'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
Talking about popular conceptions of the Middle Ages and their historical realities. Join Richard Abels to learn about Vikings, knights and chivalry, movies set in the Middle Ages, and much more about the medieval world.
'tis but a scratch: fact and fiction about the Middle Ages
The Medievalists' "F-Word": Feudalism
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“Feudalism” was once accepted by academic and popular historians alike as a defining, if not the defining, feature of medieval society. For military historians, the High Middle Ages, the period from around 1050 to 1300, was once the Age of the Feudal Knight. This is no longer the case. If academic historians use it at all in their writings or classrooms, it is usually to dismiss it. For most medieval historians, feudalism has joined Viking horned helmets and “the right of the first night” in the ranks of myths about the Middle Ages.
Richard, however, isn't most historians. In this episode, Richard and Ellen talk about the meanings of "feudalism" and why Richard is reluctant to throw it upon the cart of dead historical constructs.
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Intro and exit music are by Alexander Nakarada
If you have questions, feel free to contact me at richard.abels54@gmail.com
Welcome Back to Our Podcast "'Tis But A Scratch: Fact and Fiction about the Middle Ages." I'm your host Professor Richard Abels. My co host for this episode is my partner for life and inspiration for all things medieval is my wife, Ellen.
Ellen Abels:Hi
Richard Abels:Today's episode is about a very nasty word. One that academic medievalists use in public at their peril. I mean, the medieval f-word
sound bite:Oh, don't say that word. No, doc, don't say it.
Ellen Abels:Oh, come on, just say it
Richard Abels:feudalism.
Monty Python Holy Grail:Bring out your dead. Bring out your dead. Here's one. Nine pence. I'm not dead. He says he's not dead. Yes, he is. Well, he will be soon he's very ill. No,
Ellen Abels:I know. I'm gonna regret asking this. But why play you're not you'll be stoned at no moment. that clip? I mean, this episode isn't about the Black Death.
Richard Abels:No. But for many historians, feudalism is a dead historical construct that they avoid like the plague.
Ellen Abels:I knew I would regret asking this. You set that up just to get a Monty Python reference in, didn't you?
Richard Abels:It's but an itch I had to scratch. But it also sets up a point that I'll be making. While for most medievalists feudalism is an obsolete construct that ought to be carted off with other dead constructs, like the dark ages. I think that there may still be some life left in it.
Ellen Abels:Now, your colleagues might be shocked to hear you say that, but most of our listeners are probably more surprised to hear that medieval historians avoid using the term feudalism.
Richard Abels:You're right. As you say Feudalism was once accepted by academic and popular historians alike, as a defining if not the defining feature of medieval society. For military historians, the High Middle Ages, the period from around the year 1000 to 1300, was once the age of the funeral Knight. This is no longer the case. If academic historians use it at all in their writings or classrooms. Feudalism is usually brought up simply to be dismissed. For most medieval historians, feudalism has joined Viking horned helmets, and the right of the first night in the ranks of myths about the Middle Ages.
Ellen Abels:I'm shocked. The right of the first night is a myth. Duh,
Richard Abels:as if you didn't know. And maybe we should do an episode on the droit de seigneur. After all, it's featured prominently in the movies Braveheart and the Warlord.
Ellen Abels:Please, no, Let's get back to feudalism. When I was majoring in medieval history at Barnard, back in the early 1970s, one of the first things we learned about the Middle Ages was that its society was feudal.
Richard Abels:That was also my experience in graduate school. My dissertation advisor Professor Malcolm being was a historian of late medieval English feudalism. One of the first books about the Middle Ages that both of us read was probably Marc Bolch's Feudal Society.
Ellen Abels:Now, for me, it was Thomas Costain, The History of the Plantagenets,
Richard Abels:which you probably read when you were in high school.
Ellen Abels:Yeah, more like sixth grade actually.
Richard Abels:Okay, I meant one of the first books about the Middle Ages that we read for a college course, was probably Marc Bloch's Feudal Society.
