Definition Of Feudalism

Feudalism is not an easy term to define. The use of the word feudalism was not a term that is created by scholars in the seventeenth century, well after the medieval age. Thus the term is filled with confusion and inaccuracy. In a way, the term feudalism tries to condense all the aspects of a complex society into one term. By creating the term, scholars tried to condense the society into connections to the feud, …

…peasants were, from a modern view, owned by the lords, in the sense that they were indebted to the lords, the peasants were willing to sacrifice complete freedom for the protection. The direct influence of this way of life on the peasants was that they were protected by and indebted to the lords. The lords became their rulers as opposed to the kings. Bibliography McKay, Hill, Buckner. A History of Western Society. Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999