The feudal lord is who? The meaning of the word "feudal"

The Middle Ages are a special epoch with historically unique characteristics - heretics and inquisition, indulgence and alchemy, crusades and feudalism.

Who is a feudal lord? This definition and concept of feudalism are discussed in more detail below.

The concept of feudalism

Feudalism is a special system of land and legal relations that developed in Western Europe during the Middle Ages.

The basis of this form of relations was the feudal lord. This is the owner of the land plot (feud). Each feudal lord received land together with peasants from another, a larger owner (senor), and was considered from that time his vassal. All the vassals were in the military service of the seniors and were supposed to act with the first call in arms against his enemies.

Hierarchy

The hierarchy of feudalism was quite complex. To understand it, first consider a simplified model of relations of 3 links: at the lowest level stood a peasant, commoner, who was in charge of the owner - the feudal lord over whom the monarch stood.

But the feudal lord is not just a person entering a certain stratum of society, it is part of a complex system. The feudal ladder consists of lower knights - vassals, who were in the service of higher seniors. Each señor, in turn, was also someone's vassal. The head of state was the king.

The schematic chain of the hierarchy can be represented in this form (from the lowest to the highest): the peasant - the knight (vassal 1) - the seignior 1 (vassal 2) - the seignior 2 (vassal 3) - the seignior 3 (vassal 4) - ... - the king .

The main feature of the hierarchy was the fact that the great feudal lord did not have power over all the lower-level vassals. The rule "my vassal's vassal is not my vassal" was observed.

Customs of the feudal lords

All landowners, regardless of the size of their possessions, were not distinguished by their economic nature. They did not try to increase their wealth by accumulating or improving the methods of production. What were the main sources of income for any feudal lord? These are farmer's grants, seizures, robberies. All the extracted was spent on expensive clothes, luxurious surroundings and feasts.

Among the feudal lords there was a code of honor for the knight - courage, deeds, protection of the weak. However, other facts have historically been fixed: they everywhere showed rudeness, cruelty and self-will. They considered themselves God-chosen, ordinary people despised.

The relationship between the vassal and the liege was complex. Often the newly elected vassal attacked his lord and seized his wealth, peasants and land.

The difference between feudalism and the slave system

The feudal lord is not a slaveholder. Slaves belonged to the owner, did not have their own will and property. The peasants who belonged to the feudal lords owned property, owned their own economy, which they controlled themselves-they could sell, give, exchange. For their piece of land they paid the owner a rent, and he provided them with security.

The feudal lord could declare war on a neighbor, conclude a truce with him, organize military campaigns to seize captives, for which he could obtain ransom, rob another's peasants, other landowners, and the church.

All this created the situation of "the state in the state," weakened the power of the monarch and, in general, continental Europe, whose majority of inhabitants, because of looting from all sides, were in poverty and hunger.