Ellen Abels:Okay, I think it was assigned to recommend it in at least three different undergraduate courses. Okay, sorry to interrupt, but maybe you should explain to our
Richard Abels:Until the 1990s. academic historians of the Middle Ages were comfortable using the term feudalism to characterize medieval society, they might have some reservations about exactly how feudal some medieval societies were. But on the whole feudalism was one of the go to terms to describe the Middle Ages. As I said, that's no longer the case. This change is reflected in the treatment of feudalism and textbooks. In the third edition of see Warren Hollister is listeners what Hollister meant by a fief. popular survey. Medieval Europe, a brief history, published 1974, Hollister introduced the term feudalism, in a sub chapter entitled, quote, "Response to the Invasions: French Feudalism" End quote. As a judicious scholar and a veteran of the Historiographical battles over the introduction of feudalism It's the key term for feudalism. A fief or as it's also called, a into England, Hollister began by carefully explaining what Feudalism was not. It was not, he stated, a universal or symetrical system. Even in northern France, where it was born in the eighth century, it appeared in a variety of forms. It did not. even in its heyday, encompass all the land. It was riddled with ambiguities due to vassals holding lands from multiple lords. It was not associated with chivalry, and it was not exclusively a military institution. But given these caveats, Hollister had no doubt that feudalism existed as both a military and political system. For specialists in medieval history, Hollister explained,, feudalism refers to, quote,, fee"the network of rights and obligations existing among members of the knightly aristocracy.,the holders of fief's." End Quote. And this is how he used feudalism throughout
Ellen Abels:As in a doctor's fate. the rest of the book.
Richard Abels:Yes as in doctor's fee. Both words derived from the Latin word feudum, and Hollister defined fief as a gift, usually a landed estate, given by a lord to a vassal. The lord retained ownership of the fief, but the vassal held and profited from it for life. In return, the vassal gave the lord a specified amount of military service knights' service, as well as other services. And before you ask, a vassal was a knight who owed loyalty and service to a lord. A man became a vassal by performing an act of homage. In the High Middle Ages that entailed kneeling before the lord and placing one's hands between his and then swearing an oath of fealty, of fidelity. The relationship between lords and vassals is called vassalage.
Ellen Abels:Thank you. Now back to Hollister.
Richard Abels:In the eighth edition of Medieval Europe, published in 1998, a year after the Hollister's death, the sub chapter response to the invasions French feudalism became "France fragmentation," an indication of the less prominent role that feudalism plays in this edition. Hollister's discussion of feudalism survives but in much truncated form. Gone is his list of those things that feudalism was not. In its place is an acknowledgment, phrased almost as a cri d,u coeur, that the term feudalism had grown even more problematic over the intervening 14 years. "Even today," Hollister wrote, quote,"feudalism is heartbreakingly difficult to define. Some scholars reject the word altogether; others prefer the terms feudalisms to feudalism. I continue to find feudalism a useful word if employed with caution, no more misleading than humanism, democracy, communism, capitalism, classicism or Renaissance, all of which some scholars would like to abolis."h End quote. The change in content and tone reflects a historic radical shift with which Warren Hollister was not completely comfortable. Medieval Europe, a Short History was too valuable a property for McGraw Hill to abandon just because its author had died. The publisher brought in another distinguished medieval historian, Judith Bennett, to revise the textbook for a ninth edition. In that edition. feudalism is introduced as, quote, "among the most abused and confusing terms in the historical lexicon. To begin with, feudalism is a modern term. To make matters worse, historians disagree about the meaning and usefulness of the term. Some historians argue that we should stop talking about feudalism altogether. For in their view, it describes a system that exists more in the minds of historians than it ever did during the Middle Ages." Most medieval surveys today, either completely omit the term feudalism or explain why they won't use it.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so what happened to make feudalism the f-word?
Richard Abels:The work of two historians Elizabeth AR Brown and Susan Reynolds. Together they crystallize growing doubts, among many of their colleagues about the usefulness of the term. Brown was the first to throw down the gauntlet in a 1974 article in the American Historical Review, entitled, quote,"The tyranny of a construct" feudalism and historians of medieval Europe," end quote. 20 years later, Susan Reynolds completed the demolition of feudalism in her book "Fiefs and Vassals"
Ellen Abels:I read Browns article years ago, but I only remember that she claimed that feudalism is not a useful term. I mean, what is her argument really that we should dispense with feudalism?
