Feudal Europe: Summary

With the word feudalism we come to refer to a system of political, social and economic organization that was implanted in Western Europe between the 10th-13th centuries after the demise of the Carolingian Empire. Below in this lesson from a TEACHER we offer you a brief summary on Feudal Europe, moment in which the consolidation of the fundamental elements of feudalism was carried out.

We start this summary of Feudal Europe talking about the causes for this change in European society. Between the 8th-9th centuries there was a wave of invasions by Vikings and Muslims that ended the division of the Carolingian Empire, so that Western Europe was in the hands of warrior kings who fought with the new assailant peoples.

These kings were pressured to ask for the reinforcement of armed men whom they would compensate by giving them land or rents., becoming feudal lords.

During the centuries in which feudalism was in force, dependency relationships were established in which one person (vassals) was placed under the protection of another more powerful (lords). In this way, three types of relationships were established:

• To the link between feudal lords and the monarch they were called vassalage relations, in which the lords supported the king in the war and in return he gave them lands (fiefdoms).
• To the link between gentlemen, feudal lords they were also called vassalage relations, only that in this case the knights collaborated with the feudal lords in exchange for their maintenance well with a salary, food ...
• The relationship between farmers Y feudal lords, the peasants took care of the work in the lands of the lords, they also paid taxes, but in return the feudal lords promised to protect them in times of strife.

We follow this summary of Feudal Europe speaking, now, of the economic organization of that historical period. The feudal economy revolved around the large estates of rural land (fiefdoms) that were They were located around the castle, a place where citizens took shelter in case of danger. In this the feudal lord lived with the armed knights since these were his vassals and had sworn his fidelity to them in the event of having to defend their properties from danger.

Regarding the fiefdoms, we can say that they could be divided into:

• The reservation that they were lands exploited by the lord, in them the peasants worked who had to deliver in their entirety the products obtained;
• The meek, that they were very small plots that the lord gave to the peasant in exchange for them to deliver a part of the harvest and perform other services for him.
• There were also the pasture which was the place where the lord's cattle were as well as the forests.

The most widespread agricultural crops were legumes and cereals. Now the returns were quite low, you could say that it was a sourcing economy since the techniques used were quite rudimentary. Among them we will highlight the use of roman plow to remove the land but it was so difficult that most of the land that was cultivated by hand with feats, sickles, scythes.

They also used livestock excrement as compost for the land, a compost that turned out to be insufficient for the fertility of the land. land, so fallow was practiced, which consisted of leaving the land uncultivated for a time when it gave little fruit.

As far as animals, the most abundant were the oxen used to pull the carts and plows, also sheep, goats, chickens from which food and products such as wool or leather. Horse breeding was also favored since they were used by knights and nobles in warfare.

The European population during the feudal era was divided into different classes or social groups with very defined functions. nobles who were in charge of fighting, the clergy to pray and the farmers to work.

Nobles

The nobles were the feudal lords and the knights, both lived in the castle.

• Feudal lords: They were the owners of the fiefdoms and for that reason they acted as kings over them, thus in this way they collected taxes for the use of their mills, furnaces... for crossing their bridges and territories, they also charged fines, could mint coins and had their own Justice.
• Gentlemen: They only had in their possession their weapons and their horse. They were the vassals of the feudal lords and supported the king in the war.

Clergy

Within the clergy they could also distinguish two hierarchies:

• Bishops and abbots: that constituted the group of high clergy. Both one and the other were in charge of the positions of the Church, positions that were only given if you belonged to the nobility, so they were also feudal lords with a role similar to the nobility.
• Priests and monks: that constituted the group of under clergy and unlike the others they descended from the peasantry. The monks were very cultured people since many of them knew Latin, and they dedicated themselves in part to transmitting and preserving their culture by making copies of texts that came from antiquity.

Farmers

The peasants constituted approximately 90% of the European population and the majority were in charge of working on the lands of the feudal lords. The peasants could be differentiated in:

• Free peasants: which were when the feudal lord gave them a small plot of land in exchange for giving him part of his harvest or paying him a rent. This group was a minority.
• Servants: who lived under the dependence of the feudal lord, and could not leave the land without the permission of their lord. They were also in charge of carrying out the tasks of masonry, carpentry... This group represented the majority of the population.

In this other lesson from a TEACHER we will discover the characteristics of feudal society so you can better understand how they lived at this time.

Christianity was the primary religion in this time of the Middle Ages. A time that gave rise to the crusades, that is, military expeditions of Christians who were fighting to try to recover the city of Jerusalem when it had fallen into the hands of the Muslims.

In the same way, pilgrimages to holy places were very important at this time.