![]() All nobles, knights and other tenants, termed vassals, merely "held" land from the king, who was thus at the top of the "feudal pyramid". Under the English feudal system, the person of the king (asserting his allodial right) was the only absolute "owner" of land. By then, a deeply embedded socio-economic class disparity had laid the foundation for the rise of capitalism to take the place of feudalism as the British Empire grew. In the later medieval period, feudalism began to diminish in England with the eventual centralization of government that began around the first quarter of the fourteenth century, and it remained in decline until its eventual abolition in England with the Tenures Abolition Act 1660. The feudal system of governance and economics thrived in England throughout the high medieval period, a time in which the wealthy prospered while the poor labored on the land with relatively little hope of economic autonomy or representative government. This fracture in the stability of the Heptarchy paved the way for the successful Norman Conquest, and England's new king, William I, initiated a system of land grants to his vassals, the powerful knights who fought alongside him, in order to have them maintain his new order throughout the kingdom. Viking dominance led to separation of an eastern segment of the land into a region known as the Danelaw that generated income for the Danes rather than for any of the English kingdoms. Before that, the seven relatively small individual English kingdoms, known collectively as the Heptarchy, maintained an unsteady relationship of raids, ransoms, and truces with Vikings from Denmark and Normandy from around the seventh-to-tenth centuries. ![]() Classic English feudalismįeudalism took root in England with William of Normandy's conquest in 1066. The obligation to raise revenue and fighters from the land and the corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief formed the basis of the feudal relationship. ![]() Eventually, forces like the (Norman) Franks grew in power and influence across parts of Europe, and the centralization of governance under a conquering over-ruler spread with regions paying allegiance to a king by providing fighters and funds. Instead, small tribal bands were bonded by kinship, geographical identification, or religion rather than land ownership. īetween the withdrawal of the Roman Empire from Britain in the fourth century and the onset of the Viking raids in the eighth century, individual land ownership vanished from England. European feudalism had its roots in the Roman manorial system (in which workers were compensated with protection while living on large estates) and in the 8th century CE Kingdom of the Franks where a king gave out land for life ( benefice) to reward loyal nobles and receive service in return. ![]() The coined word feudal derives from an ancient Gothic source faihu signifying simply "property" which in its most basic sense was "cattle" and is a cognate of the classical Latin word pecus, which means both "cattle", "money" and "power". Not until 1748 did it become a popular and widely used word, thanks to Montesquieu's De L'Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws). ![]() The word, "feudalism", was not a medieval term, but an invention of sixteenth century French and English lawyers to describe certain traditional obligations between members of the warrior aristocracy. ![]()
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