Feudalism

Feudalism was a combination of customs and institutions that flourished in medieval Europe from roughly the ninth to the fifteenth centuries, organizing the reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility around three central elements: lords, vassals, and fiefs. Under the system, a lord granted land, a fief, to a vassal in exchange for military service and other obligations, with the vassal pledging loyalty through ceremonies of homage and fealty that created binding mutual commitments between the two parties; the vassal's principal duty was to provide military aid when summoned, while also attending the lord's court to give counsel and judgment on serious matters, and the lord in turn agreed to protect the vassal from external threats. The system dominated Western Europe, with particular prominence in France, England, and the territories of the Holy Roman Empire, emerging from the decentralization of earlier empires such as the Carolingian realm, in which landholding became the principal means of supporting mounted military forces. Some scholars, notably Marc Bloch, define feudalism more expansively to encompass not only the nobility but also the peasants bound under manorialism, the clergy, and the broader social order, a wider conception often described as feudal society.