Feudalism

“ As the aristocracy of feudalism was founded, not on wealth or money, but on land tenure, one of the most stable titles to prestige and authority found in history, there was in the underlying concept of society in those days a feeling of stability and permanency, which for a time made feudalism, in spite of its flaws, a bulwark of order. ”

“ Out of danger at home, many of the nobles kept watch like birds of prey on the surrounding country, and were always ready to fall, not only upon their enemies, but also on their neighbours, in the hope either of robbing them when off their guard, or of obtaining a ransom for any unwary traveller who might fall into their hands. Everywhere society was in ambuscade, and waged civil war--individual against individual--without peace or mercy. Such was the reign of feudalism. ”

“ While, owing to social processes long at work, feudalism was in fact a ruin, a mere empty shell, it still seemed powerful as ever; just as an oak, long after its roots are dead, will still carry aloft a waving mass of green leafage. ”

“ But now feudalism, very generally established, and papal absolutism, rapidly culminating, are to meet in angry collision. Shall the kings of the earth prevail, assisted by feudal armies and outward grandeur, and sustained by such powerful sentiments as loyalty and chivalry; or shall a priest, speaking in the name of God Almighty, and appealing to the future fears of men? ”

“ In general, feudalism kept the people divided, and therefore helpless. And as feudalism died out, and with it the personal self-respect and loyalty which were engendered by the old relations of master and servant, the division still remained; and the people, in France especially, became merely masses, a swarm of incoherent and disorganised things intent on the necessaries of daily bread, like mites crawling over each other in a cheese. ”

“ Should one confine one's studies of feudalism to the rules laid down by the feudal lawyers and the careful descriptions of the exact duties of the vassal which are to be found in the contracts of the period, one might conclude that everything had been so minutely and rigorously fixed as to render the feudal bond sufficient to maintain order and liberty. But one has only to read a chronicle of the time to discover that, in reality, brute force governed almost everything outside of the Church. ”

“ Feudalism was perishing, as human organisations often perish, from the very fact of its having attained its full development; feudal nobles had so long towered above the people that they were now almost completely severed from them; feudalism had pushed its principle so far that it was about to die, like the over-blown roses of Dunbar. ”

“ The next most powerful influence that created revolution was feudalism, which ground down the people by unequal laws, and irritated them by the haughtiness, insolence, and heartlessness of the aristocracy, and thus destroyed all respect for them, ending in bitter animosities. Closely connected with these two gigantic evils was the excessive taxation, which oppressed the nation and made it discontented and rebellious. ”

“ There are indeed historians who have not yet abandoned the habit of speaking of feudalism as though it were a disease of the body politic. Now the word ‘feudalism’ is and always will be an inexact term, and, no doubt, at various times and places there emerge phenomena which may with great propriety be called feudal and which come of evil and make for evil. ”

“ The fact is, that during the period when feudalism was in full vigor, the king was merely a shadow; the people found their only consolation in religion, and their chief protectors in the monks, who mingled with them, saw their sufferings, and sympathized with them, consoled them, carried their cause to the castle before the feudal lord and lady, and did, thank God, do something to keep alive religious sentiments and convictions in the bosom of the feudal society itself. ”

“ In these rich and prosperous cities the seignorial nobility and the Church reigned side by side, enjoying a nearly equal and parallel influence, and when feudalism attempted to absorb them by its inflexible despotism, the manufacturing and the commercial classes, selecting as their leaders a few more prominent of the artisans and some of the most respected of the clergy, allied themselves with the lesser rural nobles, and, with the assistance of the latter’s vassals, succeeded in repulsing its crushing yoke. ”

“ While he thus, on the one hand, was the national English sovereign, on the other he was the supreme landowner and feudal lord. Under this double influence, the tenure of land, following the universal tendency of Europe, became wholly feudal and military. But the other side of feudalism—with its isolation, the virtual independence of the feudatories (among whom the king was but the first among his peers) , and the suppression of national jurisdiction, which were the chief characteristics of French feudalism—was kept in careful restraint. ”

“ But it will be said that all this is the result of ‘feudalism.’ It implies just that dismemberment of the dominium which is one of feudalism’s main characteristics. Undoubtedly in the twelfth century the free tenant in fee simple who holds land ‘in demesne’ can have, must have, a lord above him, who also holds and is seised of that land and who will speak of the land as his. But we are now in the age before feudalism, in the seventh and eighth centuries. ”

“ It was under the fostering influences of small, independent chieftains that manly strength and organized social institutions arose once more,— the reserved power of unconquerable nations. Nobody hates feudalism—in its corruptions, in its oppressions—more than I do. ”

“ Before we proceed further, and in order to mix a few consolatory ideas with sad and painful images, we will show, by the side of the abuses of feudalism, the advantages contemporary society received from the feudal system, and the happy germs of civilization which grew from it for the benefit of following ages. ”

“ By the end of the tenth century feudalism had fairly established itself on the ruins of the empire. The new system brought in its train many evils and some social benefits, but whilst in process of development its immediate effect was to throw the whole governing power into the hands of a number of petty lords, who were responsible to no superior for their exercise of it. ”

“ Ideally regarded, feudalism covered Europe with a network of these fiefs, rising in graded ranks one above the other from the smallest, the knight’s fee, at the bottom, to the king at the top, who was the supreme landowner, or who held the kingdom from God. ”

