Feudalism&Manorialism

EARLY MIDDLE AGES (500-1000): FEUDALISM & MANORIALISM

I. Decline in Europe in 9th & 10th centuries

1. "As the Frankish states struggled to survive, new waves of invaders struck Europe. From North Africa, Arab raiders, emboldened by improved naval power, began attacking the islands of the Mediterranean and even southern France, Italy, and the great Alpine passes in what is now Switzerland. The revived militance stemmed from newly independent Muslim states in Egypt, Tunisia, and Spain following the decline of the Baghdad caliphate. Before the ninth century was over, the Mediterranean was virtually a Muslim lake.

"Byzantine miscalculation was responsible for the invasion of eastern Europe by the Magyars, a nomadic people from central Asia [related to Finns & Turks]. In 896 the Byzantines encouraged the Magyars to attack the troublesome Bulgars, but the latter outwitted the Byzantines by persuading the Pechenegs, Turkic nomads from the area around the Volga River, to attack the Magyars. Instead of fighting the Bulgars, the Magyars moved west, invading Germany, France, and Italy and plundering virtually at will. Not until 955 were they defeated by the army of the German king, Otto I, but they retained control of the great Hungarian plain. There they gradually settled down, established their own kingdom, and converted to Christianity.

"A third group of invaders, the Norsemen or Vikings, came from Scandinavia, not on horseback like the Asian nomads but in swift, mobile ships. As early as 793, Viking raiders had destroyed the monastery at Lindisfarne, which had been instrumental in converting northern England to Christianity. In the century that followed, the Vikings struck freely, sacking the coastal regions of Europe and sailing up rivers to reach such cities as Paris and Hamburg. They even plundered the Muslim city of Seville in Spain and Italian towns reached by ships that sailed into the Mediterranean. Vikings struck out across the Atlantic to Iceland and Greenland, both of which they settled, and North America. The reasons for this activity varied: some Vikings were clearly in search of land for new settlements, but others apparently regarded the raids as an appropriate prelude to a settled life or as a means to establish new trade routes. Norsemen from Sweden, in fact, used the rivers of Russia to make contact with the Byzantines and the Persians. "The Vikings established settlements at Kiev in Russia, on the coast of Ireland, in northeastern England, and along the lower Seine River in northwestern France, a region later called Normandy. In the eleventh century descendants from that area seized control of southern Italy and Sicily, and in 1066 William, duke of Normandy, conquered England. As the Normans settled, they embraced Christianity and European culture" (Greaves 212-214).

2. At first, Britain united, but French small landowners surrendered both their lands and their personal freedoms to counts, dukes and other local lords in return for protection and security. The large estates, manors, became self-sufficient leading to further decline in trade.

II. Rise of Feudalism (peak = 10th & 11th c.): the political system

Feudalism= a structure of society in which the powers of government are exercised by private barons over persons economically dependent upon them (Burns & Ralph 390). “Hence, what historians later came to call feudalism meant essentially the linking together of the personal element of vassalage with the property element of the benefice...By the ninth century, the benefice had become known as a fief as it acquired a new characteristic involving the exercise of political power” (Spiel. 262).

"The nobles ruled their districts with miniature governments of their own, dispensing justice, collecting fees, raising troops, and sometimes minting money. The heart of this way of governing was the personal bond: whereas in modern society we owe allegiance to a state, in the early medieval world allegiance was rendered to a person, and that person was in turn bound to fulfill his or her part of the contractual arrangement" (Greaves 214). German comitatus "war band"

1. Causes

(1) disintegration of central power

(2) need for protection (from invasions)

(3) decrease in class of freemen

(4) rise of a largely independent landed aristocracy

(5) increased reliance on the mounted knight

"The Frankish army had originally consisted of foot soldiers, dressed in coats of mail and armed with swords. But in the eighth century, a military change began to occur when larger horses were introduced. Earlier, horsemen had been mobile archers and throwers of spears. Eventually they were armored in coats of mail and wielded long lances that enabled them to act as battering rams. For almost five hundred years, warfare in Europe be dominated by heavily armored cavalry or knights as they came to be called. They came to have the greatest social prestige and formed the backbone of the European aristocracy.

"Of course, ample resources were necessary to supply a horse, armor, and weapons. Moreover, it took time and much practice to learn to wield these weapons skillfully from a horse. Consequently, lords who wanted military retainers to fight for them had to grant each vassal a benefice, a piece of land that provided the vassal's economic support. In return for the grant of land, the vassal provided his lord with one major service, his fighting skills" (Spiel. 212).

2. Vassalage: obligations of lords & nobles [need for military support is the principal reason for this practice; ritual of investiture--act of homage & oath of fealty, then lance glove or clump of dirt given to vassal to signify his jurisdiction--derived from ancient German ceremony in which warrior swore allegiance to head of war-band]