Though the answer will change depending on where exactly you are talking about, the simplest and most generally accepted answer to how long the feudal system lasted in Europe was 600 years. During that time period this was the system of government. This essay endeavors to give a brief explanation as to how the system operated and also point out some of it’s failings and the oppressive nature of the system where people were essentially kept as slaves to kings or feudal land barons.
The feudal system, simple put, was a very oppressive system. In everyday speech it has become a term used to describe an unjust authority system. In Susan Reynolds book Fiefs and Vassals, she characterizes it as such saying, “Fuedalism, to any members of the general public who ever refer to it, stands for almost any hierarchical oppressive system. Bosses or landlords who bully their employees or tenants are being feudal.” (Reynolds, 1). That this term has gained this meaning in everyday speech comes from the nature of the system.
Under the feudal system there were two very distinct classes within society. There was the upper class of lords and kings and also the lower class composed of peasants. According to ThinkQuest.com, about 90% of people at the time were in the lower peasant class which were a servile class forced to serve the upper class. Depending on the place feudalism was practiced, peasants often were quasi slaves.
Rulers justified their right to rule over the peasants by “Divine right”, or that god had passed down their authority, which in turn was passed down through heredity. The system was constructed as it was due to the technology of the time and for security. At the time travel was difficult and it was hard to travel from one part of the country to another. In order to rule, a king could not simply call someone up on the phone or use a reliable mail system as we had today. So he needed a way to have a trusted body of people who answered directly to him in order to carry out his wishes. These were called lords or barons and they were given enormous tracts of land or fiefs which was land that the underclass, peasants, would live on. The peasants had an obligation to provide a portion of whatever they produced to their lord. In turn a Lords had to provide soldiers and goods to the kings and kings had the right to tax at will. (Think Quest, 2013).
Lords were consistent in only marrying within the noble class sand unlike today where if a person works hard he can get to the upper classes, if you were born a peasant odds were that you were going to die a peasant and your children and your children were all going to be peasants.
Life for a peasant was extremely difficult. They worked hard and did not have a freedom to determine their own destiny. They were also influenced by a Catholic Church, which manipulated them with the promise that if they obeyed during their earthly life they would win the reward of heaven in the next life. The peasants lives were micromanaged to the point of needing permission from their lord or king in order to marry who they chose.
The one advantage the system provided peasants was the protection from danger that the king or lord provided them. The peasants had security from marauders or invading armies of other countries.
Justice though, because a king or lord had almost no limits on their power was arbitrary. There were however, some norms, which governed the treatment of peasants, and lords or kings that were too harsh risked uprisings and rebellions. As Reynolds writes, “Balancing hierarchy on the other side of the equation of conflicting norms was justice. Both kings and other lords had obligations to those who were subject to them. Their obligations were not created by oaths or ceremonies, whether ecclesiastical or secular, though they were reinforced by them.” (Reynolds, 36).
One enforcer of a code of morality and authority that existed outside of the Lord or King’s domain was the Church. Though, this was also a force of oppression at times. Reynolds also writes that, “Every rule, everyone in a position of authority from emperor or king down to the head of a household, was supposed to rule justly and according to custom.” These customs were governed much of feudal medieval life.
I think it is easy for us to look back on the feudal system and judge it harshly compared to the system we have today. But it is important to realize that the advances of today negate the need for such a system. At the time very few people were educated and human rights and justice were understood in much different ways. People’s worldviews were not informed by advanced science and as a result people lived with a lot more fear, some believing in supernatural monsters and even dragons.
In order to have a just system, or for a system like democracy to work, one needs an educated populace. This is something that did not exist in feudal times. We can understand this from a historical perspective, but not a personal one.
Works Cited
"THE MIDDLE AGES: THE FEUDAL SYSTEM." ThinkQuest : Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 July 2013. <http://library.thinkquest.org/10949/fief/hife
Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and vassals: the medieval evidence reinterpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Print.
