The Problem of Feudalism

Abstract Feudalism, to any members of the general public who ever refer to it, stands for almost any hierarchical and oppressive system. Bosses or landlords who bully their employees or tenants are being feudal. If they bully them fiercely they are worse: they are positively medieval. Medieval historians may dislike this hostile sidelight on their period but they are not on the whole much more precise in their use of the words feudal and feudalism. As E. A. R. Brown and C. van de Kieft both pointed out independently in 1974, feudalism can mean a lot of different things. A good many medievalists have, however, continued to maintain that, whatever the difficulties of describing medieval society in general as feudal, there is a narrow, technical, more precise sense to feudalism which retains its utility. This is characterized by such words as ‘the system of feudal and vassal institutions’, les liens feoédo-vassaliques, i rapporti feudo-vassallatici, or das Lehnswesen, for which I shall use the rather ugly and clumsy, but convenient, expressions feudo-vassalic relations or feudo-vassalic institutions.