. These included serfs who had either run away from the manor or had been granted their freedom. Each town also had its share of beggars and thieves, both of whom preyed on the local citizenry. With streets so crowded and so many people about, a fast thief with an even faster knife could cut a purse away from a belt in record time and be gone in a flash. Towns did their best to discourage such lawbreakers, even leaving executed criminals hanging from the gallows indefinitely. Paris, for example, always had twentyfour bodies swinging at the end of ropes for all to see. The message to passersby was simple: Behave yourself while in our town or face the consequences! Such was life in typical towns of the Middle Ages.