It was arranged through a formal ceremony called homage, reminding a man that divine retribution would come his way if he broke the oath.
Fealty was itself impressed upon the participants with the help of religion. The glue that held feudalism together was the oath of fealty, or loyalty – in essence, a promise of faithful service to one’s higher-up in the feudal hierarchy. Because of its agricultural base, feudalism in Western Europe took hold most widely in areas that were then primarily rural – including Germany, England, and the northern part of France. The king offered protection and, to the nobles, sections of land known as manors or fiefs. This Frankish version of feudalism was the blueprint for the version that steadily took hold throughout much of Western Europe.Īt its core, the system was not only a hierarchy of relationships that included military obligations, but also an economic system based solidly on agriculture. In return for these nobles lending him the support of their soldierly retainers–known as knights–the Frankish ruler allowed the nobles to own allotments of land within the empire. Through a concerted, highly-detailed legal system and a centralized spy service, Charlemagne verified that nobles throughout the empire were obeying his authority. By the latter part of the 8th century, the most successful practitioner of this system was a Frankish ruler named Charlemagne, who built an empire that covered a significant, though truncated, portion of the former Western Roman Empire. To maintain power and forestall any attempt to usurp his authority, a Germanic king would grant lands to his nobles in return for their pledging military support when the king summoned it. These tribes, under the collective designation “Germanic,” though they didn’t necessarily originate in what is now Germany, had their own local laws under their own rulers that didn’t answer to a centralized authority in Rome. But by the early 5th century, that division was becoming permanent – the eastern part prospered and eventually took the mantle of Roman authority, whereas the western part declined under repeated invasions from foreign tribes and officially ended in 476. At this point, the empire had already been divided into western and eastern parts by Diocletian, whose reign ended in 305. Let’s take a closer look.īefore roughly 400 AD, much of Western Europe was under the dominion of the Roman Empire. But for the mass of the populace it was quite oppressive, and by the end of the medieval period it had run its course. It produced a set of manners and norms – chivalry – and spawned an elegant form of literature that helped Europeans capture and develop pride in their histories.
Feudalism in Western Europe was a politico-economic system that created a social fabric with military obligations.
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