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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. “Feudalism” is a term that has confused more than clarified the nature of medieval society. Until quite recently scholars attempted to create a paradigm of “feudalism” that would combine privileges for the elite few with lordship over the peasantry and (usually) a breakdown in centralized government. But as Elizabeth A. R. Brown first convincingly demonstrated, a term with such varied and noncongruent social, legal, political, and economic meanings—especially when applied to institutions that developed a millennium or more apart—hampers real understanding of the Middle Ages. In the last twenty years numerous discussions of “feudalism” have gone over the same ground, pointing out the difficulties with trying to use the term—although even now some scholars still try to retain it. Nonetheless, even if “feudalism” is nothing but a confusing construct, medieval fiefs were real—if not nearly as ubiquitous as once thought.
  4.  
  5. General Overviews
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  7. “Feudalism” is not a medieval term and not even a translation of a medieval concept (Abels 2010; Brown 2010; Bouchard 1998). It was first coined long after the Middle Ages were over and originally meant the granting of a fief (feudum in medieval Latin), that is, land given in return for loyalty, by one aristocrat to another. But soon grafted onto this term were many divergent—indeed, contradictory—meanings. It has been used to mean servile peasant status, or the private administration of justice, or battles fought on horseback, or fragmented governmental authority, or special privileges for a hereditary elite. It has been called a social system, a legal system, a form of military service, and a type of economic organization. Brown 1974, Reynolds 1994, and Reynolds 1997 argue convincingly for jettisoning such a confusing word, even though some (Abels 2010, White 2005) still feel the term can be useful if narrowly defined.
  8.  
  9. Abels, Richard. Feudalism. 2010.
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  11. Provides a succinct, modern overview of the different ways “feudalism” has been used by different scholars. Attempts to retain the term to mean social and political ties among a warrior aristocracy, who exercised public power as private individuals.
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  13. Bouchard, Constance Brittain. “Strong of Body, Brave and Noble”: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
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  15. Includes a critique of the concept of feudalism in the context of a discussion of knights and chivalry.
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  17. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” American Historical Review 79 (1974): 1063–1088.
  18. DOI: 10.2307/1869563Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  19. The fundamental article on why the term “feudalism” should be jettisoned.
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  21. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. Feudalism. 2010.
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  23. A concise overview of the term and its uses, incorporating the most recent scholarship; from the online Encyclopedia Britannica.
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  25. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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  27. Continues the critique of the concept of feudalism begun by Brown 1974. Densely written and somewhat controversial, yet extremely influential.
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  29. Reynolds, Susan. Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 900–1300. 2d ed. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
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  31. An effort to provide an alternate theoretical framework to replace feudalism when discussing ties between different sectors of medieval society. Originally published in 1984.
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  33. White, Stephen D. Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
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  35. This 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.
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  37. History of the Term
  38.  
  39. The term “feudalism” was first used in the 16th and 17th centuries by legal historians to describe the institution of fief-holding, as was practiced in the 11th and 12th centuries (Abels 2010, Halsall 2007). But very quickly the word took on additional meanings (Ward 1985). During the French Revolution it was used as a synonym for “outmoded,” so when “feudalism” was officially abolished in 1789, the National Assembly used the term to mean the 18th-century aristocratic privileges of the ancien régime, such as exemptions from taxes or private dovecotes (Brunner 1968). In the 19th century Karl Marx used feudalism as a synonym for the servile status that replaced ancient Roman slavery. For much of the 20th century, scholars working on Continental Europe (for example, Bloch 1961, Ganshof 1964) used the term to mean a political and social response to decentralized government, even though in English history it was treated as a form of political centralization (Ward 1985). The subjugation of a peasant population was generally treated as another aspect of “feudal society” (Bloch 1961). All of these uses had a distinct pejorative undertone (Cheyette 2010). Most Anglophone medievalists, following the lead of Brown 1974 and Reynolds 1994, now avoid the word as too vague. Historians of the French Revolution, however, appropriately continue to use the term to refer to the privileges of the ancien régime.
  40.  
  41. Abels, Richard. Feudalism. 2010.
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  43. A brief overview of the term and its divergent meanings, intended for undergraduates and written by a military historian.
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  45. Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. 2 vols. Translated by L. A. Manyon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
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  47. Originally published in French in 1940 as La société féodale and still very influential. Argues that personal ties between all sectors of society, both lords and peasants, characterize a “feudal” society.
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  49. Brown, Elizabeth A. R. “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” American Historical Review 79 (1974): 1063–1088.
  50. DOI: 10.2307/1869563Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  51. Clearly written and closely argued, this article persuaded many medievalists to stop using such an imprecise term as “feudalism.”
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  53. Brunner, Otto. “Feudalism: The History of a Concept.” In Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe: Selected Readings. Edited and translated by Fredric L. Cheyette, 32–61. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968.
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  55. Originally published in 1959 in German as “Feudalismus”: Ein Beitrag zur Begriffsgeschichte. Gives a close discussion of the ways that feudalism has been conceived, from the late 18th to early 20th centuries.
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  57. Cheyette, Fredric L. “‘Feudalism’: A Memoir and an Assessment.” In Feud, Violence and Practice: Essays in Medieval Studies in Honor of Stephen D. White. Edited by Belle S. Tuten and Tracey L. Billado, 119–133. Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010.
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  59. Both an overview of the ways the terms “feudalism” and “feudal law” have been used since the 16th century—culminating in the modern sense of violence and oppression—and an argument for abandoning the terms as ahistorical.
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  61. Ganshof, F. L. Feudalism. Rev. ed. Translated by Philip Grierson. New York: Longman, 1964.
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  63. This book, originally published in French as Qu’est-ce que la féodalité? (1944), first appeared in English in 1952. Provides what is intended as a description of the rules and practices of feudalism, beginning in the early Middle Ages. His “feudalism” is strictly centered on nobles and knights, not peasants.
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  65. Halsall, Paul. Feudalism. 2007
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  67. A brief discussion of the history of the term, combined with links to medieval sources and reviews of the book Reynolds 1994.
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  69. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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  71. A close analysis of the mentions of fiefs and vassals in medieval primary sources. Builds on Brown 1974, a rejection of feudalism as a useful construct. Stresses that every period and every region was different, making impossible some universal institution.
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  73. Ward, John O. “Feudalism: Interpretive Category or Framework of Life in the West?” In Feudalism: Comparative Studies. Edited by Edmund Leach, S. N. Mukherjee, and John Ward, 40–67. Sydney: Sydney Association for Studies in Society and Culture, 1985.
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  75. An important though often overlooked article that breaks down modern historians’ definitions of feudalism into eleven different groups, including treating it both as a centralizing and a decentralizing force.
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  77. National Approaches
  78.  
  79. English, French, and German historians have all written extensively over the years on what they call feudalism; Italian scholars make it important but less central to their history. Because each nation has its own traditional approach to the topic, there are constant opportunities for confusion. For example, the French generally treat feudalism as a social phenomenon, involving all sectors of society. The English and the Germans, on the other hand, see it much more as a governmental institution. For the French, feudalism means a breakdown in central authority, whereas English and German medievalists have treated feudalism as a centralizing force. Military service to a lord is seen as a crucial aspect of feudalism for English scholars, whereas the French scarcely consider this aspect, concentrating instead on what they consider public power in private hands. For the French, feudalism may have originated in the court of Charlemagne but took full form around the year 1000. For the English, for whom the question of whether or not Anglo-Saxon society was feudal is an ongoing debate, feudalism commonly is treated as beginning in 1066. For the Germans, however, feudalism is primarily treated as a new phenomenon in the late 12th and 13th centuries. Italian scholars, in contrast to those from north of the Mediterranean, treat their national history as only briefly feudal, really only in the 10th century. The picture becomes even more confused by the periodic tendency of scholars of Asian history to refer to “Japanese feudalism” and the like, by which they mean governance by local powerful lords and a military organization based on loyalty and honor. American medievalists have most commonly followed the lead of the scholars of the country on which they work, but, because they are not invested in a national tradition, it has proved easier for them to critique older approaches.
