Feudal Society: Lords, Vassals, and Peasants in Medieval Europe
The Countryside: Peasants and Lords
The countryside is essential for the feudal order due to the importance of the primary sector and the dominant agricultural climate.
Forms of Ownership and Land Use
It is a complex area for several reasons:
- Permanent tendency of large property to absorb allodial forms.
- This expansion supports the new agricultural settlements, with the clearing of land. This will result in an increase of small and medium farmers.
- In the vast property, the circumstances of centuries XI, XII, and XIII make change forms of enjoyment as they can sell or dispose more easily than in previous centuries, which equates with the allodial peasants.
For these three reasons, it is difficult to balance. The great aristocratic power was called Carolingian villae above. The holdings vary according to the contract with the lord and can be: holding a census, with a bond established between the lord and the peasant, in perpetuity and sold, with the possibility of sale. These forms appear in the tenth and eleventh centuries. In the thirteenth century, leasing and sharecropping became widespread, which leads to more flexibility. This change is being driven by increased agricultural production, allowing the big landowner to react to the situation, prefixed by the existence of trade fairs, trade, and currency. The lords have other sources of income, apart from the tax, the jurisdictional power derived from control and agriculture.
The Manor Court as Part of Country Life
The fragmentation of political power allowed a number of large property owners to obtain jurisdiction over the peasants who cultivated their land, i.e., to exercise ban rights on them and others in the Carolingian era, were unique to the monarchy. When the system reaches maturity in twelfth-century France, only a minority has won jurisdictional rights, which produces a definite gap between various degrees of aristocracy.
The twelfth century was a balance in the historical evolution of the medieval West. The ban on the rural manor applied in several typical respects. First, the master may require free men under his control to come to the judicial assembly, and has an obligation to practice justice, with the benefit of fines and forfeitures to be imposed by the court. Second, the Lord may require weapons service to free men of their domain, or livestock compensation. Third, the lord exercises governmental and administrative powers that place him above any farmer organization. He also has the monopoly on the installation of certain instruments, that he leases to the peasants: furnace, mill, winery, etc. These are called banalities. The Lord also controls weights and measures, regulating various aspects of economic (tax, currency).
The manor court was a basic political organization of European societies, matured in the classical period of the feudal order, but that will evolve in later stages.
In these centuries, XI, XII, and XIII, two major social classes are configured. These classes were formed by farmers, land workers, and the gentlemen who owned it and the main beneficiaries of the various sources of income.
Peasants
In the twelfth century, every farmer is subject to a jurisdictional regime. All property has a large man, with a number of farmers who cultivate the land. The lord of the tribunal is not necessarily the territorial lord. In the ninth century, peasants depended on the public authorities exercising the count. A manor court can have up to 1000 – 2000 peasant holdings, which have obligations with respect to the manor court (payments, repairs, host).
The main difficulty to speak of a homogeneous peasantry is the different internal categories (slaves and free). During the High Middle Ages, economic and legal differences of any importance have developed. In general, the peasantry has maintained a modest level of material life, although the types of lodging on the season are better than the Dark Ages. Most farmers have tended to work units operating within the family, whether or not your property, concentrated or scattered parcels used for different crops. Some, as they reached the status of landowners, would be integrated into the aristocracy. The salary or wage farmers were a minority or an addition to other holdings. The peasants had to pay a rent to the feudal lord of proportional or size and an annual fee.
Servitude
Among the farmers, legal criteria of differentiation existed among those who had provided free and which were subject to servile burdens. A servitude was reached by the deteriorating economic situation. The most common servile burdens affecting the lack of freedom, because the servant was assigned to the cultivated land and payment of an annual poll. When a slave died, the lord was entitled to take part of his property had been redeemed unless this obligation by paying compensation. From the eleventh century, there was a process of gradual disappearance of their loads.
Aristocracy and Nobility
The secular and ecclesiastical aristocracy was the dominant group and leader of society as a whole. The aristocracy was a very hierarchical and diversified social group. The exercise of judicial ban only got the high nobility. The concentration of capacity in the hands of a few banal lineages resulted in the disappearance of many others in the XII and XIII. In 1050 there were more gentlemen courts in 1300. There were noble means of promoting that show their strengths in the crisis of the fourteenth century. Chief among these was the practice of chivalry and military activity. The cavalry was learning on the use of firearms, horseback riding, and education courtesan. In all the kingdoms were groups of knights with their squires, who were fighting in fair, tournaments, hunting, and battle. The cavalry arrived after participating in combat, through a ceremony of Germanic origin. The duties of the knight were courage, loyalty, and honor. The ecclesiastical sector exerted a great influence on the cavalry from the eleventh century, with the aim of enhancing relations with the nobility. In late medieval ideals of chivalry would influence and epic songs in the Books of Chivalry.
The Feudal-Vassal Institutions
The rise of serfdom had led to the establishment of a political order based on the network of feudal-vassal, which linked with other aristocrats. Matured in the feudal lands of the former Western France to spread to other European countries. They are based on the contract, delivery vassal, and fief. The servitude was the oldest and brought together several wills in the same project. These joining processes in all countries end in 1300. The contract consisted of a vassal homage in which Mr. took both of his vassal’s hands and he stated the commitment to be your man, by an oath of allegiance, which demonstrated the legal freedom of the new vassal. The oath was later joined by other practices like the kiss between the lord and vassal and start writing the contract (letter). This contract gives rise to the power of the lord over the vassal, who undertook to give help and advice, along with military duties, personal and economic. The gentleman had an obligation to protect the vassal, military and judiciary and even advice and assistance. The contract was unchanged vassal until the death of a party. If some are missing the pledge of allegiance could be considered malefidus, i.e. felon. The part that most often broke the relationship was the lord and vassal then threw a symbolic element (a glove, a ring of the Lord). If Mr gathered it, is just the relationship.