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Feudalism Explained, and Why Historians Argue About the Word

Lords, vassals and fiefs, the narrow and broad definitions, and why many medievalists now doubt there was ever a single feudal system at all.

By Published 5 min read

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Key takeaways

  • Wikipedia defines feudalism broadly as structuring society around holding land in exchange for service or labour.
  • Ganshof's 1944 definition is narrow — lords, vassals and fiefs within the warrior nobility; Bloch's 1939 'feudal society' includes clergy and peasants.
  • Medieval people did not use the word: 'feudal system' appears in 1736 and 'feudalism' in 1771, according to Wikipedia.
  • Elizabeth A. R. Brown (1974) and Susan Reynolds (1994) challenged whether a feudal system existed; Fordham's Medieval Sourcebook says most reviewers found Reynolds compelling.
  • Fulbert of Chartres's letter of 1020 lists six things a sworn vassal owes his lord and says the lord owes the same in return.
  • France abolished 'the feudal system entirely' in August 1789; Wikipedia gives Sark in 2008 as the last feudal regime.

Feudalism is the name later scholars gave to a pattern of medieval relationships built on land held in return for service. That is the easy part. The harder part — and the reason this topic gets its own article — is that historians disagree about what the word should cover, and a significant group doubts whether there was ever a "feudal system" at all.

Lords, vassals and fiefs in the narrow sense

Wikipedia gives the classic definition from the Belgian historian François Louis Ganshof in 1944: a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations within the warrior nobility, built around three ideas.

  • A lord was a noble who held land.
  • A vassal was a person granted possession of land by the lord.
  • The land itself was the fief.

Before granting a fief, Wikipedia explains, a lord made the recipient his vassal in a commendation ceremony: an act of homage, in which the vassal promised to fight for the lord and the lord promised protection, followed by an oath of fealty, from the Latin fidelitas. The vassal's main duty was military service; others could include attending the lord's court and giving counsel when the lord faced a major decision. Ganshof himself, Wikipedia notes, said his treatment concerned only the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word".

What one vassal owed, in a letter from 1020

A primary source shows what these obligations sounded like to a contemporary. Fordham University's Internet Medieval Sourcebook translates a letter from Bishop Fulbert of Chartres to William, duke of the Aquitanians, written in 1020. Asked about the form of fealty, Fulbert says a sworn vassal must keep six things in mind: what is harmless, safe, honourable, useful, easy and practicable — not injuring his lord's body, secrets and defences, honour, or possessions, and not making difficult what the lord could do easily.

Then Fulbert adds two points that a textbook pyramid tends to lose. Merely avoiding harm, he writes, does not earn the holding; the vassal must also "counsel and aid his lord". And "the lord also ought to act toward his faithful vassal reciprocally in all these things", or he too is guilty of bad faith. Reading it closely is the method in how to analyse a primary source.

Ganshof's nobles or Bloch's whole society

Marc Bloch's Feudal Society (1939) defined the term much more broadly. Wikipedia summarises his view as including all three estates — nobility, clergy and peasantry — with peasants bound by manorialism. For Bloch, the vassal gave military service for a fief and the peasant gave physical labour for protection, and both counted as feudal relationships.

Karl Marx used a broader sense again: feudalism as the order before capitalism, defined by an aristocracy's control of arable land and the exploitation of peasants through labour, produce and money rents. Fordham's Sourcebook notes this social-and-economic meaning, promoted by French revolutionaries and developed by Marxist historians, is "probably the most important meaning in modern popular usage" — while most twentieth-century medievalists used Ganshof's narrower one.

So a book that says "feudalism" might mean an elite contract, a whole social order, or an economic stage. Checking which one is in play is the first job.

The 1974 and 1994 challenges to the feudal system

In 1974 the American historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown published "The Tyranny of a Construct". Wikipedia summarises her argument: the many contradictory definitions show that feudalism is a construct with no basis in medieval reality, read back "tyrannically" into the record. Susan Reynolds expanded the case in Fiefs and Vassals (1994).

Fordham's Sourcebook puts Reynolds's point concretely. Historians, she argued, had been too ready to read eleventh- and twelfth-century legal texts, which do use feudal terminology, back onto a more varied ninth- and tenth-century society, creating a feudal world that at most described small parts of France for short periods. The Sourcebook says most reviewers found her arguments compelling, and that the majority of experts now reject the term — though Wikipedia describes the discussion as "ongoing" and "inconclusive", and still calls Ganshof's definition widely accepted. Both statements are reported here because the sources do not agree on how settled the matter is.