  80.  
  81. French Historians
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  83. French medievalists have been less ready to reject feudalism as an analytic term than have Anglophone medievalists. French has the advantage of two terms where English has only one, and historians can hence restrict féodalité to fief-holding, characterizing other aspects of society as féodalisme. The latter term can however become very vague and general, and indeed féodalité is often treated as involving a breakdown in public power, not merely fiefs. Following Bloch 1961, French scholars (Boutruche 1968 and Duby 1996) have tended to treat the Middle Ages as a time of the personal bonds they describe as feudalism, no matter whether the bonds involve great lords or peasants. Generally for the French, feudalism (whether féodalisme or féodalité) characterizes the collapse of central government and public power in the post-Carolingian period, with the establishment of castles and fiefs (Duby 1971, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique 1980). Even the church has often been considered “feudal” in the 11th and 12th centuries (argued against by Bouchard 1987). Recently, however, there has been an effort to be more careful and conscious in the use of the term (Guerreau 2001).
  84.  
  85. Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. 2 vols. Translated by L. A. Manyon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
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  87. Defines feudal society as based on personal bonds, rather than governmental structures, thus allowing the author to treat lord-peasant relationships together with relationships between aristocrats. Originally published in French in 1940 as La société féodale.
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  89. Bouchard, Constance Brittain. Sword, Miter, and Cloister: Nobility and the Church in Burgundy, 980–1198. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987.
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  91. Argues against the idea that relations between the aristocracy and the medieval church can best be characterized as “feudal.”
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  93. Boutruche, Robert. Seigneurie et féodalité: Le premier âge des liens de homme à homme. 2d ed. Paris: Aubier, 1968.
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  95. Originally published in 1959, this book treats fief-holding among aristocrats and lordship over peasants both as part of a “feudal” system where personal bonds predominated. Builds on Bloch 1961.
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  97. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, ed. Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’occident méditerranéen (Xe–XIIIe siècles). Proceedings of an international congress held in Rome, 10–13 October 1978. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980.
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  99. The papers at this conference ended up affirming that what was considered the northern French model of the “rise of feudalism” was not so very different from that found in the Mediterranean region.
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  101. Duby, Georges. La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise. 2d ed. Paris: Jean Touzot, 1971.
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  103. This book, originally published in 1953 and regrettably never translated, influenced all subsequent French regional studies of “feudal” society. Arguably the best and most important book by this highly influential scholar.
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  105. Duby, Georges. Féodalité. Paris: Gallimard, 1996.
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  107. An omnibus of Duby’s works specifically addressing feudalism. This volume defines feudalism as a political breakdown of central government, leading to private control of public authority, and hence as a system of economic dependency involving all sectors of society.
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  109. Guerreau, Alain. L’avenir d’un passé incertain: Quelle histoire du moyen âge au XXIe siècle? Paris: Seuil, 2001.
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  111. Written by one of today’s leading French medievalists, this book examines the history of medieval studies over the last four centuries, including the development of the term feudalism.
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  113. British Historians
  114.  
  115. For historians of Great Britain, one of the major questions about “feudalism” has been whether Anglo-Saxon England constituted a feudal society, or whether William the Conqueror imported feudalism from Normandy. The latter view has long prevailed (Holt 1997), based on defining feudalism as requiring mounted knights, castles, and fiefs, none of which characterized pre-1066 England (Brown 1973)—though Hollister 1965 argued for Anglo-Saxon influence on the military organization of Norman Britain. Some scholars, in contrast, have argued that because a subject peasantry can be found in pre-Conquest England (Postan 1973), then Anglo-Saxon society can also be characterized as “feudal.” The argument over the extent to which England did or did not become feudal in 1066 thus depends very much on the definition used (White 2005). It is further complicated by the paucity of fiefs in Normandy itself before 1066 (Tabuteau 1988)—indicating that the Conquest cannot simply have introduced Norman fief-holding into England—and by the centralizing tendency of fief-holding in Anglo-Norman Britain, which is very unlike the decentralization assumed to characterize Continental “feudalism.” The more recent tendency is to see fiefs and tenurial relationships as developing slowly in the years after the Conquest, rather than to have taken definitive form in 1066 (Fleming 1991). Even a century after the Conquest, there was no tidy feudal pyramid of great lords holding in fief and dividing their fiefs into smaller fiefs for their knights (Harvey 1970). Bartlett 2000 represents a significant change in British scholarship, a history of England after the Conquest without any reference to feudalism.
  116.  
  117. Bartlett, Robert. England Under the Norman and Angevin Kings, 1075–1225. Oxford: Clarendon, 2000.
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  119. This massive, thoroughly documented, yet very readable volume in the New Oxford History of England series represents a post-Reynolds (see Reynolds 1994 cited under History of the Term) reaction to the persistent debates about how and when feudalism entered England—it does not mention feudalism at all.
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  121. Brown, R. Allen. Origins of English Feudalism. New York: Barnes and Noble, 1973.
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  123. Painstakingly argues that English feudalism, which he defines as requiring knights, castles, and fiefs, was imported from Normandy in 1066.
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  125. Fleming, Robin. Kings and Lords in Conquest England. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  126. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511560224Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  127. A nuanced look at tenure, fiefs, and service in England in the years after 1066. Written by one of the principal modern authorities on Domesday Book.
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  129. Harvey, Sally. “The Knight and the Knight’s Fee in England.” Past and Present 49 (1970): 3–43.
  130. DOI: 10.1093/past/49.1.3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  131. Indicates both the relatively low status of 12th-century knights and the messiness of holding a “fee” or fief.
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  133. Hollister, C. Warren. The Military Organization of Norman England. Oxford: Clarendon, 1965.
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  135. While assuming that feudalism in England was primarily an import by the Normans, Hollister argues that post-Conquest military organization adapted many aspects of Anglo-Saxon institutions.
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  137. Holt, J. C. Colonial England, 1066–1215. London and Rio Grande, OH: Hambledon, 1997.
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  139. A collection of articles by a leading British legal and political historian, originally published over a thirty-year span. Sees England after the Conquest as “colonized” by Continental institutions, including feudalism.
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  141. Postan, M. M. The Medieval Economy and Society: An Economic History of Britain, 1100–1500. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1973.
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  143. Written by an eminent economic historian, this was intended to provide an introduction to medieval British social and economic history for the nonspecialist, which it still does in spite of its date.
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  145. Tabuteau, Emily Zack. Transfers of Property in Eleventh-Century Norman Law. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
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  147. Legal history done from an anthropological perspective. Demonstrates that there was no tidy system of fief-holding in Normandy that could have been easily imported into England in 1066.
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  149. White, Stephen D. Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
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  151. This collection of essays includes a critique of the way that English feudalism has been defined.
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  153. German Historians
  154.  