Richard Abels:For two reasons. First, The term has no agreed upon definition. Second, it's fundamentally misleading to impose order and unity upon the messy reality of medieval societies. As far as pedagogy is concerned, Brown declared, quote, "students should certainly be spared an approach that inevitably gives an unwarranted impression of unity and systematization. To advocate teaching, what is acknowledged to be deceptive, and what must later be untaught reflects an unsettling attitude of condescension toward younger students." end quote,
Ellen Abels:but the same can be said of every other ism.
Richard Abels:Yeah, and Brown wasn't shy about that. Brown concluded or article with a manifesto against historical constructs in general, quote,"The tyrant feudalism must be declared once and for all deposed, and its influence over students to the Middle Ages finally ended, perhaps in its downfall, it will carry with it those other obdurate isms, Manorial, scholastic and human, that have dominated for far too long the investigation of medieval life and thought," end quote. Warren Hollister was clearly thinking of Brown when he wrote, "I continue to find feudalism a useful word, if employed with caution, no more misleading than humanism, democracy, communism, capitalism, classicism or Renaissance, all of which some scholars would like to abolish," end quote, Basically, Elizabeth Brown was challenging the usefulness of historical constructs for teaching or more generally for understanding the past.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so what exactly is an historical construct?
Richard Abels:It's a generalization or shorthand expression about an historical error, or its defining social, political, economic, cultural, or military institutions. A construct such as feudalism is an ideal type, rather than a description of any particular historical society or institution. Historical constructs are rarely ever completely congruent with the on the ground reality.
Ellen Abels:You mean like saying that the United States is a capitalist society, while discounting or ignoring Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the FDA and other governmental regulations on business
Richard Abels:Or China is communist. I think that Marx would have some difficulty recognizing today's China, with its Wild West street [level] capitalism as a product of his thought.
Ellen Abels:So why use historical constructs at all?
Richard Abels:How else can you teach history? The first semester of a typical Western Civ class covers at least 2000 years, and ranges geographically from Egypt and Mesopotamia, to England, when one is covering millennia, over the course of one semester, generalizations are not only useful, but necessary. That's true even for undergraduate medieval history surveys that offer often cover 1000 years and increasingly include Southern and Eastern Europe. Medieval textbooks may have canceled feudalism, but they continue to use historical constructs like lordship and manorialism.
Ellen Abels:So how have teachers responded to the discarding of feudalism?
Richard Abels:The relegation of feudalism to the historiography, rather than the history of the Middle Ages, has been the cause of consternation for teachers, especially for non medievalists assigned to teach Western and World Civilization surveys
Ellen Abels:Historiography rather than history--maybe you could explain that
Richard Abels:history is a study the past historiography is the study of historians writing about the past.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so how have non medievalists teaching survey courses responded to all of this?
Richard Abels:I suspect most instructors of broad surveys probably continue to use feudalism, whether or not it appears in their textbook, because the term is familiar to them and to their students. As one of my colleagues, an American historian, commented, I'm going to keep on teaching feudalism until you guys come up with some other generalization I can use.
Ellen Abels:So, have you guys come up with a substitute for feudalism?
Richard Abels:No, and even medieval historian who reject the "ism" in feudalism continue to use the adjective "feudal"
Ellen Abels:As a medieval historian who taught
Richard Abels:As a teacher, her nominalism makes me nervous. undergraduates for 40 years, what do you think of Brown's article and her arguments?
Ellen Abels:nominalism?
Richard Abels:Yes. nominalism. The medieval philosophy that proposed that general ideas are merely names without any corresponding reality, and that only particular objects exist. In other words, individual chairs exist but the Platonic idea of a chair is a mental abstraction. I agree. I grant that every society indeed every individual is unique. And generalization simplify what is complicated, messy and often contradictory. That's undoubtedly true. But it is a dead end. For the study of history. Historical constructs are simplifications of historical reality. But a map can never be the same thing as the ground map, and a description of the past cannot be the same thing as the past itself. Brown's objections to feudalism can be applied to any generalizations about medieval or modern society. Brown second objection to feudalism, though, has merit historians and people in general, talk and write about feudalism without bothering to define it. And Brown is right. There isn't an agreed upon definition. So let's talk about what historians mean when they use the term feudalism. To start us off, I'm going to ask one of the brightest and most conscientious undergraduate medieval history majors I know to give her definition of feudalism. All yours, El!
