2 - An Overview
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
Summary
We must step into history at some moment of time and in the process do violence to its essential continuity. We choose the tenth century – following the decay of the Carolingian Empire, when feudalism and manorialism shaped the society of much of Western Europe. Since the key to our story is the evolution of institutional arrangements it is worthwhile to describe feudalism as precisely but as accurately as possible by way of the following exposition from the Shorter Cambridge Medieval History, pp. 418–19.
Although full-grown feudalism was largely the result of the breakdown of older government and law, it both inherited law from the past and created it by a rapid growth of custom based on present fact. In one sense it may be defined as an arrangement of society based on contract, expressed or implied. The status of a person depended in every way on his position on the land, and on the other hand land-tenure determined political rights and duties. The acts constituting the feudal contract were called homage and investiture. The tenant or vassal knelt before the lord surrounded by his court (curia), placing his folded hands between those of the lord, and thus became his ‘man’ (homme, whence the word homage). He also took an oath of fealty (fidelitas) of special obligation. This of course was the ancient ceremony of commendation developed and specialized. […]
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- The Rise of the Western WorldA New Economic History, pp. 9 - 18Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1973