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Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
Under the English feudal system, the king (asserting his allodial right) was considered the sole absolute "owner" of land. All nobles, knights, and other tenants, known as vassals , merely "held" land from the king, who occupied the highest tier of the "feudal pyramid."
a lathe: Kent was divided into five lathes, from the Old English laeth, meaning district. a riding: was a division of land in Yorkshire and in Lindsey, which was the northern part of modern day Lincolnshire. The riding was a third part of the shire. The name is derived from the Old Norse thriding, meaning "one-third".
A fief (/ f iː f /; Latin: feudum) was a central element in medieval contracts based on feudal law. It consisted of a form of property holding or other rights granted by an overlord to a vassal, who held it in fealty or "in fee" in return for a form of feudal allegiance, services or payments.
The legal concept of land tenure in the Middle Ages has become known as the feudal system that has been widely used throughout Europe, the Middle East and Asia Minor.The lords who received land directly from the Crown, or another landowner, in exchange for certain rights and obligations were called tenants-in-chief.
Under the English feudal system several different forms of land tenure existed, each effectively a contract with differing rights and duties attached thereto. Such tenures could be either free-hold if they were hereditable or perpetual or non-free if they terminated on the tenant's death or at an earlier specified period.
King John signs Magna Carta at Runnymede in 1215, surrounded by his baronage.Illustration from Cassell's History of England, 1902.. In the kingdom of England, a feudal barony or barony by tenure was the highest degree of feudal land tenure, namely per baroniam (Latin for "by barony"), under which the land-holder owed the service of being one of the king's barons.
Lacking a feudal system of vassal loyalty made it impossible for any prince, early on, to gain enough influence and power to project a strong force against any invaders. In contrast to other European forms of serfdom and feudalism there was a lack of vassalage and loyalty to the lord whose land the serfs worked. It took a much longer period for ...