Introduction
Feudalism refers to a traditional social and economic system that turned out to be successful in Europe immediately after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The system played an imperative role in Europe by encouraging order and protection in European communities when there was much instability. The instability in Europe resulted from Nordic, Moslem and Barbarians who were invading the country from all over. Therefore, this made Europeans be in need of defense of attacks, internal order as well as economic stability and feudalism played a vital role in providing them. This system developed in Europe because people were in need of protection, hence the introduction of the system allowed individuals from higher classes to offer protection to lower class individuals. The system enabled people to be safe thus promoting collaboration among people from varying classes(Kjeldsen-Kragh 124).
Describe the middle ages from the early portion to the later portion.
In history, there was a period-called middle ages, when feudalism was the major law of land that was in operation. During the time, the upper class individuals had control over the lower class. However, the government structure of the era consisted of kings, lords, peasants, church leaders and neighboring kings. The system was applicable for a long time because of the large piece of land that the kings were controlling. The kings believed that they had divine rights to control the land and they passed on their powers through heredity. The process of governing the land was not perfect because of poor communication methods, thus taking kings much time to move from one region of the country to another. Conversely, this forced the kings to form a contract with barons, who helped the kings in managing the lands. This was not a perfect solution because barons also faced the same problems as the kings since they had a large tract of land that they governed. With time, the barons implemented the same contract that kings formed with them, but they made it with trusted knight and relatives. This enabled them to form various fiefs, which further passed from generation to generation. Consequently, the class of lords transformed into upper nobility class making them view themselves much powerful compared to common peasants(Kjeldsen-Kragh 124).
There were many differences between feudal system and Roman Empire thus generating lord-vassal relationship. Some of these differences include the fact that the Roman Empire had a huge trading network, which improved its urban economy. On the contrary, the feudal system had small towns, which made economy insignificant. In Roman Empire, the workers on large estate lands were slaves while during feudal system, workers were serfs consisting of local small peasants (Kjeldsen-Kragh 125).
How did it system work?
The major aim of feudal system was to help people. The system therefore had a defined way of operation. Initially, the kings were in power of land, and they later split it to nobles in order to initiate rebellion. Conversely, the nobles divided their land to many knights, and the knights passed the land to peasants so that they can increase their production and be able to pay for their taxes. During this system, promises played a significant role by binding people. For example, in most cases, the monarch owned the land and offered the lords with the land that they did not want. This happened because the lords and knights promised to assist monarch during wartime. Additionally, the peasants were responsible of producing food and other services in serving the kingdom. As well, they rented their land in exchange of protection from the lord(Kjeldsen-Kragh 125)
Conclusion
According to this essay, it is true that feudal system played a significant role in offering protection. This is because the nobles were in need of security so that they can control far kingdoms, which forced them to delegate land control power to the locals. Additionally, the peasants were in need of security from marauders while barbarians needed security from neighboring lands. The people were also in need of security from the enemies who were invading their land. Therefore, this made it essential to implement a feudal system.
Work Cited
Kjeldsen-Kragh, Søren.The Role of Agriculture in Economic Development: The Lessons of History. Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Pr, 2007. Print.
