By Ethan Hollander, Wabash College
To understand just how important states are, and how important a development they were in world history, it makes sense to look at how things worked before the modern state emerged in the late Middle Ages—and at how feudalism worked as a norm. Feudalism was the political system that emerged after the decline of the Roman Empire, in about the 5th century CE, and lasted until about the 1600s.
How It Began
With the decline of the Roman Empire, people all over Europe suddenly faced pressures that they hadn’t felt in a very long time. Whereas the Roman Empire might have protected them from barbarians or marauding tribes, they were now vulnerable. Feudalism emerged in this context as a defensive system, where peasants and people who couldn’t defend themselves put themselves at the service of a local lord—someone who could defend them, at least in exchange for the peasants’ promise to work the lord’s land.
This relationship was called vassalage. The peasants were vassals to the lord, and they provided the lord with certain goods and services, all in exchange for the lord’s promise to protect them. And it was in the lord’s interest to do so, because the vassals ultimately provided the lord with much of his wealth.
Hierarchy in Feudalism
A group of local lords might recognize that there were advantages to working together, and so they might organize themselves as vassals to a particularly powerful lord, and give him, let’s say, a certain number of days of military service per year, in exchange for the overlord’s protection of them.
It’s from this hierarchic system of organization that we get a lot of the common titles of nobility that we’re familiar with. A local lord might acquire the title of baron. A group of barons might make themselves vassals to an earl or a count, who ruled over a county. Counts might put themselves at the service of a marquis or a duke, who might in turn be a vassal to a king.
So, feudalism was a hierarchic, defensive network, where major lords, like the king, organized the defense of the realm by pressing their vassals into service—usually military service. The vassals, in turn, pressed their own vassals into service, and so on and so forth right down to the local knight in shining armor, who might have been the lord of his own small manor, but who had also sworn fealty to the major lords above him.
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Decentralized Power
Power in feudal times was also very decentralized. If a local lord—or group of lords—resisted the king, there wasn’t a lot the king could do. A lord could barricade himself up in a fortress or his castle, and laying siege to a castle was expensive and slow, especially in a day and age where the most powerful offensive weapon was a catapult.
There was a very real risk that a king would run out of money before breaking such a siege, and this gave the lords considerable power to resist him. Back then, the king didn’t have a standing army. His vassals were his army. And one can easily imagine situations where the lords share more in common with one another than with the king.
Blurred Lines of Authority
In feudal times, the lines of authority were unclear. Life and society at the time were local. Travel was rare, and most people lived their entire lives within just a few miles of where they’d been born. This meant that local lords usually had a much closer working relationship with their immediate overlords than with the king.
Often, it wasn’t clear who you owed your primary allegiance to: the distant king, who probably couldn’t do very much if you disobeyed him anyway, or your immediate superior, who you knew, who you worked with, who protected you in a much more immediate sense than the king did, and who might even have his own private reasons for joining forces with you and resisting the king.
In sum, feudal realms lacked definite boundaries: They were decentralized, and the lines of authority were unclear. In these conditions, it was nearly impossible for any entity to maintain a monopoly on the use of force.
Problems with Feudalism
These characteristic problems were exacerbated by the wars of religion that raged through Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries: When a Protestant king had a Catholic vassal, for example, it wasn’t always clear if the vassal owed his primary allegiance to the king or to the pope. This added a religious dimension to what was already a fractious patchwork of rival fiefdoms and overlapping lines of authority.
And in 1618, a seemingly minor incident in Prague touched off a massive war that involved players from all over Europe for the better part of 30 years. This was the Thirty Years’ War, which ended in 1648 with the signing of the Treaty of Westphalia.
And the real significance of this treaty is that it ushered in the modern era and the modern state was born, brining feudalism to an end.
Common Questions about Feudalism
Feudalism was the political system that emerged after the decline of the Roman Empire, in about the 5th century CE. It was a defensive system, where peasants and people who couldn’t defend themselves put themselves at the service of a local lord—someone who could defend them, and who would defend them, at least in exchange for the peasants’ promise to work the lord’s land.
In the feudal system, the peasants were vassals to the lord, and they provided the lord with certain goods and services, all in exchange for the lord’s promise to protect them.
Feudalism was a hierarchic, defensive network, where major lords, like the king, organized the defense of the realm by pressing their vassals into service—usually military service. The vassals, in turn, pressed their own vassals into service, and so on right down to the local knight in shining armor, who might have been the lord of his own small manor, but who had also sworn fealty to the major lords above him.