The Sourcebook suggests the traditional texts are better read as examples of how people created a variety of social and personal bonds in a society with few stable legal or governmental authorities: "They do not represent a 'system'."

A word invented long after the fact

Worked example. Wikipedia's etymology section gives the dates. The Latin feudum is first attested in a charter of Charles the Fat in 884. The adjective "feudal" was in use by 1406. "Feudal system" appeared in 1736, and "feudalism" was introduced by John Whitaker in his History of Manchester in 1771, along with the idea of the feudal pyramid. From the first feudum to the first "feudalism" is 1771 − 884 = 887 years, and from the earliest "feudal" adjective it is 365 years.

The timing matters. Wikipedia notes that the idea of a feudal period became widely held in the mid-eighteenth century through works such as Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws (1748), and that Enlightenment writers used it to denigrate the French monarchy of their own day, so the word was shaped by eighteenth-century politics as much as by medieval evidence — the same issue covered in how historians divide the past into periods.

How feudal arrangements ended, and where

Wikipedia dates the end of most military aspects of feudalism to about 1500, as armies moved to professional fighters. Remnants lasted longer. On the night of 4 August 1789 the French National Assembly declared that it "abolishes the feudal system entirely", formalised in a decree of 11 August; the historian Georges Lefebvre, quoted by Wikipedia, notes seigneurial dues affected more than a quarter of French farmland. That episode belongs to the French Revolution. Russia ended serfdom in 1861; Scotland's feudal tenure ended on 28 November 2004; and the island of Sark, Wikipedia says, abolished the last feudal regime in December 2008.

For England, Wikipedia reports a consensus that pre-Conquest England had commendation while William I introduced a stricter northern French feudalism — see the Norman Conquest of 1066. The baronial obligations in Magna Carta are one place to test the narrow definition against a real document.

Using a history app with a contested term

World History Timeline Sim, our own app, lets you browse major events by year, era, region, country or category, and its Civilization Survival Mode has you steer famous civilizations through pressures such as food shortages, invasion risk and political instability. Treat any single label for medieval society, including "feudal", as a starting point for questions. The app is built for curiosity-led learning, so treat it as a supplement to a history course, not a stand-in for one or for documents like Fulbert's letter. In Time Travel Mode the chains of consequences that follow your choices are simulations; those outcomes are invented, not recorded. It is free on Google Play with ads and optional in-app purchases; related apps are in education and brain training.

Good to know

Frequently asked questions

What is feudalism in simple terms?
A way of describing medieval European society built around land held in return for service. In the narrow definition, a lord granted land — a fief — to a vassal, who swore homage and fealty and owed military service, counsel and attendance at court; the lord owed protection. Wider definitions add peasants bound to the land under manorialism.
Did people in the Middle Ages talk about feudalism?
No. Wikipedia notes the system was not conceived as a formal political system by people who lived then. The Latin feudum (fief) is first attested in a charter of 884, but 'feudal system' appears in 1736 and 'feudalism' only in 1771, in John Whitaker's History of Manchester, which also introduced the feudal pyramid.
Why do some historians reject the concept of feudalism?
Elizabeth A. R. Brown argued in 1974 that it is a modern construct that imposes false uniformity on the past. Susan Reynolds argued in 1994 that historians read eleventh- and twelfth-century legal texts back onto a more varied earlier society. Fordham's Medieval Sourcebook says the texts are better read as varied personal bonds than as a system.
Is feudalism the same thing as manorialism?
Not in the narrow sense. Ganshof's feudalism concerns obligations among the warrior nobility — lords and vassals. Manorialism describes the relationship between landlords and the peasants who worked their land. Marc Bloch's broader 'feudal society' joins the two, which is why the word can mean quite different things in different books.

Sources

  1. Feudalism (opens in a new tab)Wikipedia — accessed
  2. Fulbert of Chartres: On Feudal Obligations, 1020 (opens in a new tab)Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University — accessed
  3. Medieval Sourcebook: Feudalism? (selected sources) (opens in a new tab)Internet Medieval Sourcebook, Fordham University — accessed

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