Rise Of Feudalism Essay

Feudalism is a social arrangement of rights and obligations in light of area, residency and individual connections in which land is held in fief by the king to the feudal lords. Feudal lords in return have to display their fielty and perform some administrative services.

Feudal society came into existence from 9th or later 8th century after the colonate period. According to March Bloch, there were two ages of feudalism. The first which lasted until the middle of the 11th century, corresponded to the organisation of a fairly stable rural territory where trade was insignificant and uncommon, coins were rare and wage earning class was non-existent. The second was the result of the great land clearance, the revival of trade, the diffusion of a

Commercial activities came into being and there were monetary exchange started. Later in this period the weekly hats become permanent and the use of paper work started in order to manage account. Then there were the emergence of “Burges” and the “guild system”. The burges were the new commercial institution, it was the house where the merchants and traders gather and communicate and discuss the issues. The burges were situated in the city and later these burges became the commercial markets. The guild system was basically an organistion of different traders or professional groups in urban sectors. The merchants, traders and guilds. The practice of guild system was considered as pre- modern by the historians. It is said that the guild system was based on the discouraging the competition among the members. Later we have ‘commune’ in the society which was an administrative body of the city who decided, how to manage the city life politically and economically. Basically it was an agreement with the king which meant to gain autonomy from the rule of feudal lord. The city people can lay down their own rules and regulations. Taxes were paid directly to the king. We can interpret that the reason behind these changes can be the peasant revolt or the invasions that took place in middle ages because the frequency of peasant revolt was very high in the 13th century as compare to the previous

According to the historians the reason behind the crisis were first the frequent famine (the inadequacy of food), there were the shortage of food, due to lack of income there were the fall in agricultural production which resulted in the problem of appropriation of surplus. The second was the coming of “Bubonic plagme”. By the middle of the 14th century, 1/3 or 50 percent of the population died due to the attack of plagme. Historians also say that the people of Europe were vulnerable in dying in such a population, one reason could be malnutrition or low immunity. Due to low immunity the ordinary diseases were becoming the murders, and the third was the agrarian crisis which leads to the failing of investment. These were the crisis which resulted in the decline of feudal society. Historians like March Bloch and MM Postone suggested that the decline of feudal society was due to the demographic pressure as there were the constant increase in population from the 10th century and due to the mismatch between the population and population growing agriculture. But others say that it was due to demographic