  155. Unlike scholars of France and England, German scholars have not routinely seen medieval society as a “feudal” society. For the most part, feudalism (Lehnswesen), as the term is used in German scholarship, refers either to a form of military organization, centered on fiefs, or else to a constitutional framework in which the king was at the center, with the princes holding from him. German also has the word Feudalismus, which is sometimes used in a broader sense to mean feudal society, including an independent nobility, landlord-peasant relations, and sworn military retinues with roots in the Germanic tribes of antiquity (Hintze 1968). Following Mitteis 1933 and Mitteis 1940, German scholars have generally assumed that a decentralized “feudal system” (Feudalismus), constituting rule by the nobility during the Carolingian era (Kienast 1990), was replaced, beginning in the mid-12th century, by centralized rule, as the king exploited feudal relations (Lehnswesen) to bind the nobles to him as his vassals (Krieger 1979). More recently there has been a concerted effort to reexamine—and indeed reject—the very concept of feudalism by connecting the approaches of German scholars with those of the French and English (Kasten 2009, Dendorfer and Deutinger 2010). See also “Feudalism” Under Charles Martel?
  156.  
  157. Dendorfer, Jürgen, and Roman Deutinger, eds. Das Lehnswesen im Hochmittelalter: Forschungskonstrukte–Quellenbefunde–Deutungsrelevanz. Proceedings of an international conference held in Munich 17–19 September 2008. Ostfildern, Germany: Jan Thorbecke, 2010.
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  159. Over twenty articles, mostly by younger German scholars, seek to understand the nature of “feudalism” in response to the recent Anglophone rejection of the term. Proceedings are summarized online.
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  161. Hintze, Otto. “The Nature of Feudalism.” In Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe: Selected Readings. Edited and translated by Fredric L. Cheyette, 22–31. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1968.
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  163. Originally published in German in 1929 as Wesen und Verarbreitung des Feudalismus. This short, dense article attempts to create a German version of “feudal society,” broader than the fiefs and constitutional developments usually discussed by German scholars.
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  165. Kasten, Brigitte. “Das Lehnswesen: Fakt oder Fiktion?” In Der frühmittelalterliche Staat—europäische Perspektiven. Edited by Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser, 331–353. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009.
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  167. Dismisses the idea that mentions of vassals and benefices in early medieval sources meant that the period can be characterized as feudal. Attempts to bring German scholarship more in line with British scholarship, especially that of Susan Reynolds. Especially critical of Kienast 1990.
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  169. Kienast, Walther. Die fränkische Vassalität: Von den Hausmeiern bis zu Ludwig dem Kind und Karl dem Einfältigen. Edited by Peter Herde. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1990.
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  171. A massive, highly detailed work on the meaning of vassalage in the early Middle Ages, completed and published five years after his death.
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  173. Krieger, Karl-Friedrich. Die Lehnshoheit der deutschen Könige im Spätmittelalter (ca. 1200–1437). Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1979.
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  175. The classic work on the king’s use of feudal ties in late medieval Germany. The topic is discussed in the context of the question how much the medieval German state contributed to the modern one. Includes a very extensive bibliography.
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  177. Mitteis, Heinrich. Lehnrecht und Staatsgewalt: Untersuchungen zur mittelalterlichen Verfassungsgeschichte. Weimar, Germany: Böhlaus, 1933.
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  179. An old but highly influential work, its central question how a centralized state could be built using the apparently centrifugal forces of feudalism, meaning an independent nobility.
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  181. Mitteis, Heinrich. Der Staat des hohen Mittelalters: Grundlinien einer vergleichenden Verfassungsgeschichte des Lehnzeitalters. Weimar, Germany: Böhlaus, 1940.
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  183. This very influential book, connecting state formation to feudal ties, went through many editions up through the 1970s, long after Mitteis’s death.
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  185. Italian Historians
  186.  
  187. Feudalism for Italian scholars is generally equated with political anarchy and the appropriation of public authority by private individuals. Because the cities of medieval Italy dominate its history, the “age of feudalism” is generally treated as very short, essentially the 10th century: the period between the Carolingian conquests of the 8th and 9th centuries and the rise of urban centers and communal government in the 11th century (Tabacco 1980, Tabacco 1989, Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo 2000). And yet, ironically given the very short time in which Italy was supposed to have been feudal, the most explicit medieval description of fief-holding, assumed to apply to all of Europe, is found in the Libri feudorum (Lehmann 1971), a compilation of laws on fiefs put together in Italy. This academic collection, designed to demonstrate how fiefs were supposed to work, included such specific rulings as Conrad II’s settlement of disputes over land-holding in Milan and the dukes of Sicily’s oaths of allegiance to the papacy. By the 13th century, Reynolds 1994 argues, professionally trained jurists used the terminology spelled out in the collection (fief, vassal, and so on), and later historians took this academic Italian collection, compiled to make sense of over a century of written agreements, as expressing a universal set of customary “feudal” expectations. For example, the dukes of Sicily are often said to have done vassal homage and received Sicily as a fief (Hoffmann 1978).
  188.  
  189. Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, ed. Il feudalesimo nell’alto medioevo. Proceedings of an international conference held in Spoleto 8–12 April 1999. Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 47. Spoleto, Italy: Presso la Sede del Centro, 2000.
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  191. In spite of opening comments intended to make scholars think carefully about what they mean by “feudalism,” each paper from this conference used its own definition. Italian versions of feudalism here appear next to French and German versions.
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  193. Hoffmann, H. “Langobarden, Normannen, Papste.” Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 58 (1978): 137–180.
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  195. Typical of carefully done scholarship which still reads backwards from the 13th-century definition of fiefs to the 11th century; treats the popes as purposely creating fiefs as they became feudalized in the 11th century.
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  197. Lehmann, Karl, ed. Consuetudines feudorum. Aalen, Germany: Scientia, 1971.
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  199. The modern edition of the Libri feudorum, the Italian compilation of laws on fiefs, written in Latin and put together in the 12th–13th centuries. Lehman’s edition originally appeared in 1892–1896 and is here photographically reproduced, with a new introduction by Karl August Eckhardt.
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  201. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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  203. Argues that our modern view of fiefs in France and England is essentially based on Italian academic legal texts.
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  205. Tabacco, Giovanni. “Gli orientamenti feudali dell’impero in Italia.” Paper presented at an international congress held in Rome, 10–13 October 1978. In Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’occident méditerranéen (Xe–XIIIe siècles). Edited by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 219–240. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980.
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  207. Sees feudalism in Italy as a response to a military crisis in the aftermath of Carolingian dominance.
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  209. Tabacco, Giovanni. The Struggle for Power in Medieval Italy: Structures of Political Rule. Translated by Rosalind Brown Jensen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1989.
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  211. A survey by one of Italy’s most eminent historians, intended for advanced college students. Based on a volume originally published in Italian in 1979 in the multivolume Storia d’Italia.
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  213. Fiefs
  214.  
  215. Fiefs, conditional grants of property in return for oaths of loyalty, first appeared in France in the early 11th century, at roughly the same time as knights—who were originally low-born retainers fighting on horseback—and as castles (Poly and Bournazel 1991). Fiefs are considered to have been granted as part of a personal relationship, and hence they were not automatically inherited and could be lost if the oath of loyalty was broken. Although fiefs became increasingly common in the 12th and 13th centuries, they were never standard or universal (Reynolds 1994), and recent regional studies have demonstrated the complexity of lord-vassal relationships (for example, Barthélemy 1993, Lemesle 1999). Those scholars who see a continuing value in the term “feudalism” generally restrict its meaning to fief-holding.
  216.  
  217. Barthélemy, Dominique. La société dans le comté de Vendôme de l’an mil au XIVe siècle. Paris: Fayard, 1993.
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  219. One of the most significant recent studies in the French tradition, where secular society is analyzed through a close examination of the sources from one region. Massive and magisterial.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Lemesle, Bruno. La société aristocratique dans le Haut-Maine (XIe–XIIe siècles). Rennes, France: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 1999.