Ellen Abels:dearly, though, I love you, I suspect you're setting me up but here it goes. Feudalism is the society based upon personal ties of loyalty and landholding, rather than upon ideas of nationalism or even geography.
Richard Abels:That's actually pretty close to what German historians mean by Feudalismus. In German historical writings, Feudalismus, feudalism, refers to a stage of political development in which political power rests in the hands of landlords bound together by ties and mutual loyalty in what the Germans term a Personenverbandsstaat
Ellen Abels:Personnenverbandstaat?
Richard Abels:Literally a state in which people are tied to one another by personal bonds. In the German conception of feudalism. nobles are bound to one another, not only by vows of loyalty, but by a hierarchy of landholding in the form of dependent tenures known as fiefs. These fiefs are held either directly or indirectly from the King.
Ellen Abels:Okay, yes, the feudal pyramid that I remember from our textbooks.
Richard Abels:German Feudalismus also defines the relationship between land holders and the peasants who work their lands. Those peasants, whether free or serfs are dominated economically and judicially by their landlords who require from them rents, laborers and dues, while enjoying seniority over that mean,
Ellen Abels:that's a pretty recognizable sketch of medieval society, at least in the High Middle Ages. So what's the big deal?
Richard Abels:It really is, and it crosses national boundaries. And as it's a fairly good summary of what the great French Annales historian Marc Bloch meant by feudal society, the problem is that this is only one of several possible definitions.
Ellen Abels:Why not just use the definition of feudalism used in the Middle Ages?
Richard Abels:That's part of the problem. The term isn't medieval, the Latin word"feudum" is
Ellen Abels:Meaning a fief, which we previously defined as a type of dependent land tenure held by a vassal from a lord. Right?
Richard Abels:exactly. At least that is what the term meant by the late 12th century. But as Susan Reynolds demonstrated,"feudum" in the 11th century, could also just mean property.
Ellen Abels:As you know, I've loved listening to audio lectures from the teaching company,
Richard Abels:among them some excellent lectures by friend and sometimes co host, Dr. Jennifer Paxton.
Ellen Abels:I mean, Jenny's lectures are great, but I stopped cold listening to another so called great teacher when he started his survey by stating authoritatively that feudalism comes from the word feud is in blood feud. Even I
Richard Abels:It would be a lot more exciting if it were, but knew better alas, the term feudalism is derived from a particular type of landholding. In the late 20th century, Italian jurists wrote about the Lex feudorum, the law of fiefs, that is the rights and obligations arising from the holding of dependent land tenures. That was how feudal law was understood in the Renaissance. But it isn't until the 18th century enlightenment that we get a feudal "ism" as a historical construct. 18th century enlightenment philosophes such as Montesquieu, used feodalite to denote a system of segneurial privileges and prerogatives over a subordinated and oppressed peasantry that characterize the Old Regime, and which in their view, could be justified neither by reason nor justice. When the National Constituent Assembly abolished the quote unquote, feudal regime in August 1789. This is what it meant. across the English Channel. Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations published in 1776, coined the phrase feudal system describe a form of production, governed not by market forces, but by coercion and force for Smith. The feudal system was the economic exploitation of peasants by the Lords, which led to an economy and society marked by poverty, brutality, exploitation, and wide gaps between rich and poor. In the writings of Karl Marx, Smith's feudal system, became a stage of economic development in his theory of historical materialism, the mode of production situated between the slave economy of the ancient world and modern capitalism, and this is what Marxist historians still mean when they write about feudalism. Non Marxist modern French histories also tend to use feudalism to mean a socio economic system, in which landed lords bound to one another by personal ties dominate peasants, requiring from them rents labor surface and dues, while enjoying judicial and political authority over them.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so how does that differ from the Marxists or for that matter, Montesquieu?
Richard Abels:Following the canon of modern historical methodology, non-Marxist French historians do so in objective terms without moral judgment.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so feudalism refers to a hierarchy of landholding by a nobility that lives off the labor of peasants and enjoys juridical and political authority over their tenants
Richard Abels:if you are a Marxist or a French historian, but not if you are a non-Marxist British or American historian. The Anglo- American definition of feudalism, which is the one that I learned and used for many years in my own writings, cuts out the peasants and focuses on the relationships between the ruling nobles. In British and American historiography, the economic system, in which noble landlords live off the labor surfaces and rents of peasant tenants over whom they have judicial rights is called"manorialism," not feudalism.
