What is feudalism in middle ages

It was arranged through a formal ceremony called homage, reminding a man that divine retribution would come his way if he broke the oath. The Catholic pope was seen and utilized as a conduit for granting the divine right of kings. Moving down the feudal hierarchy, the next tier consisted of the nobles. As recipients of lands from a king, which they either owned or leased, nobles were known as vassals, and of course their lords were their kings.

As part of their oath of loyalty to the king, the vassal nobles had the specific obligation to render military protection through provision of armies, which included heavily armed cavalry soldiers who were their vassals, otherwise known as knights.

The nobles, in turn, were regarded as lords by the knights they ruled within their fiefdoms. Nobles had a high level of autonomy in their territories, since they and not the king were often the highest-ranking individuals on location. These nobles utilized their rights to create codes of law, collect taxes, and circulate their own currencies.

They served as mediators, or judges, in hearing and deciding on disputes in all of these areas and in approving marriages of subjects — though in the more important criminal and civil cases, the king reserved the sole right to judge. Intriguingly, another class of individuals which had rights equal to those of the nobles under feudalism was the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.

As the Middle Ages went on, the ranks of the nobility and royalty right below the king overlapped with the clergy: there were prince-bishops who wielded enormous power.

Below the nobles, as I mentioned, were the knights. Knights who were granted fiefs of their own had often shown their mettle in some way, for instance by fighting bravely in battle. They had to collect taxes, fight on behalf of their lords, and provide soldiers from their lands if they owned them when ordered. In cooperation with the nobles, the knights were also required to pay for their own equipment for battle and to pay for the conscription of any additional soldiers demanded.

Whether fighting directly for their lords or in combination with their lords for the king, knights had a mandatory period of military service of 40 days, which in certain circumstances could be increased to 90 days. Abels, Richard. Attempts to retain the term to mean social and political ties among a warrior aristocracy, who exercised public power as private individuals.

Bouchard, Constance Brittain. NNNIncludes a critique of the concept of feudalism in the context of a discussion of knights and chivalry. Brown, Elizabeth A. DOI: NNNA concise overview of the term and its uses, incorporating the most recent scholarship; from the online Encyclopedia Britannica. Reynolds, Susan. NNNContinues the critique of the concept of feudalism begun by Brown Densely written and somewhat controversial, yet extremely influential. Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, — NNNAn effort to provide an alternate theoretical framework to replace feudalism when discussing ties between different sectors of medieval society.

Originally published in White, Stephen D. NNNThis collection of articles by a legal historian seeks to retain narrowly defined feudalism as a useful analytic category, while considering its relationship to kinship structures.

By the ninth century, many knights and nobles held estates fiefs granted by greater lords in return for military and other service. This feudal system from the medieval Latin feodum or feudum , fee or fief enabled a cash-poor but land-rich lord to support a military force. But this was not the only way that land was held, knights maintained, and loyalty to a lord retained.

Lands could be held unconditionally, landless knights could be sheltered in noble households, and loyalties could be maintained through kinship, friendship, or wages. Mounted armored warriors , or knights from the Old English cniht , boy or servant , were the dominant forces of medieval armies. During and after the fourteenth century , weapons that were particularly effective against horsemen appeared on the battlefield, such as the longbow, pike, halberd, and cannon.

The magnificence of their war games—called tournaments—also increased, as did the number of new knightly orders, such as the Order of the Garter. Norris, Michael.