![]() Peasants offered their labor in exchange for protection.They turned to landowners for protection.Everyday people – peasants - were frightened.Everyone’s supposed to be loyal to the King. ![]() Some knights with large fiefs gave small pieces of land to other knights.A vassal had to obey his Lord and fight for him when required.įeudal Pyramid of Power KING MONEY AND KNIGHTS LAND LAND (fief) PROTECTION and MILITARY SERVICE NOBLES KNIGHTS vassals.Anyone accepting fief was called a vassal.Land given to knight for service was called a fief.Mounted knights in heavy armor best defendersįeudal Pyramid of Power KING MONEY AND KNIGHTS LAND PROTECTION and MILITARY SERVICE NOBLES KNIGHTS.Knights most important, highly skilled soldiers.Nobles needed trained soldiers to defend castles and to give the King when he asked for them.They didn’t get the Land for free: they were required to give money and soldiers (knights) if the King needed them to fight a war.įeudal Pyramid of Power KING MONEY AND KNIGHTS LAND NOBLES.Usually related to, or mates with, the King.Depending on how much he liked them, he gave land to the Nobles. The ownership of land was the basis or power.Īt the top The King owned all of the land. ![]() ![]() In a feudal society, land is exchanged for military service and loyalty.Feudalism was the political and military system of the Middle Ages.įeudalism NEW PAGE: Title: Feudalism in the Middle Ages Copy this definition: Feudalism is a political system where land – and therefore money and power – is exchanged for military service and loyalty. Lots of attacks from Vikings, Magyars (from East Asia) and Muslims.After Rome fell, Europe had dozens of little kingdoms.Roman Empire had a central government.The Church tried to encourage lords to live in accordance with Christian virtue, but the fact of the matter was that it was the nobility’s vocation, their very social role, to fight, and thus all too often “politics” was synonymous with “armed struggle” during the Middle Ages.FeudalismPyramid of PowerManoralism Year 8 History: European Middle Ages includes images and adapted slides obtained via Pete’s Power Point Station: įeudalism The Early Middle Ages was a dangerous time. Pledges of loyalty between lords and vassals served as the only assurance of stability, and those pledges were violated countless times throughout the period. Ultimately, the feudal system represented a “warlord” system of political organization, in many cases barely a step above anarchy. ![]() Even though the rulership of a given king was always understood to be the will of God, new kings had little trouble arguing that God obviously favored them over the former monarch. Nevertheless, there are many instances in medieval European history in which a powerful lord simply usurped the throne, defeated the former king's forces, and became the new king. One (amusing, in historical hindsight) method that kings would use to punish unruly vassals was simply visiting them and eating them out of house and home - the traditions of hospitality required vassals to welcome, feed, and entertain their king for as long as he felt like staying. It would take centuries before the monarchs of Europe consolidated enough wealth and power to dominate their nobles, and it certainly did not happen during the Middle Ages. In turn, the problem for royal authority was that many kings had “vassals” who had more land, wealth, and power than they did it was very possible, even easy, for powerful nobles to make war against their king if they chose to do so. The system was never as neat and tidy as it sounds on paper many vassals were lords of their own vassals, with the king simply being the highest lord. This system arose because of the absence of other, more effective forms of government and the constant threat of violence posed by raiders. William claimed that Harold had pledged fealty to him, which justified his invasion (while Harold denied ever having done so). \): Depiction of a feudal pledge of fealty from Harold Godwinson, at the time a powerful Anglo-Saxon noble and later the king of England, to William of Normandy, who would go on to defeat Harold and replace him as king of England. ![]()
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