Ellen Abels:So how did you define feudalism in your classes?
Richard Abels:Like I said, I use the Anglo-American definition of feudalism. feudalism, I would explain to my students is shorthand for a political, military and social system that bound together the warrior aristocracy of Western Europe between around the year 1000 And around the year 1300. This system only gradually took shape, and differed in detail from region to region. Its key institutions were lordship vassalage in the faith, lordship and vassalage represent two sides of a personal bond of mutual loyalty and military service between nobles of different rank that found its roots in the dramatic war bed. The superior in this relationship was termed the Lord and the subordinate who swore loyalty on Holy Relics became his vassal. The pledge of fealty was confirmed by the performance of homage, a symbolic ritual of subordination, in which the vassal knelt before his lord and placed his hand between his lords. The lord promised on his part to maintain and protect his vassal. Not all vessels were invested with thief's only those who inherited lands from kinsmen, or had so distinguished themselves as household types as to merit the reward for fief or the hand of an heiress whose rite of marriage belonged to the lord. Many younger sons of lesser nobility spent their entire careers as members of a nobles household. Some were maintained through money fiefs, a fixed annual payment of money instead of land, while others became mercenary knights. Tha,t at any rate, is how I defined and explain feudalism in my classes
Ellen Abels:Well your first book touched on the origins of English, feudalism, Lordship and military obligation. That's sort of the core of feudalism, right?
Richard Abels:Yes, the question was whether the Norman Conquest introduced feudalism in England. In my book "Lordship and military obligation in Anglo Saxon England," I argued that late Anglo-Saxon England was already to some extent feudal, in that military obligation was rooted in lordship and land tenure. Following the lead of other historians, I suggested that neither England nor Normandy was fully feudal in 1066, and that English feudalism developed as a consequence of the Norman settlement in England.
Ellen Abels:Okay, the Anglo-American model of feudalism is pretty much what I meant when I gave my more general definition. I mean, it's what was in my textbooks as an undergraduate. I mean, if an historian begins by explaining that this is what he or she means by feudalism, then that explicit definition should take care of at least one of Brown's objections
Richard Abels:Which brings us to Susan Reynolds' influential 1994 book, "Fiefs and Vassals." Reynolds set her sights on the Anglo- American model.
Ellen Abels:So does Reynolds deal with, say, Lynn White's techno-deterministic thesis that the introduction of the stirrup gave birth to feudalism?
Richard Abels:No, she barely mentions Charles Martel, which I guess isn't surprising, since she didn't believe that feudalism was ever born. But it might be worth mentioning Lynn White. Do you want to explain the stirrup, the thesis?
Ellen Abels:Okay. Lynn White was an historian of medieval technology at UCLA. In 1962, he published an extremely influential book called Medieval Technology and Social Change. In it he posited that the introduction of the stirrup in the West was the crucial catalyst for the creation of the feudal system. According to White, when Charles Martel, mayor of the palace and de facto ruler of the Franks, encountered the stirrup, he recognized its potential to transform mounted warfare. The stirrup made possible the development of the knight, where a troupe of other knights with couched lances became an unstoppable shock force against infantry. But this revolution and warfare required trained horsemen and trained horses for that matter. And this in turn required a landholding nobility with the wealth to support the necessary training and horses. Charles Martel got that lens in the church, and he gave that land is feeds to his followers in return for their pledges of loyalty and military service. Thus, feudalism just in time to turn back the Saracens at the Battle of Tours saving Christian dome from Muslim conquest!
Richard Abels:Technological determinism, in its most elegant
form:simple, easily understood, and wrong. Bernard Bachrach, a student of Lynn White pretty much demolished White's thesis by demonstrating that infantry rather than cavalry was the backbone of both Merovingian and Carolingian military power. Other historians, most notably John France, argue that the classic charge of mounted knights familiar for movies was a product of the second half of the 11th century.
Ellen Abels:I've never been a fan of single explanations for complex things. But, okay, so the stirrup didn't give birth to feudalism. I was taught as an undergraduate that feudalism became the dominant political system in the 10th century. As the Frankish Empire fragmented under the stress of Viking invasions and internal fighting, the private bond's of lordship and vassalage grew in importance. In this new order counts and nobles with castles and troops of knights came to dominate localities. The power of the magnates was based on their landed wealth, which they use to secure military support by granting fiefs to lesser nobles and knights return for loyalty and pledges of service. Kings were in theory, the lords of these knights but in practice were often just one power among many. Feudalism may have been born in the eighth century, but Western Europe didn't become a feudal society until the 10th. That at least is what I remember from Suzanne Wemple's course. How many years ago? Close to 50.
Richard Abels:That is precisely the story that Reynolds dismantles in her book. She does this through a close and careful analysis of 10th and 11th century sources. She contends that historians have wrongly assumed that the words feudum, or beneficium, benefice, appear in a 10th or 11th century document, they must mean a knights fee. Their mistake, according to Reynolds, was to assume that such words belong to a technical vocabulary of land law that did not exist before the middle of the 12th century. Rather, historians need to read a text without preconceptions and derive from it what the drafter meant by these words,
Ellen Abels:I mean, I'm sorry, but I'm tempted to say no duh! I mean, isn't that what historians are supposed to do?
Richard Abels:Yes, but to be fair, most historians do come to text with preconceptions about what they expect to find them. Reynolds was right about historians assuming that the term has failed him and benefit him must refer to dependent tenures. That's what the dictionary say. And that is what they learned in their classes.
Ellen Abels:Okay, so how did Reynolds' reading of these texts undermined the Anglo-American model of feudalism?
Richard Abels:Surveying the documentary evidence for 10th and 11th century England, France, Germany and Italy. Reynolds concluded that terms such as fief, benefice, vassal, lacked any technical meeting until the mid 12th century, when they were given legal definition by the Italian lawyers who produced the "Libri Feodorum." In 10th, and 11th century charters, feudum and benefice were likely to refer to"allods,". that is, property that was freely owned, as they were to refer to land held in return for service. Reynolds further argued that in the 11th century, France, supposedly, the heartland of feudalism, most land was owned rather than held as dependent tenures, and horizontal bonds of association--kinship, friendship and community--were more important than the vertical bonds of lordship and vassalage that historians have traditionally emphasized in the early Middle Ages. She concluded custom rather than law ruled, since custom was both highly localized and mutable, there could be no SYSTEM of landholding. QED, feudalism did not exist in 10th or 11th century Christendom
Ellen Abels:What do you think of Reunolds' critique of feudalism?
Richard Abels:She made a very real contribution to the study of the Middle Ages by making historians more conscious of the need to define terms in historical context, rather than assume their meaning. I do think however, she may have gone a bit overboard in questioning the meaning of every term used by medievalists. lLke Brown,Reynolds' critique borders on nominalism
Ellen Abels:This actually reminds me the story you told me about Susan Reynolds at a medieval history conference you attended.
Richard Abels:That was the Battle Conference in 1996. The Battle Conference held annually on the site of the Battle of Hastings is among my favorite medieval conferences. The conference focuses on Anglo-Norman history. Unlike most American history conferences, it has no competing sessions. And rather than the usual 20 minute papers, it allows each presenter, I think it's an hour and a half, to give his or her paper and to respond to questions. At this particular conference, Susan Reynolds followed almost every paper by asking, "But what do we mean by knight? But what do we mean by castle? But what do we mean by Anglo-Saxon?" Finally, the guy sitting next to me whispered to me, "But what do we mean by Reynolds?"
Ellen Abels:Are there other things to agree with in Reynolds' book?
Richard Abels:I'm persuaded by the evidence she presents that most estates in France and Germany in the 10th and 11th
centuries were in fact, allods:they were property owned by individuals and families, rather than tenures held from superiors. But not in England, but not in Norman England. And I'll explain why later. I also think she's right, that the heyday of feudalism is the late 12th and 13th centuries, and not the 10th or 11th. But I would argue that this had less to do with the writings of Italian jurists than it did with the growth of monarchical power. In England, France and Germany.
Ellen Abels:Wait a minute. Growth of monarchial power? But isn't feudalism supposed to be about the disintegration of central authority and its replacement by personal bonds among nobles,
Richard Abels:That is what we learned back in the day. But it really was in the late 12th century, that kings beginning with Henry II of England, asserted that they were the ultimate source of all landed property, law, and offices in the realm, and that they were the liege lords of all those landholders, regardless of whatever other lords they may have pledged their personal loyalty to. Henry II of England, followed by Philip Augustus of France and Frederick Barbarossa in the Holy Roman Empire, saw feudalism as a mechanism for consolidating and centralizing power. The feudal pyramid familiar in older medieval history textbooks came to have a semblance of reality in England, and later France and Germany, not from organic growth in the 10th and 11th centuries, but by royal imposition in the late 12th. Feudalism, rather than being the consequence of the collapse of central authority, was actually an instrument for advancing it.
Ellen Abels:That sounds as though you accept the reality or at least usefulness of the concept of feudalism.
Richard Abels:I feel like I'm about to confess to a heresy, but in fact I do. Brown and Reynolds may have effectively banished feudalism from historical conferences and academic publications. What they didn't accomplish is to persuade many medieval institutional and military historians00myself included--that medieval lordship independent military tenures are historical fictions. Like the late Warren Hollister. I find myself ambivalent about this paradigm shift. On the one hand, I think that Elizabeth Brown's critique of feudalism as a construct is right on the mark. Nor can I take exception to Reynolds' admonitions to read texts critically within context, and to guard against reading into sources what one expects to find in them. But I'm less persuaded by Reynolds' attacks upon the importance of lordship vassalage and dependent tenures as central elements in early medieval society and politics. The historiographical pendulum threatens now to swing too far toward horizontal bonds of association, consensus making, and community and away from vertical ties and power. Both types of social bonds appear in the sources for the 10th and 11th centuries, not only in France, Italy, and Germany, but in pre-Conquest England as well. Listening to disputes over whether lordship or community was the foundation of medieval society, I'm reminded of a physicist attempting to determine whether light is a wave or a particle. The answer is, of course, both. Susan Reynolds is right in noting that vassalage and dependent tenures were not the only and probably not even most prevalent political and personal ties among the European nobility of the 10th and 11th centuries. She is also undoubtedly right, that the distinction between property and tenure was less distinct in the 11th and 12th centuries, than it is for historians today, or professional lawyers in the 13th century. But this was less a matter of confusion or vagueness, as it was the recognition of a social fact: a gift of land, even in the form of property, continued to bind the donor and recipient long after the transaction had been concluded.
Ellen Abels:I'm sorry, but you're dancing around the question. Do you think that feudalism described actual medieval social structures?
Richard Abels:Yes and no,
Ellen Abels:that's helpful.
Richard Abels:I'm not trying to be coy. Okay, yeah, I'm trying to be coy. What I'm really trying to do is to be careful with my answer. On the one hand, feudalism, as a historical construct, or ideal type may never have existed. Certainly, the Anglo- American model of feudalism did not apply to all of Christendom, let alone all of Europe for the entire Middle Ages. On the other hand, lords. retainers, and dependent tenures did exist, and were critical elements in the governments of medieval polities from the 10th through the 14th centuries. By the early 13th century, the institutions of lordship and the fief had become ubiquitous throughout Western Europe. This development probably had less to do with professional Italian lawyers systematizing feudal law, then with the realization by rulers that they could enhance their authority by defining themselves as royal liege lords of all free men, and as the fount of all landholding in the realm. It's telling that the most feudalized societies of the 12th century were Norman England, Norman Sicily, and the Crusader principalities,--all states established through conquest in the 11th and early 12th centuries. William the Conqueror's distribution of lands to his followers was on the basis of fiefs. Doomsday Book describes the lands of England's tenants in chief in[the year] 1087 as. quote, "held from the kingm" and Henry II's Cartae Baronum, Charters of Barons of 1166, enumerates the military obligations attached to them 50 years later. Whether or not Normandy or Anglo Saxon-England was "feudal" in 1066, it's indisputable that William structured the Norman Settlement of his newly acquired kingdom upon the principle of dependent military tenures. A similar case can be made for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, certainly by the 1180s. The great nobles of that Kingdom were conceived of as vassals of the king. The sources show that knights holding fiefs, often in the form of "money fees" from magnates in return for heavy military service was the norm in the Crusader states of the 12th century.
Ellen Abels:We're running out of time, but I wanted to ask you why you think that Brown's and Reynolds' attack on feudalism proved so successful among academic medievalists. It really is kind of stunning that a paradigm that lasted for centuries should have been overturned in a couple of decades.
Richard Abels:That also struck me as remarkable. Even those who resisted Brown's and Reynolds'critiques of feudalism and continue to write about the feudal revolution, like Professor Thomas Bisson of Harvard, did not defend the paradigm in academic debate. It was like the war was won without a shot. All I can offer is speculation why. The ground was prepared for Brown and Reynolds. Skepticism about feudalism as a system predated Brown's article. Several of my mentors and senior colleagues pointedly remarked that Brown had merely published what they had been teaching for years. Warren Hollister, who to the very end accepted the usefulness of the term feudalism, wrote an influential article entitled "The irony of feudalism," in which he argued that militarily feudal obligations had waned in importance throughout the 12th century, and that it was the social and political obligations of fief holders, rather than knight service, that was truly important. In other words, dissatisfaction with the received views about Feudalism was in the air. But I also think that the abandonment of the feudal paradigm reflects a change in the professed culture of academia. In many ways, history departments in the mid 20th century were feudal. They were hierarchical and structured, intensely competitive, and the relationship between professors and their graduate students, who depended upon their patronage for grants and jobs had much in common with that of lords and their vassals. Kistory departments of research universities were overwhelmingly male, with many of the faculty having served in the military.
Ellen Abels:So are you suggesting that feudalism resonated with these medieval historians because in some ways, it reflected the society in which the historians lived and work?
Richard Abels:I am. And I'm also suggesting that a change in academic culture in the 1970s and 1980s made the feudal model resonate less strongly with those who studied the Middle Ages. The anti-war movement of the Vietnam era made military history the black sheep of the discipline; social history and cultural history displaced political and institutional history as the favored approaches to the study of the past. I might also note that the discipline became markedly less male. The new academic culture remained competitive, but now also emphasized collegiality and community. At least that was its public face.
Ellen Abels:I'm not sure I agree that female academics are any more collegial or less competitive than males. I mean, I wouldn't say the female lawyers are less competitive than males. I mean, you and I both known female professors who were or are fierce in fighters with some pretty sharp elbows when it comes to departmental politics.
Richard Abels:I am. You may be right, like I said, just some speculation.
Ellen Abels:So how do you finally come down on the feudalism question, if defined clearly
Richard Abels:and narrowly, as in its Anglo American incarnation, feudalism remains a useful shorthand term to describe vertical social and political relations among the aristocracy of England and France, from the mid 11th through 13th centuries, and of Germany and Italy in the 13th century. One must also be aware that an ideal construct only is an approximation of reality. The danger is mistaking the construct for reality, and either interpreting source evidence through the construct, or judging the actual social, poticial, and tenurial relationships in a particular society, whether in medieval Europe or not, against this ideal. What all medieval historians can agree on is that the question was this society"feudal"? is less meaningful than understanding the institutions and relationships of that society within their historical context.
Ellen Abels:So you have no problem with teachers using the term feudalism describe medieval society?
Richard Abels:No, but I still wouldn't drop the word casually in a conference paper without a lot of explanation. But I also don't think that feudalism should be carted away with other dead historical constructs, such as the Dark Ages. The Anglo-American model of feudalism, at least in my opinion, retains utility as a description of one aspect of noble society and political relationships in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages
Ellen Abels:This is an awful lot to absorb. But the bottom line is, if I understand you correctly, is that you believe that feudalism is not yet a dead construct?
Richard Abels:Yes, so let's give Monty Python the final word on the subject.
Ellen Abels:Okay.
Monty Python Holy Grail:I'm not dead. He says he's not dead. Yes, he is. I'm not.
Richard Abels:Well, we have run out of time. Thank you for joining us. Chrissy Senecal will be back co hosting. Our next episode is going to be on everyone's favorite old English monster poem, Beowulf. I hope that you'll be able to join us. If you're enjoying this podcast, please let your friends know about it. Good ratings and good reviews. really do help spread the word. Bye for now.
