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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.
In 800, the title of Emperor was revived in Western Europe with Charlemagne, whose Carolingian Empire greatly affected later European social structure and history. Europe experienced a return to systematic agriculture in the form of the feudal system, which adopted such innovations as three-field planting and the heavy plough.
Feudalism in Italy was influenced by classical traditions and urban communes. The rise of city-states led to conflicts between merchants, nobles, and guilds, resulting in a fragmented political landscape. Feudalism was less prevalent in Italy compared to northern Europe. Feudalism in Spain was shaped by the Reconquista against Muslim rule.
During the Middle Ages, in England, as in most of Europe, the feudal system was the dominant social and economic system. Under the feudal system, the monarch would grant land to the monarch’s loyal subjects in exchange for the subject’s loyalty and military service when called by the monarch.
It is a matter of dispute on what ground the temporal rulers claimed the revenues of vacant dioceses and abbeys. Some hold that it is an inherent right of sovereignty; others state that it is a necessary consequence of the right of investiture; others make it part of the feudal system; still others derive it from the advowson, or right which patrons or protectors had over their benefices.
Middle Ages – periodization of European history from the 5th century to the 15th century. The Middle Ages follows the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 and precedes the Early Modern Era . It is the middle period of a three-period division of Western history: Classic , Medieval and Modern .
In medieval Europe, an oath of fealty (German: Lehnseid) was a fundamental element of the feudal system in the Holy Roman Empire. It was sworn between two people, the feudal subject or liegeman (vassal) and his feudal superior (liege lord). The oath of allegiance was usually carried out as part of a traditional ceremony in which the liegeman or ...
Feudalism was in full flower for most of northern Europe by 1000 and its heartland was the rich agricultural lands in the Seine valley of France and the Thames valley of England. The medieval population was divided into three groups: 'those who pray' (clergy), 'those who fight' (knights, soldiers, aristocrats), and 'those who work' (peasants). [24]