FEUDALISM
The Carolingian Empire was weakened from within by division after
Charlemagne’s death and from outside by enemy attacks. Local nobles became more
important as people turned to them for the protection that the empire could no longer
provide. The result was feudalism, a new political and social order in Europe.
The End of the Carolingian Empire
Charlemagne held his empire together with his personal power and prestige as
a leader and the strong administrative system he established. His death created a
vacuum of leadership that left the empire vulnerable. The Frankish tradition of dividing
an estate among the surviving heirs also weakened the empire. As the Germanic tribes
had moved into the Roman Empire and helped create a new European civilization,
new invaders entered Europe and influenced its culture.
Invaders
The Carolingian Empire began to fall apart soon after Charlemagne’s death in
814. Less than 30 years later, it was divided among his grandsons into three major
sections: the west Frankish lands, the eastern Frankish lands, and the Middle
Kingdom. Local nobles gained power while the Carolingian rulers fought each other.
Invasions in different parts of the old Carolingian world added to the process of
disintegration. In the ninth and tenth centuries, western Europe was beset by a wave
of invasions. The Muslims attacked the southern coasts of Europe and sent raiding
parties into southern France. The Magyars, a people from western Asia, moved into
central Europe at the end of the ninth century, settled on the plains of Hungary, and
invaded western Europe. The most far-reaching attacks of the time, however, came
from the Norsemen or Northmen of Scandinavia, also called the Vikings. The Vikings
were a Germanic people. Their great love of adventure and their search for spoils of
war and new avenues of trade may have been what led them to invade other areas of
Europe.
In the ninth century, Vikings sacked villages and towns, destroyed churches, and
easily defeated small local armies. The Vikings were warriors, and they were superb
shipbuilders and sailors. Their ships were the best of the period. Long and narrow with
beautifully carved, arched prows, the Viking dragon ships carried about 50 men. The
construction of the ships enabled them to sail up European rivers and attack places
far inland. By the midninth century, the Vikings had begun to build various European
settlements. Beginning in 911, the ruler of the west Frankish lands gave one band of
Vikings land at the mouth of the Seine River, forming a section of France that came to
be known as Normandy. The Frankish policy of settling the Vikings and converting
them to Christianity was a deliberate one. As a result of their conversion to Christianity,
the Vikings were soon made a part of European civilization.
The Development of Feudalism
The Vikings and other invaders posed a large threat to the safety of people
throughout Europe. Rulers found it more and more difficult to defend their subjects as
centralized governments such as the Carolingian Empire were torn apart. Thus,
people began to turn to local landed aristocrats, or nobles, to protect them. To survive,
it became important to find a powerful lord who could offer protection in return for
service. This led to a new political and social order known as feudalism.
Knights and Vassals
At the heart of feudalism was the idea of vassalage. In Germanic society, warriors
swore an oath of loyalty to their leaders and fought in battles for them. The leaders, in
turn, took care of the warriors’ needs. By the eighth century, a man who served a lord
in a military capacity was known as a vassal. The Frankish army had originally
consisted of foot soldiers dressed in coats of mail (armor made of metal links or plates)
and armed with swords. Horsemen had been throwers of spears. In the eighth century,
however, larger horses and the stirrup were introduced. Now, horsemen were armored
in coats of mail (the larger horses could carry the weight). They wielded long lances
that enabled them to act as battering rams (the stirrups kept them on their horses).
For almost five hundred years, warfare in Europe was dominated by heavily armored
cavalry, or knights, as they came to be called. The knights had great social prestige
and formed the backbone of the European aristocracy. It was expensive to have a
horse, armor, and weapons. It also took more time and practice to learn to use these
instruments skillfully. With the breakdown of royal governments, the more powerful
nobles took control of large areas of land. When these lords wanted men to fight for
them, they granted each vassal a piece of land that supported the vassal and his
family. In the society of the Early Middle Ages, where there was little trade and wealth
was based primarily on land, land was the most important gift a lord could give to a
vassal.
The Feudal Contract
In feudal society, having loyalty to one’s lord was the chief virtue. The relationship
between lord and vassal was made official by a public ceremony.
By the ninth century, the grant of land made to a vassal had become known as a
fief (FEEF). Vassals who held fiefs came to hold political authority within them. As the
Carolingian world fell apart, the number of separate, powerful lords and vassals
increased. Instead of a single government, many different people were responsible for
keeping order. Feudalism became increasingly complicated. The vassals of a king,
who were great lords, might also have vassals who would owe them military service
in return for a grant of land taken from their estates. Those vassals, in turn, might
likewise have vassals. At that level, the vassals would be simple knights with barely
enough land to provide income for their equipment.
The lord-vassal relationship bound together greater and lesser landowners. It
was an honorable relationship between free men and implied no sense of servitude.
Feudalism came to be characterized by a set of unwritten rules—known as the feudal
contract—that determined the relationship between a lord and his vassal. The major
obligation of a vassal to his lord was to perform military service, usually about 40 days
a year. When summoned, a vassal had to appear at his lord’s court to give advice.
Vassals were responsible for making payments to the lord on certain occasions, for
example, the knighting of the lord’s eldest son or marriage of his eldest daughter.
Under the feudal contract, the lord also had responsibilities to his vassals. Of course,
he supported a vassal by granting him land but he also had to protect his vassal by
defending him militarily or by taking his side in a dispute.
Feudal Society
Feudal society was built around a culture of warfare as vassals prepared to fight
for their lords when called upon. However, such a society also needed to find ways to
prevent conflicts and violence from tearing the society apart.
Nobility and Chivalry
In the Middle Ages, European society, like Japanese society during the same
period, was dominated by men whose chief concern was warfare. Like the Japanese
samurai, many European nobles loved war.
The nobles were the kings, dukes, counts, barons, and even bishops and
archbishops who had large landed estates. Their landholdings gave them
considerable political power in medieval society. They formed an aristocracy, or
nobility, that consisted of people who held political, economic, and social power. Great
lords and ordinary knights came to form a common group within the aristocracy. They
were all warriors, and the institution of knighthood united them all. However, there were
also social divisions among them based on extremes of wealth and landholdings.
Trained to be warriors but with no adult responsibilities, young knights had little to do
but fight. In the twelfth century, tournaments—contests where knights could
demonstrate their fighting skills— began to appear. By the late twelfth century, the
joust—individual combat between two knights—had become the main part of the
tournament.
Knights saw tournaments as an excellent way to train for war. One knight
expressed it in these words: “A knight cannot distinguish himself in war if he has not
trained for it in tourneys.” In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, under the influence of
the Catholic Church, there gradually evolved among the nobility an ideal of civilized
behavior, called chivalry. Chivalry was a code of ethics that knights were supposed to
uphold. In addition to their oath to defend the Church and defenseless people, knights
were expected to treat captives as honored guests instead of putting them in
dungeons. In terms of the treatment of women, chivalry put the aristocratic woman on
a pedestal. A knight was to treat her with tenderness and respect. Chivalry also implied
that knights should fight only for glory and not for material rewards. Of course, this
ideal was not always followed.
Aristocratic Women’s Roles
Although women could legally hold property, most remained under the control of
men—of their fathers until they married and of their husbands after they married. Still,
aristocratic women had many opportunities to play important roles. Because the lord
was often away at war or court, the lady of the castle had to manage the estate.
Households could include large numbers of officials and servants, so this was no small
responsibility. Care of the financial accounts alone took considerable knowledge. The
lady of the castle was also responsible for overseeing the food supply and maintaining
all the other supplies needed for the smooth operation of the household. Women were
expected to be subservient to their husbands, but there were many strong women who
advised, and even dominated, their husbands. Perhaps the most famous of these was
Eleanor of Aquitaine. Eleanor was one of the most remarkable personalities of twelfth-
century Europe. Heiress to the duchy of Aquitaine in southwestern France, she was
married at the age of 15 to King Louis VII of France. The marriage was not a happy
one, and Louis had their marriage annulled. Eleanor married again, only eight weeks
later, to Duke Henry of Normandy, who soon became King Henry II of England.
Henry II and Eleanor had a stormy relationship. She spent much time abroad in
her native Aquitaine, where she created a brilliant court dedicated to cultural activities.
She and Henry had eight children (five were sons). Two of her sons—Richard and
John—became kings of England. As Eleanor aged, she continued to travel to arrange
royal and noble weddings and to manage her estates. She lived until her eighties,
dying in 1204 in an abbey.