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  223. A close analysis of the functioning of lordship and vassalage ties in one region of France, strongly influenced by Barthélemy.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Poly, Jean-Pierre, and Eric Bournazel. The Feudal Transformation, 900–1200. Translated by Caroline Higgitt. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1991.
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  227. Argues that the decades around the year 1000 witnessed the first appearance of knights, castles, and fiefs. Originally published in French in 1980 as La mutation féodale.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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  231. Provides a close discussion of fiefs, showing that they were not nearly as ubiquitous as once thought, and that many of the “feudal” practices that historians have assumed applied to the entire Middle Ages were described for the first time in late medieval Italy.
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  233. Eleventh Century
  234.  
  235. Scholars generally consider Fulbert of Chartres’ 1976 description of the obligations of fidelity, written in the early 11th century, as the first clear description of feudal obligations. It should, however, be considered less a normative text and more the product of a messy social and political situation—further spelled out in a contemporary Conventum (1995)—which Fulbert was trying to mediate (White 2005). In fact, scholars now agree, fief-holding developed on an ad hoc basis, with the sworn relationships between men initially creating nothing like a tidy “feudal pyramid” (Bonnassie 1969). A number of French regional studies have indicated that the first fiefs appeared in the 11th century (Duby 1980); curiously, the authors of these studies initially all thought that the continuing prevalence of freehold (allodial) property meant their regions were backward (Bouchard 2001). English historians see fiefs as first appearing in Britain with the Norman Conquest of 1066 (Douglas 1964). In the 12th century, the tidiest version of fief-holding was found in the Holy Land, after the establishment there of the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in 1100 (Richard 1980). See also The “Feudal Revolution”.
  236.  
  237. Bonnassie, Pierre. “Les conventions féodales dans la Catalogne du XIe siècle.” In Les structures sociales de l’Aquitaine, du Languedoc, et de l’Espagne au premier âge féodale. Edited by Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 187–208. Paris: Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1969.
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  239. Highlights the original ad hoc nature of fiefs in the 11th century, as intended to resolve quarrels or cement relationships.
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  241. Bouchard, Constance Brittain. “Those of My Blood”: Constructing Noble Families in Medieval Francia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  243. Discusses, in the context of the origins of the French nobility, the frequency of free men of lower rank holding allodial property.
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  245. Yves Chauin, and Georges Pons. Le Conventum (vers 1030): Un précurseur aquitain des premières épopées. Edited by George Beech. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1995.
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  247. A long narrative of an 11th-century dispute between a count and the lord of a castle, involving gifts of property, fidelity, and bitter arguments when both sides felt betrayed by the other.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Douglas, David C. William the Conqueror. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1964.
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  251. A somewhat old but still well-regarded biography of William. Stresses the ties that William established with his great lords.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Duby, Georges. The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
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  255. Originally published in French in 1978 as Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire de féodalisme. Treats the development of fiefs and sworn loyalties in the context of crises of the early 11th century.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Fulbert of Chartres. The Letters and Poems. Edited and translated by Frederick Behrends. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976.
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  259. The works of this 11th-century bishop, originally written in Latin, contain the earliest description of the rights and obligations of the fidelity now assumed to have been required when a fief was granted.
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  261. Richard, Jean. “La féodalité de l’Orient latin et le mouvement communal: Un état des questions.” Paper presented at an international congress held in Rome, 10–13 October 1978. In Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’occident méditerranéen (Xe–XIIIe siècles). Edited by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 651–665. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980.
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  263. Brings together a generation of scholarship on fiefs in the Latin Crusader kingdom.
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  265. White, Stephen D. Re-Thinking Kinship and Feudalism in Early Medieval Europe. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
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  267. This collection of articles includes several on fiefs and fidelity in the 11th century.
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  269. Vassal Homage
  270.  
  271. Scholars have generally assumed that oaths of fidelity, demanded in return for fiefs, were standardized from the beginning. The usual picture is that the vassal, that is, someone in a dependent position, would receive the fief, that is, land granted in conditional tenure, and would perform a ceremony known as homage, that is, he would swear to be the true man of the lord, the one granting him the fief (Ganshof 1964, Le Goff, 1980). But scholars have noted for some time that 11th-century oaths were generally focused more on promises not to harm than on promises to serve in return for specific lands, and that oaths were often mutual exchanges (Magnou-Nortier 1968). More recently, the close correspondence between oaths, vassalage, and fiefs has also been questioned (Reynolds 1994). For one thing, the earliest description of what is considered “standard” vassal homage appeared in the 12th-century account of Galbert of Bruges 1976, a good hundred years after when grants of fiefs are generally assumed to have become common; and the first visual images of the homage ceremony date only from the end of the 12th century (Kosto 2001). Also, every oath of fidelity, whether or not called homage, did not necessarily result in the granting of a fief. The standard “aids” that have often been assumed to adhere to homage, such as forty days’ military service or the requirement to ransom one’s lord, were in fact not at all standard; they were not developed fully until the second half of the 12th century—and were really spelled out clearly only in England (Keefe 1983).
  272.  
  273. Galbert of Bruges. The Murder of Charles the Good, Count of Flanders. Translated by James Bruce Ross. New York: Columbia University Press, 1976.
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  275. This early 12th-century chronicle, originally written in Latin, includes what is considered the first full description of the homage ceremony.
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  277. Ganshof, F. L. Feudalism. Rev. ed. Translated by Philip Grierson. New York: Longman, 1964.
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  279. Epitomizes the older view of fief-holding as a standardized practice of fiefs given in exchange for homage, as early as the 9th century. Originally published in French as Qu’est-ce que la féodalité? (1944); first appeared in English in 1952.
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  281. Le Goff, Jacques. Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
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  283. A collection of this influential historian’s articles, an effort to understand the mentalité of the Middle Ages. Originally published in French in 1977 as Pour un autre moyen âge: Temps, travail, et culture en Occident.
  284. Find this resource:
  285. Keefe, Thomas K. Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.
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  287. A close analysis of Henry II’s surveys of fiefs held from the English crown and of the assessed lists of numbers of knights or payments due.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Kosto, Adam J. “The Liber feodorum maior of the Counts of Barcelona: The Cartulary as an Expression of Power.” Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001): 1–22.
  290. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4181(00)00012-9Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  291. Discusses the manuscript book, produced in Barcelona in the 1190s, which includes perhaps the first visual depictions of the homage ceremony.
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  293. Magnou-Nortier, Elisabeth. “Fidelité et féodalité méridionales d’après les serments de fidelité (Xe-début XIIe siècle).” Annales du Midi 80 (1968): 457–484.
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  295. One of the first studies to argue against a simple correspondence between fiefs and oaths of fidelity. The lack of such a correspondence in southern France, however, initially led her to characterize the region as atypical.
  296. Find this resource:
  297. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
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  299. This controversial yet compelling work breaks down the standard image of fiefs and vassalage; some have thought it goes too far.
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  301. Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries
  302.  
  303. Although fiefs became increasingly common during the 12th century, they were never universal. Most aristocrats owned some, if not indeed all, of their land outright, as “allods,” a term used to distinguish fully-held property from rented property or fiefs. Those who held in fief would have preferred to treat their fiefs as hereditary, but those who granted fiefs wanted to make sure these grants were for one generation only. The 12th-century epic Raoul de Cambrai (Kay 1992) indicates that vassalage could lead to bitter resentments and fierce struggles if either lord or vassal felt their rights were violated. By the 13th century, however, homage had become more standardized, and great lords sometimes kept registers of homage granted to them. Many lords insisted on what was called liege homage, the agreement that loyalty to them must come before loyalty to anyone else. During the 13th century, French and German kings and the greatest magnates began systematically to persuade lesser lords that they held from them in fief—or ought to (Baldwin 1986, Evergates 2007, Evergates 1993). Particularly assiduous were the counts of Barcelona and the counts of Champagne, whose registers of fiefs still exist (Kosto 2001, Evergates 2003, Evergates 2009). In England, meanwhile, the great lords had held in fief from the king since the late 11th century, although the relations between kings and lords were far from orderly or tidy (Keefe 1983). Even while expecting—or hoping for—military service from their vassals, 12th-century kings employed mercenaries. They paid for them in part by granting at least some fiefs in return for a monetary payment, a practice that was once assumed to be a late development of “bastard feudalism,” but which in fact is found from the 12th century on (Bean 1989).
  304.  
  305. Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986.
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  307. An extremely thorough and detailed study of Philip II’s governance, including his systematic efforts to persuade the French magnates that they held from him in fief.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Bean, J. M. W. From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late Medieval England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989.
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  311. Thoughtfully argues against the idea that payment for fiefs was only a late development, to be characterized as “bastard” feudalism.
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  313. Evergates, Theodore. The Aristocracy in the County of Champagne, 1100–1300. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.
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  315. Includes a close discussion of fiefs in the county of Champagne, where the records of fiefs and homages were preserved unusually well. This meticulously researched book is already a modern classic.
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  317. Evergates, Theodore, ed. and trans. Feudal Society in Medieval France: Documents from the County of Champagne. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
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  319. A collection of documents, translated from Latin into English, from the 12th and 13th centuries, many concerned with fiefs. Put together by one of the leading modern scholars on the medieval Champagne region.
  320. Find this resource:
  321. Evergates, Theodore, ed. Littere Baronum: The Earliest Cartulary of the Counts of Champagne. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003.
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  323. Starting in the mid-12th century, the counts of Champagne recorded in writing the oaths of allegiance their great lords swore to them. These oaths were all copied in Latin into a single book or cartulary, known as the Littere Baronum. It is here published for the first time.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Evergates, Theodore, ed. The Cartulary of Countess Blanche of Champagne. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.
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  327. At the beginning of the 13th century the ruling countess of Champagne collected the written records of the oaths of fidelity that the lords of castles had sworn to her and her son, then had them all copied into a book, called a cartulary, here published for the first time.
  328. Find this resource:
  329. Kay, Sarah, ed. and trans. Raoul de Cambrai. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
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  331. A 12th-century epic, originally written in Old French, which shows the bitter struggles that could result if someone felt unjustly deprived of a fief.
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  333. Keefe, Thomas K. Feudal Assessments and the Political Community under Henry II and His Sons. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983.
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  335. Analyzes the efforts by the English crown in the second half of the 12th century to establish clear records of those who held in fief from the king. Indicates that even in Europe’s most feudalized kingdom, fiefs were far from uniform or static.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Kosto, Adam J. “The Liber feodorum maior of the Counts of Barcelona: The Cartulary as an Expression of Power.” Journal of Medieval History 27 (2001): 1–22.
  338. DOI: 10.1016/S0304-4181(00)00012-9Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  339. An analysis of the purposes and function of one of the earliest secular cartularies, put together in the 1190s to record agreements between the Count of Barcelona and those who swore fidelity to him.
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  341. Origins of Feudalism and Fiefs
  342.  
  343. If one defines feudalism broadly enough, any sort of loyalty and commendation can be considered a sign of it, and hence scholars (such as Stephenson 1942; Strayer 1965, and Kienast 1990) once saw feudalism as originating in the 9th-century courts of Charlemagne and his successors, if not indeed in the Germanic war bands of antiquity. Perhaps surprisingly, this idea has recently been revived, with French scholars in particular finding vassalage in the 8th century (Depreux 1995). Yet as Nelson 1992 and Kasten 2009 have made clear, the relationship between the Carolingian kings and their great magnates cannot be equated to the fiefs of the 11th century. Part of the confusion is that the Carolingian kings often granted land or authority “in benefice,” which scholars have equated with the grant of a fief (Ganshof 1968), even though Carolingian benefices were generally very short-term, not like the later lifetime grants of fiefs. In addition, the dependent called a vassus in Carolingian documents was generally low-born, unlike the knightly or aristocratic vassals of the 11th century (Reynolds 1994).
  344.  
  345. Depreux, Philippe. “Tassilon III et le roi des Francs: Examen d’une vassalité controversée.” Revue historique 293 (1995): 23–73.
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  347. A densely written article, arguing that vassalage was established from the middle of the 8th century, with Tassilo’s 757 commendation to Pippin the Short perhaps the earliest example.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. Ganshof, François Louis. Frankish Institutions Under Charlemagne. Translated by Bryce Lyon and Mary Lyon. Providence, RI: Brown University Press, 1968.
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  351. A revised and expanded version of articles originally published in French in Karl der Grosse, Vol. 1, in 1965. Assumes that vassals and benefices in the Carolingian era were essentially the same as the vassals and fiefs of three centuries later.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Kasten, Brigitte. “Das Lehnswesen: Fakt oder Fiktion?” In Der frühmittelalterliche Staat—europäische Perspektiven. Edited by Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser, 331–353. Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009.
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  355. Strenuously and convincingly argues that those who have interpreted relations between the Carolingian kings and their great nobles as equivalent to later medieval fiefs are mistaken. Especially harsh on Kienast.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Kienast, Walther. Die fränkische Vassalität: Von den Hausmeiern bis zu Ludwig dem Kind und Karl dem Einfältigen. Edited by Peter Herde. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1990.
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  359. Although published five years after the author’s death, this work sums up an extremely thorough scholar’s work on commendation and vassalage, carried out over a long lifetime.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Nelson, Janet L. Charles the Bald. New York: Longman, 1992.
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  363. Convincingly dismisses the old idea that Charles the Bald established hereditary benefices and thus “created feudalism” in the 9th century.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
  366. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  367. Discusses the differences between the meanings of benefice and vassal in the Carolingian era and three centuries later. The book overall is a very detailed examination of how historians have thought—and should think—about vassalage.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Stephenson, Carl. Feudalism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1942.
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  371. Epitomizes older scholarship; suggests that feudalism was fully formed by the time of Charlemagne.
  372. Find this resource:
  373. Strayer, Joseph R. Feudalism. Princeton, NJ: D. Van Norstrand, 1965.
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  375. This brief volume on the history of feudalism assumes its origins in ancient Germanic culture. He defines feudalism as governmental fragmentation.
  376. Find this resource:
  377. “Feudalism” Under Charles Martel?
  378.  
  379. A theory first postulated in the 1890s and given new popularity by White 1962 held that Charles Martel, Charlemagne’s grandfather, was able to defeat the Saracens in the 730s because of his use of heavy cavalry. This cavalry was in turn made possible, the theory goes, because he had seized church property and distributed it to his followers, “creating feudalism,” and that these followers used their new lands to raise horses, since the stirrup had conveniently just been introduced. This theory was thoroughly discredited by Bachrach 1970. In fact early medieval armies were primarily made up of foot soldiers, not heavy cavalry (Bachrach 2001). Recent work on Charles Martel has avoided such uni-causal explanations of his impact (for example Fouracre 2000). Most scholars are now more careful not to make every oath of loyalty into some form of proto-feudalism, as well as trying not to misinterpret early medieval warfare. Nonetheless the tendency persists, especially among French medievalists, to see vassalage (if not necessarily heavy cavalry) as beginning with Charles Martel (for example, Guillot 2009). See also National Approaches: German Historians.
  380.  
  381. Bachrach, Bernard. “Charles Martel, Mounted Shock Combat, the Stirrup, and Feudalism.” Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 7 (1970): 47–75.
  382. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  383. Effectively refutes the old idea, as revived by White 1962, that the stirrup and feudalism were somehow simultaneous inventions in the 8th century.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Bachrach, Bernard S. Early Carolingian Warfare: Prelude to Empire. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  387. A close study of 8th- and 9th-century warfare, indicating that it was carried out in a way closer to Roman models than to late medieval cavalry battles.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Fouracre, Paul. The Age of Charles Martel. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2000.
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  391. Surprisingly, one of the few book-length treatments of Charles Martel. Deliberately avoids feudalism and the stirrup as answers to the question of the nature of his success and long-term impact.
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  393. Guillot, Olivier. “Des réformes carolingiennes avant la lettre?” Paper presented at an international conference held at Poitiers, 18–20 November 2004. In Le monde carolingien: Bilan, perspectives, champs de recherches. Edited by W. Falkowski and Y. Sassier, 1–29. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 2009.
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  395. Without mentioning the stirrup, suggests that Charles Martel defeated the Saracens in part due to his use of fiefs granted to faithful vassals.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. White, Lynn, Jr. Medieval Technology and Social Change. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1962.
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  399. One of the first books to demonstrate that the Middle Ages was technologically innovative. Popularized the now discredited notion that feudalism began with the 8th-century introduction of the stirrup and Charles Martel’s creation of feudalism.
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  401. Feudalism and Peasants
  402.  
  403. Although most modern scholars who continue to use the term feudalism try to restrict its meaning to fiefs and to governing structures, it has also long been used to mean relations between lords and peasants (for example Bloch 1961). Especially as Karl Marx used the term in the 19th century, it described an agricultural production system shaped not by market forces but by coerced labor. Peasants, often of servile status, were assumed to be exploited by those born into privilege. Early analyses of the economic and social structure of the medieval manor, as by Vinogradoff 1911, found the term “feudalism” an unproblematic descriptor for peasant obligations. More recently most medievalists (with such exceptions as Wickham 1984) have preferred to refer to the landlord-peasant relationship as “manorialism.” This term too has its problems, as suggesting a universal system such as never existed. Some make power rather than economics the chief attribute of landlord-peasant relations, preferring “lordship” (or “seigneurialism,” which essentially means the same but has French roots) to either feudalism or manorialism. In any event, scholars all agree that there was no simple, unchanging form of medieval agriculture, manorial structure, or peasant status (Duby 1968, Genicot 1990). In particular, not all peasants were serfs, as there were always at least some free peasants, and servile status itself changed over the centuries (Davies 1996; Evergates 1975; Freedman 1991). Indeed, in some German-speaking areas knights continued to be legally servile even while they became the effective rulers of their regions in the 12th century (Freed 1995).
  404.  
  405. Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. 2 vols. Translated by L. A. Manyon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
  406. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  407. Makes a subject peasantry an integral aspect of feudal society. Almost all modern discussions of feudalism (however defined) and society still begin with Bloch. This influential book was originally published in French in 1940 as La société féodale.
  408. Find this resource:
  409. Davies, Wendy. “On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages.” In Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. Edited by M. L. Bush, 225–246. London: Longman, 1996.
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  411. An unusually clear description of the nature and origins of serfdom. Reprinted photographically in Wendy Davies, Brittany in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Societies (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009).
  412. Find this resource:
  413. Duby, Georges. Rural Economy and Country Life in the Medieval West. Translated by Cynthia Postan. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1968.
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  415. Originally published in French in 1961 as L’économie rurale et la vie des campagnes dans l’Occident medieval. Still the best introduction to the medieval rural economy. Includes a number of medieval economic sources in translation.
  416. Find this resource:
  417. Evergates, Theodore. Feudal Society in the Bailliage of Troyes Under the Counts of Champagne, 1152–1284. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975.
  418. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  419. A close study of documents from Champagne serves as the basis for an analysis of both peasant status and knighthood.
  420. Find this resource:
  421. Freed, John B. Noble Bondsmen: Ministerial Marriages in the Archdiocese of Salzburg, 1100–1343. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995.
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  423. On knights who became wealthy and powerful even while legally servile, demonstrating that servile status need not be restricted to peasants. One of the few books in English to examine medieval family structures in German regions, rather than in France.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Freedman, Paul. The Origins of Peasant Servitude in Medieval Catalonia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  426. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511583636Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  427. Includes a good deal of information on serfdom outside as well as within Catalonia.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Genicot, Léopold. Rural Communities in the Medieval West. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.
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  431. A slim, easily accessible volume that brings together a generation of international scholarship on peasant life.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Vinogradoff, Paul. The Growth of the Manor. 2d ed. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1911.
  434. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  435. This classic study, originally published in 1904, influenced generations of English scholars. It argued that classic manorialism emerged only in the feudal period, which he had begin in 1066.
  436. Find this resource:
  437. Wickham, Chris. “The Other Transition: From the Ancient World to Feudalism.” Past and Present 103 (1984): 3–36.
  438. DOI: 10.1093/past/103.1.3Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  439. Proposes a modified version of Marxist “feudalism,” as a mode of production in which tenants, not necessarily serfs, pay rents to monopolistic landowners.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Eleventh-Century Transformations
  442.  
  443. Most modern scholars agree that there were significant changes in the early 11th century both in the relationships between aristocrats and the conduct of warfare, with the nearly simultaneous appearance of fiefs, knights, and castles (Gramain 1980, Bachrach 1983). Accompanying these changes were both new ways to extract money from the peasantry, such as banal rights, and new reactions against them, such as the Peace of God movement (Poly and Bournazel 1991; Duby 1980; Head and Landes 1992). Although the turning point is usually now pinpointed around the year 1000, the idea owes much to Marc Bloch’s earlier formulation of two “feudal ages,” with a turning point around the middle of the 11th century (Bloch 1961, Tabacco 1979). See also Eleventh Century
  444.  
  445. Bachrach, Bernard S. “The Angevin Strategy of Castle Building in the Reign of Fulk Nerra, 987–1040.” American Historical Review 88 (1983): 533–560.
  446. DOI: 10.2307/1864586Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  447. A close history of the first castles in one region, that of the county of Anjou. Implicitly rejects the theory that castles were a response to a breakdown of comital authority, for the castles were built at the orders of the count himself.
  448. Find this resource:
  449. Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. 2 vols. Translated by L. A. Manyon. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961.
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  451. This book, originally published in French in 1940 as La société féodale, posits a first “feudal age” that began in the 9th century and a second beginning in the 11th century. Some version of his chronology continues to influence how “the rise of feudalism” is described.
  452. Find this resource:
  453. Duby, Georges. The Three Orders: Feudal Society Imagined. Translated by Arthur Goldhammer. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.
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  455. Posits a social crisis in the early 11th century, against which one response was to try, for the first time, to argue that society ought to be divided into “three orders,” each with its own responsibilities. Originally published in French in 1978 as Les trois ordres ou l’imaginaire de féodalisme.
  456. Find this resource:
  457. Gramain, Monique. “‘Castrum’, structures féodales et peuplement en Biterrois au XIe siècle.” Paper presented at an international congress held in Rome, 10–13 October 1978. In Structures féodales et féodalisme dans l’occident méditerranéen (Xe–XIIIe siècles). Edited by Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, 119–134. Rome: École Française de Rome, 1980.
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  459. As part of a conference addressing the question of whether the Mediterranean region experienced “feudalism” differently than did more northern regions, Gramain argues that the region of Narbonne first witnessed castles and fiefs at the same time as the north, in the early 11th century.
  460. Find this resource:
  461. Head, Thomas, and Richard Landes, eds. The Peace of God: Social Violence and Religious Response in France Around the Year 1000. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1992.
  462. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  463. A collection of articles, bringing together many of the scholars working on the topic. Sees the Peace of God as a religious response to social crisis.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Poly, Jean-Pierre, and Eric Bournazel. The Feudal Transformation, 900–1200. Translated by Caroline Higgitt. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1991.
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  467. This book, originally published in French in 1980 as La mutation féodale, brings together much of the French scholarship of the previous generation. It argues for a sharp transformation around the year 1000.
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  469. Tabacco, Giovanni. “Su nobilità et cavalleria nel medioevo: Un ritorno a Marc Bloch?” Rivista storica italiana 91 (1979): 5–25.
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  471. Suggests that many of the recent works on 11th-century transformations are just reiterating points that Bloch made many years ago.
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  473. The “Feudal Revolution”
  474.  
  475. The idea of a “feudal” transformation of society around the year 1000, as described by Poly and Bournazel 1991, has been reconceptualized as a true feudal revolution (Bisson 1994). It has even been suggested that the peasantry briefly freed themselves of servile status when slavery ended in the 10th century, only to fall into new feudal subjugation in the 11th century (Bonnassie 1991), although this idea is disputed (Davies 1996). A long debate has ensued, the chief opponents of such a characterization being Barthélemy 2009 and White 2005. Barthélemy especially has denied any significant changes at all in the society of the year 1000, though most would not follow him that far. Recently such scholars as Barton 2004 and Bowman 2004 have established that the social changes of the beginning of the 11th century cannot simply be described as a feudal breakdown in order. See also Eleventh Century
  476.  
  477. Barthélemy, Dominique. The Serf, the Knight, and the Historian. Translated by Graham Robert Edwards. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009.
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  479. This collection of articles, updated from the 1997 French edition titled La mutation de l’an mil a-t-elle eu lieu? powerfully indicts the idea of a radical “feudal” transformation of French society around 1000, as proposed by Poly and Bournazel 1991, Bonnassie 1991, and Bisson 1994.
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  481. Barton, Richard E. Lordship in the County of Maine, c. 890–1160. Woodbridge, UK, and Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 2004.
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  483. Demonstrates that vassalage and conditional grants of land were not necessarily linked. Argues against a radical shift in lordship around the year 1000.
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  485. Bisson, Thomas N. “The ‘Feudal Revolution.’” Past and Present 142 (1994): 6–42.
  486. DOI: 10.1093/past/142.1.6Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  487. Began a debate that continued for several years in the pages of the journal, over whether there was a distinct, feudal break in European society around the year 1000, as he argued, or not. His intent was to introduce French ideas of a feudal revolution (expanding on Poly and Bournazel 1991) to an Anglophone audience, to counter Brown’s rejection of feudalism as an analytic term. Some of the responses to this article may be found in Barthélemy 2009 and White 2005.
  488. Find this resource:
  489. Bonnassie, Pierre. From Slavery to Feudalism in South-western Europe. Translated by Jean Birrell. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
  490. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511753343Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  491. A collection of this influential scholar’s most important articles. Suggests that serfs briefly became free around the year 1000 before falling under new feudal obligations.
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  493. Bowman, Jeffrey A. Shifting Landmarks: Property, Proof, and Dispute in Catalonia Around the Year 1000. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2004.
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  495. Establishes that the sources do not support the idea of a breakdown in order around the year 1000. Uses many of the same sources as Bisson 1994 to refute the latter’s points.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Davies, Wendy. “On Servile Status in the Early Middle Ages.” In Serfdom and Slavery: Studies in Legal Bondage. Edited by M. L. Bush, 225–246. London: Longman, 1996.
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  499. Argues that serfdom grew out of ancient slavery, rather than being a new development after slavery ended, as suggested by Bonnassie 1991. Reprinted photographically in Wendy Davies, Brittany in the Early Middle Ages: Texts and Societies (Farnham, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009).
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Poly, Jean-Pierre, and Eric Bournazel. The Feudal Transformation, 900–1200. Translated by Caroline Higgitt. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1991.
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  503. The book that ultimately began the debate on the “feudal revolution.” Argues for the creation of “feudal society” as taking place with the many changes in the decades around 1000. Originally published in French in 1980 as La mutation féodale.
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  505. White, Stephen D. Feuding and Peace-Making in Eleventh-Century France. Aldershot, UK, and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005.
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  507. This collection of articles includes White’s indictment of the concept of a feudal revolution.
  508. Find this resource:
  509. Feudalism, Nobility, and Chivalry
  510.  
  511. The study of feudalism has always been linked with the study of the medieval nobility and of chivalry. Most of the meanings that have been associated with the word “feudalism” directly involve knights and nobles: as fighting, as receiving fiefs and swearing oaths of fidelity, as governing, as lording it over the peasantry. Yet it is entirely possible to discuss the medieval nobility and their families and self-definition without evoking feudalism, and chivalry, as an ethos of knightly behavior, is quite removed from the political, legal, or economic structures that those who use the term feudalism usually evoke. In addition, the typically all-male image of feudalism, however defined, is undercut by recent studies indicating that women too played an important role in medieval politics, vassalage, and lordship.
  512.  
  513. Feudalism and the Nobility
  514.  
  515. The medieval nobility, those who defined themselves by their wealth, their power, and especially by their families (Martindale 1977, Le Jan 1995), always dominated medieval society. Although nobility was not defined juridically before at least the 13th century, both nobles and non-nobles could recognize them by their attributes. In the last generation or two there has come to be something of a consensus that an originally very small group of very wealthy Frankish nobles slowly grew. As this group increased in size it also slowly increased in diversity from the first medieval centuries, to include not just kings and great dukes but counts and viscounts, castellans, and, by the 13th century, knights (Bouchard 2001; Genicot 1993; Crouch 2005; Duby 1977). Knights and nobles certainly exercised power, as adversaries of the monarchy, as the patrons of churches, as givers and recipients of fiefs, as lords over the peasantry (Bisson 1995). Yet it would be too restrictive to characterize their many activities simply as feudalism (Bisson 2009), no matter what definition was used.
  516.  
  517. Bisson, Thomas N. The Crisis of the Twelfth Century: Power, Lordship, and the Origins of European Government. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009.
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  519. Discusses the 12th century as a time of coercive violence. Bisson, long a proponent of the term “feudalism,” now prefers to avoid the term, speaking instead of power and lordship.
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  521. Bisson, Thomas N., ed. Cultures of Power: Lordship, Status, and Process in Twelfth-Century Europe. Papers presented at an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by the Committee on Medieval Studies at Harvard University, 1–4 May 1991. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995.
  522. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  523. A collection of articles by some of the leading American scholars on the topic of the high medieval nobility.
  524. Find this resource:
  525. Bouchard, Constance Brittain. “Those of My Blood”: Constructing Noble Families in Medieval Francia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.
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  527. Covers the nobility on the western Continent from the 8th to 12th century; focuses on family structure.
  528. Find this resource:
  529. Crouch, David. The Birth of Nobility: Constructing Aristocracy in England and France, 900–1300. Harlow, UK: Longman, 2005.
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  531. Primarily a historiographic work, intended to bring the somewhat divergent views on the aristocracy by French and English scholars closer together.
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  533. Duby, Georges. The Chivalrous Society. Translated by Cynthia Postan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977.
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  535. This collection of articles, originally published in French as Hommes et structures du moyen âge (1973), contains the classic piece on how knights and nobles each spent much of the 12th century trying to be more like the other.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Genicot, Léopold. “La noblesse médiévale: Encore!” Revue d’histoire ecclésiastique 88 (1993): 173–201.
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  539. A bibliographic essay, surveying scholarship on the medieval nobility done in the 1980s.
  540. Find this resource:
  541. Le Jan, Régine. Famille et pouvoir dans le monde franc (VIIe–Xe siècle). Paris: Sorbonne, 1995.
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  543. Takes an anthropological approach to noble family structure in the early Middle Ages.
  544. Find this resource:
  545. Martindale, Janet. “The French Aristocracy in the Early Middle Ages: A Reappraisal.” Past and Present 75 (1977): 5–45.
  546. DOI: 10.1093/past/75.1.5Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  547. A classic article defining the attributes of the medieval nobility.
  548. Find this resource:
  549. Feudalism and Women
  550.  
  551. Women, once considered marginal to medieval society (for example Duby 1994), especially to the exercise of rule and lordship considered an essential aspect of feudalism, have more recently come to be seen as capable of exercising a great deal of power. They could hold fiefs and have vassals who did homage to them. Here American scholars, working primarily with French sources, have led the way. Wemple 1981 really began the study of medieval women with a work on the influence wielded by early medieval queens. In the last dozen years or so, starting with Evergates 1999, scholarly attention has turned to countesses and the ladies of castles, not merely queens. These works have recognized aristocratic women as capable administrators and political leaders, in some cases even war leaders. Recent examples include studies of the countess of Blois (LoPrete 2007), the lady of Narbonne (Cheyette 2001), and the countesses of Flanders (Jordan 2006). Ruling queens too continue to be studied, including as always Eleanor of Aquitaine (for example, Wheeler and Parsons 2003). Livingstone 2010 has demonstrated that medieval families need to be seen as groups of men and women who worked together, not merely as lines of eldest sons who excluded all others.
  552.  
  553. Duby, Georges. Love and Marriage in the Middle Ages. Translated by Jane Dunnett. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
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  555. A collection of essays which, in spite of the English title, all treat medieval power as exclusively male and women as marginal, indeed silent. Originally published in French in 1988 as Mâle moyen âge.
  556. Find this resource:
  557. Cheyette, Fredric. Ermengard of Narbonne and the World of the Troubadours. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.
  558. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  559. This beautifully written book uses the late 12th-century lady of Narbonne to discuss not merely the power a woman could wield but also fiefs, trade, and love poetry.
  560. Find this resource:
  561. Evergates, Theodore, ed. Aristocratic Women in Medieval France. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999.
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  563. A collection of studies, including articles by Cheyette, Livingstone, and LoPrete that represent shorter versions of their subsequent books. Quite explicitly disagreeing with Duby, the articles began the new recognition of aristocratic women as politically powerful.
  564. Find this resource:
  565. Jordan, Erin L. Women, Power, and Religious Patronage in the Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
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  567. More narrow than the title would suggest, this book discusses the lives of the countesses who, between them, ruled Flanders for most of the 13th century, showing that powerful women could rule and have vassals even in a male-dominated society.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Livingstone, Amy. Out of Love for My Kin: Aristocratic Family Life in the Lands of the Loire, 1000–1200. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2010.
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  571. Argues against Duby’s idea of the establishment of patriarchy and primogeniture around the year 1000, instead demonstrating that women and younger sons were very much treated as part of aristocratic families. Includes a thorough and up-to-date bibliography of works on medieval family history.
  572. Find this resource:
  573. LoPrete, Kimberly. Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (c. 1067–1137). Dublin, Ireland: Four Courts, 2007.
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  575. An extremely detailed history of the life of Adela, countess of Blois, who ruled the county herself both while her husband was on Crusade and while her sons were young. Effectively disputes the idea that only men could wield authority.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Wemple, Suzanne Fonay. Women in Frankish Society: Marriage and the Cloister, 500 to 900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1981.
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  579. One of the first books to take medieval women’s history seriously. Focused on queens and the early Middle Ages, the book, in spite of its date, still works well to introduce undergraduates to its topic.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Wheeler, Bonnie, and John Carmi Parsons, eds. Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.
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  583. A collection of twenty essays on different aspects of Eleanor’s life, with the theme that she exercised much the same lordship as a man.
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Feudalism and Chivalry
  586.  
  587. Chivalry, the medieval set of expectations for proper knightly behavior (Keen 1984; Chickering and Seiler 1988; Bouchard 1998), is often linked with discussions of “feudalism.” Fidelity and honor, aspects of chivalry from the beginning, were of course valued by those assembling vassals around them (Harper-Bill and Harvey 1986). Indeed, in the early 12th-century Song of Roland (1990), being a “noble vassal” was a great compliment. Chivalry always required excellent fighting abilities, to the extent that there were fundamental contradictions between the warrior expectations and Christian expectations of chivalry (Kaeuper 2009). This fighting is often seen as one of the defining aspects of feudal obligations. Since knights first appeared in France in the early 11th century, at roughly the same time as fiefs, it might appear appropriate to treat chivalry and feudalism together. Yet the epics and romances, our principal sources of information on medieval definitions of chivalry (Song of Roland 1990, Chrétien de Troyes 2004), first appear only a hundred years after fiefs and knights (Flori 1986). In addition, given all the contradictions of “feudalism” as a political, or social, or legal, or governmental, or economic system, it may only worsen the confusion to try to bring a knightly ethos into the mix.
  588.  
  589. Bouchard, Constance Brittain. “Strong of Body, Brave and Noble”: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1998.
  590. Save Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  591. An overview of the complex meanings and practice of chivalry, especially in the 12th century.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Chickering, Howell, and Thomas H. Seiler, eds. The Study of Chivalry. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute, 1988.
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  595. A collection of articles, written from both a historical and a literary perspective, that try to come to terms with the concept of chivalry. Includes a discussion of how the topic can be taught in a college classroom.
  596. Find this resource:
  597. Chrétien de Troyes. Arthurian Romances. Edited and translated by Carleton W. Carroll and William W. Kibler. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 2004.
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  599. Four of the first Arthurian stories ever composed, including the initial tales of Lancelot and of the Holy Grail. Originally written in Old French in the late 12th century.
  600. Find this resource:
  601. Flori, Jean. L’essor de la chevalerie, XIe–XIIe siècles. Geneva, Switzerland: Droz, 1986.
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  603. Written by one of France’s chief authorities on medieval chivalry, in both its historical and literary forms. Argues on the basis of chronicles and treatises that chivalry really only developed in the late 12th century.
  604. Find this resource:
  605. Harper-Bill, Christopher, and Ruth Harvey, eds. The Ideals and Practice of Medieval Knighthood. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 1986.
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  607. The first in a series of volumes publishing selected papers from the annual Strawberry Hill Conference on knighthood and chivalry. Includes material both from a historical and a literary perspective.
  608. Find this resource:
  609. Kaeuper, Richard W. Holy Warriors: The Religious Ideology of Chivalry. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.
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  611. Stresses the violent nature of medieval knighthood, in spite of some clerical efforts to give a religious justification to violence and the knights’ own attempts to appropriate religious symbolism and ritual.
  612. Find this resource:
  613. Keen, Maurice. Chivalry. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984.
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  615. A classic in the field, learned and thorough, especially focused on the late Middle Ages.
  616. Find this resource:
  617. Burgess, Glyn S., trans. The Song of Roland. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin, 1990.
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  619. Originally written in Old French at the beginning of the 12th century, this is considered the first of the great epics or chansons de geste. The translation here stays close to the original in meaning, while preserving the verse form.
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