“ Feudalism had been gradually stifling old English freedom, and the King saw himself confronted with a feudal baronage, nobles claiming hereditary, military, and judicial power independent of the King, such as degraded the Monarchy and riveted down the people in France for centuries. ”

“ With the mission of uniting and consolidating the particular ambitions and interests of feudalism in favour of a larger conception of a State, of giving self-consciousness, force and nationality to the scattered energies of thought and action, they were fated to lag behind the march of ideas they had themselves set in motion in a direction they could neither understand nor approve. Yet, for all that, the thrones still remain, and what is more significant, perhaps, some of the dynasties, too, have survived. ”

“ And it is because we believe this ancient spirit of feudalism to be that which contains the great elements of national prosperity, that we therefore advocate a return towards some of its first principles. ”

“ THE KINGS As a system of local government, feudalism tended to pass away when the rulers in England, France, and Spain, and later in Germany and Italy, became powerful enough to put down private warfare, execute justice, and maintain order everywhere in their dominions. The kings were always anti- feudal. ”

“ And we shall find it, I think, in that which during the Middle Ages could, because it was an all- regulating social condition, really create universal habits of thought and feeling, namely, feudalism. A moral condition like asceticism must leave unbiassed all such minds as are incapable of feeling it; but a social institution like feudalism walls in the life of every individual, and forces his intellectual movements into given paths; nor is there any escape, excepting in places where, as in Italy and in the free towns of the North, the feudal conditions are wholly or partially unknown. ”

“ But if we use the term, and often we do, in a very wide sense, if we describe several centuries as feudal, then feudalism will appear to us as a natural and even a necessary stage in our history: that is to say, if we would have the England of the sixteenth century arise out of the England of the eighth without passing through a period of feudalism, we must suppose many immense and fundamental changes in the nature of man and his surroundings. ”

“ Enough has been said of the gradual and irregular growth of feudalism to make it clear that complete uniformity in feudal customs could hardly exist within the bounds of even a small kingdom, much less throughout the countries of western Europe. Yet there was a remarkable resemblance between the institutions of France, England, and Germany, so that a description of the chief features of feudalism in France, where it was highly developed, will serve as a key to the general situation in all the countries we are studying. ”

“ The effect of this diluted organization of feudalism in England was to make the monarchy so strong, from the beginning, that both aristocracy and commons were naturally put on their defence against it, and acquired a feeling of association, a sense of common interest, a habit of alliance, which became very important influences in the political history of the nation. ”

“ Habits and forms of the feudal arrangement remained troublesome in society, as they do in some measure to the present day; but feudalism as a system of social disorder and disintegration was by this time cleared away. We have noted in passing some of the undermining agencies by which it was destroyed: the crusading movements; the growth and enfranchisement of cities; the spread of commerce; the rise of a middle class; the study of Roman law; the consequent increase of royal authority in France,--all these were among the causes of its decline. ”

“ In the earth—hunger of conquering hordes, in the passions of military despots, in the pride or avarice or vindictiveness which moved such men as Louis XI or Henry VIII to override the semi-anarchy of feudalism with a real sovereignty, what is there of reference to such good? ”

“ We see everywhere, in fact, signs of the great contest which in one form or another runs through the whole of the twelfth century, and gives its main interest in our eyes to the English history of the time,—the struggle between the iron organization of medieval feudalism and those nascent forces of modern civilization which were fated in the end to shatter and supersede it. ”

“ In the course of time, almost the entire free peasantry, and the greater number of the old slaves, had sunk or risen into the qualified slavery called serfdom, which formed the basis of the great edifice of feudalism. ”

“ The essence of feudalism was a gradation of rank, in the nature of caste, based upon fear. The clergy were privileged because the laity believed that they could work miracles, and could dispense something more vital even than life and death. The nobility were privileged because they were resistless in war. Therefore, the nobility could impose all sorts of burdens upon those who were unarmed. ”

“ In its day feudalism was a great institution and one which shared with the Christian Church the glory of having made mediaeval life at all worth living. It helped to keep civilization from perishing utterly in a whirl of anarchy, and it enabled Europe to recover inch by inch its former state of order, stability, and law. ”

“ When the function of protection and local supervision could be resumed by the general government the feudal age ended. In nearly all the states of Europe this end was reached during, or by the close of, the 13th century.
At the moment, however, when feudalism was disappearing as the organization of society, it gave rise to results which in a sense continued it into after ages and even to our own day. One of these results was the system of law which it created. As feudalism passed from its age of supremacy into its age of decline, its customs tended to crystallize into fixed forms. ”

“ Some of the most general and most ancient features of the feudal system have likewise been discovered among them, though not, indeed, its more artificial and complicated system, to which feudalism was in later times developed among European nations. ”

“ The lord lived in his castle, and the peasantry worked his land and supported him, fighting his battles if the need arose. This condition of society was known as feudalism, and the feudal relations of lord and vassal came to be the prevailing governmental organization of the period. ”

“ Nowhere did feudalism display more arrogance or more barbarity than in Germany, which resembled some vast camp to which the nobles flocked to meet face to face in desperate combat.
When it came to pass that the industrial and populous towns of Germany [19] cried out for municipal liberties similar to those enjoyed by the towns of France, Italy, and the Low Countries, the emperor hastened to grant and confirm their desires. ”