2. Medieval Feudalism

Feudalism was the natural response to the greatest political need of the Dark Ages: security. Since there was no central government capable of providing this security, men fell back on their own resources, making local arrangements. Already, in the last chaotic centuries of imperial rule, Roman magnates had supported, and had been supported by, groups of clients. Among the Germanic tribes beyond the imperial frontiers, a roughly similar system of armed personal retainers had existed. From these precedents and from sheer necessity, feudalism was created in the Carolingian state in the ninth and tenth centuries. Thence it was transplanted in Spain, the British Isles, and eastern Germany. Although historians dogged by the need to generalize speak of feudalism, actually feudal institutions varied greatly from district to district. However, certain elements were common, or at least general, in the mature feudalism of Western Europe in the years from 1000 to 1200. Men turned for protection to local magnates, some of whom had official positions, others of whom were simply powerful private citizens. These magnates were glad to have men under them because their subordinates could serve them in a number of useful ways. The subordinates were called vassals and their superiors, lords. There was nothing dishonorable about being a vassal. Even the Church became involved in the system with bishops and abbots serving as both lords and vassals of laymen. Although everywhere there were some upperclass freemen who were not vassals, feudal lawyers were essentially correct in their contention, No land without a lord. The system was too useful to one or both parties not to spread. The kings secured officials and, above all, an army at little or no financial cost; the magnates obtained recognition of considerable independence and the support of armed clients; and the lesser warriors got a measure of political and economic security. [excerpt

Feudalism, Estate, and Prebendalism in Pre-Modern Korea

This paper analyzes three phases of feudalism in Korea. First, the genesis of Korea\u27s feudalism, which developed from the end of the ninth century to the late fourteenth century. Secondly, the continuum of feudalism in Korea, which the author believes stemmed from power conflicts among the elite and the ensuing decline of the Silla dynasty. It is noted, also, that Korean feudalism has been transformed gradually from a decentralized form to a centralized one. Thirdly, structural distinctions are noted between the above two sub-types of feudalism. The analysis indicates that centralized feudalism has been characterized by absolute monarchism and various social and political systems, notably the estate, prebendalism, and kwako (civil service examination) systems which were lacking in the decentralized feudalism

Vietnam's Economic History: The Feudalism System

We need a few words on the economic system and structure of the country before the sea change brought about by French colonialists could be fully appreciated in terms of economic performance and social context. Generally speaking, until early Xth century, Vietnam–with many name variants adopted by various feudalist kings–had been most of the time under the Chinese domination, approximately 1053 years

Centuries of transition

This review of Chris Wickham's Framing the Early Middle Ages situates the book within the context of his earlier writings on the transition to feudalism, and contrasts his explanation for and dating of the process with those of the two main opposing positions set out in Perry Anderson's Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism (1974) and Guy Bois's The Transformation of the Year One Thousand (1989). Although Framing modifies some of Wickham's earlier positions, it largely sidesteps explicit theoretical discussion for a compellingly detailed empirical study which extends to almost the entire territorial extent of the former Roman Empire. The review focuses on three main themes raised by Wickham's important work: the existence or otherwise of a `peasant'-mode of production and its relationship to the `Asiatic' mode; the nature of state-formation and the question of when a state can be said to have come into existence; and the rôle of different types of class-struggle - slave-rebellions, tax-revolts and peasant-uprisings - in establishing the feudal system

Information Feudalism: Who Owns The Knowledge Economy? A Book Review

In Information Feudalism: Who Owns The Knowledge Economy?, Peter Drahos and his collaborator John Braithwaite reprise and expand upon the themes first developed in that article in 'The Information Society'. The authors contend: "Information feudalism is a regime of property rights that is not economically-efficient, and does not get the balance right between rewarding innovation and diffusing it. Like feudalism, it rewards guilds instead of inventive individual citizens. It makes democratic citizens trespassers on knowledge that should be the common heritage of humankind, their educational birthright. Ironically, information feudalism, by dismantling the publicness of knowledge, will eventually rob the knowledge economy of much of its productivity." ...In this engaging and accessible book, Drahos and Braithwaite trace the deal-making at the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) that led to intellectual property becoming a part of the World Trade Organization

The roots of "Western European societal evolution". A concept of Europe by Jenő Szűcs

Jenő Szűcs wrote his essay entitled Sketch on the three regions of Europe in the early 1980s in Hungary. During these years, a historically well-argued opinion emphasising a substantial difference between Central European and Eastern European societies was warmly received in various circles of the political opposition. In a wider European perspective Szűcs used the old “liberty topos” which claims that the history of Europe is no other than the fulfillment of liberty. In his Sketch, Szűcs does not only concentrate on questions concerning the Middle Ages in Western Europe. Yet it is this stream of thought which brought a new perspective to explaining European history. His picture of the Middle Ages represents well that there is a way to integrate all typical Western motifs of post-war self-definition into a single theory. Mainly, the “liberty motif”, as a sign of “Europeanism” – in the interpretation of Bibó’s concept, Anglo-saxon Marxists and Weber’s social theory –, developed from medieval concepts of state and society and from an analysis of economic and social structures. Szűcs’s historical aspect was a typical intellectual product of the 1980s: this was the time when a few Central European historians started to outline non-Marxist aspects of social theory and categories of modernisation theories, but concealing them with Marxist terminology