Feudalism

[Thomas777]

What were its strengths and what were its weaknesses?

[Jonathan]

“The fragmentation of political authority and the defencelessness of the localities encouraged a series of political, legal, social, economic, and military developments which together form what later theoreticians have called ‘the feudal regime’…The main problem, therefore, was to provide a social framework wherein a sizeable class of knights could permanently support both the psychological demands of their service and training and the enormous costs of their horses, their equipment, and their retinue. The upkeep of the Knightly class- cabalarii, chevaliers, Rittern, szlachta- where land-owning and the cavalry tradition went hand in hand, provided the central rationale of feudal society. Vassalage grew out of the late Roman practice of commendatio, ‘commendation’, where a patron would seal an offer of protection by clasping the hands of his clients…The feodum or ‘fief’, whence feudalism takes its name, grew out of the earlier practice of beneficium or ‘benefit’, where a patron would make a gift of land in vague expectation of some future advantage…it was originally calculated in terms of knight-service, that is, the number of knights to be provided in return for a given area of land. But it was stretched to include castle-guard and escort duties, judicial service in the lord’s court, consilium or ‘advice’ rendered on the lord’s council, and various forms of auxilium or ‘assistance’. The lord came to interpret assistance in the sense of financial ‘relief’”-N Davies 1997

“The leading scholar of the subject distinguishes two feudal ages-the first from the ninth to the mid-eleventh centuries, where small-scale, caste-based arrangements prevailed between warlord and peasants, and a ