There are few eras of human history subject to more scrutiny than the Early Middle Ages of Europe. This period, spanning from the 5th to 11th centuries, was dubbed the “Dark Ages” by renaissance scholars for its perceived backwardness in comparison to the philosophically advanced and rationally governed Roman Empire. Much of this backwardness was pinned on the system that governed Europe during this period: Feudalism. To many from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment to the modern day, this institution represents injustice and poverty. Adam Smith, in his book “The Wealth of Nations,” characterized feudalism as a system that harmed all of society except for the ultra-wealthy. And it isn’t difficult to see where he got this idea from. The feudal system subjected most people to a hereditary aristocracy whose land they were often bound to. Their rights were limited. The system was unjust.
But all of that begs the question; why did they accept it? For centuries, millions of Europeans worked for an aristocracy who derived their authority solely from the way they were born. How couldn’t the serfs see that this system was bad for them, that they existed merely to serve the upper class? Ultimately, the portrayal of Feudalism as a backwards, irrational system doesn’t just condemn the upper classes as greedy tyrants, but the lower classes as docile rubes, who accepted oppression as easily as cattle. But they weren’t farm animals; they were people. They had the same capacity for rational thought as you and I, and with that rational thought, they chose to participate in the system. They chose it because Feudalism, though unjust, was not an irrational system. It was the necessary injustice Western Europe needed to get through exceedingly difficult times.
To understand why so many Europeans accepted life under Feudalism, one must understand the circumstances surrounding its development. One necessary piece of historical context is the Arabic conquest of the middle east. In the mid 7th century, Muslims conquered most of the previously Christian Middle East and forged an Empire which stretched all the way to Southern France. These conquests cut off trade between the Middle East and Western Europe, which had been the main source of Western Europe’s gold and silver. This may not sound too significant, but it is. Gold and Silver coins were the primary form of currency in Europe at the time. The lack of a stable currency caused many problems. First of all, a lack of stable currency makes inter-settlement trade far more difficult as most traders would’ve had to rely on the barter system, which is generally a far less efficient method of trade than monetary systems. And given that trade was already difficult in Western Europe, due to settlements being sparse and underpopulated, the lack of a stable currency made intercommunity trade near impossible. With a small population and trade between settlements drying up, these settlements had to be self-sufficient if they were to avoid famine.
No gold also meant no money to pay an army to defend the land and no money to pay a bureaucracy to administer it. Under the previous system, gold was necessary to run a stable and prosperous government, and Western Europe simply didn’t have it. And they needed it. The Arab conquests not only threatened Europe economically, but militarily. The Arabs fully conquered Spain, and raided France routinely. In the North, the Vikings pillaged and conquered their way across Europe. In the East, a nomadic group called the Magyars marauded. So, to summarize: Western Europe was underpopulated, at risk of famine, with no money to defend their lands, at a time when they were at risk of conquest from all sides. The Feudal system was the solution to many of these problems.
First off, distributing land to military commanders in exchange for service was the only way to pay the military during times of scarcity such as these. Rather than fighting for gold, commanders now fought for land. It was Charles Martel, a Frankish leader, who first distributed land to his military commanders in exchange for service, and this distribution was vital to supporting the Frankish army against the Arabic threat in the Southwest. The peasants worked the land distributed to his lords, paid a feudal rent which supported the army, and fought for the army when necessary. For a state short on money, localizing defense efforts was the only way to keep an army on the field.
And you might be thinking, “so that’s it? The vast majority of the peasant class was subjected so that the elite would get to keep their kingdom?” But that is a very modern view of war, and should not be applied to the Early Middle Ages. To the peasant class, defending themselves from foreign raids was about far more than protecting the lands and wealth of the nobility. If your army lost in battle during that time period, that meant widespread sacking, rape, and murder. Those who survived would often be sold into slavery in the Arab or Norse slave trade. One contemporary charter from Southern France told of entire families rounded up and sold into slavery in Spain. Sometimes, in the modern day, we tend to view war in a far more detached and cynical sense than it was viewed by these people. To many, it hardly matters whether their military wins or loses their foreign wars. If they lose, sure, maybe the oil tycoons will lose out on a couple more zeroes of profit, but how is that really going to affect me? But that’s a mindset you need to cast aside when considering feudalism. If these peasants failed to support an army, their home could be destroyed. Their children sold into slavery. Feudalism protected these people.
The Feudal system also had administrative benefits. As I’ve stated, the governments of this time were cash poor. A strong centralized government with solid tax collection systems is more efficient, but it’s a luxury western European governments could not afford. Just as the feudal system localized defense, it also localized administration. By giving local nobles a land incentive to collect taxes for themselves and on behalf of the kingdom, stable government persisted despite the lack of adequate funds to pay it. Furthermore, by trusting administration of an area to the noble who owned it, nobles were given a stake in the productivity and wealth of their people. Where previous great empires sent representatives of the emperor to administrate areas which they had no personal loyalty to or financial incentive to enrich, the feudal system made the fortunes of a county and the fortune of its count connected. When the people produced more, the count collected more. When the people became sick or hungry and their productivity fell, the count collected less. This gave the administrator a vested interest in the prosperity of their people. It was not a perfect system. In fact, it was far from it. But the abuses that unfolded under feudal regimes are not comparable to the widespread death, destruction, and famine that would have fallen over Europe had their governments failed. Feudalism maintained stable governance during a period where Europe easily could have lapsed into chaos.
Lastly, I will speak of that most loathed and dreaded institution within Feudalism. That, of course, being serfdom. A system where much of the population was tied to the land they were born on, where social mobility was impossible. A horrible institution, especially to our modern enlightened ideals. However, this too had a rational reasoning behind it. To our modern sensibilities, legally tying anyone down is a reprehensible violation of liberty which we reserve only for our prison population. This is because for us, moving from one state to another or from one town to another hardly has an economic effect on those we leave behind. I left my hometown to attend college, but my hands weren’t needed on the field. Even if I were a farmer, in the age of abundance we live in, my leaving would mean less profit for my family rather than their imminent starvation. These aren’t the circumstances they were living in in the Early Middle Ages. Settlements were underpopulated and isolated. If they had a bad harvest, there were no grain shipments coming to rescue them from the famine that would follow. A certain farming family leaving their home village could mean the malnourishment or starvation of those they leave behind. If the scattered communities of the Early Middle Ages were to eat, they needed a stable farming population. During this age of scarcity, there was hardly another way of guaranteeing that than by tying the population to the land. It is unjust, yes. But they weren’t worried about justice; they were worried about survival.
And that is the theme here. We attack the Middle Ages because we are concerned with justice and political equality in the modern day. We believe in the principle that all men were created equal, that all men should have the right to pursue happiness in whatever way they see fit. Tying people to land, a fixed aristocracy, its a slap in the face to those values. But those values are a luxury. The fact that we have the ability to care about them is because of the abundance of our society. The peasants who worked and participated in this system could not afford to care about those values. They cared about living to see another day. They cared about their families. And Feudalism fed and protected those families for centuries.
My argument here is by no means that Feudalism is the best system of government or that we should bring it back. Feudalism has been thrown into the dustbin of history, and that is where it belongs. My argument is that Feudalism was not an irrational system which existed only to serve the rich and harmed everybody it touched. It existed as a reaction to terribly troubled times. During these times, it was necessary, but we must pray that it is never necessary again.
Which brings me to my final point, why did I feel the need to defend this system. The reason is simple, I believe in the rationality of man, in all cultures, in all time periods. Insulting the rationality of feudalism often leads to insulting the rationality and intelligence of the peasants that worked under it. But these peasants were not docile cattle. They were men, as intelligent as you, I, or the lords they labored under. They accepted the system they worked under because they believed, quite rationally, that it was the only way to protect themselves and their families.
Thank you for reading, and feel free to disagree! Many certainly do. These are the main sources which informed this defense, they’re very good books.
Sources:
The History of Feudalism By David Herlihy
Feudal Society By Marc Bloch
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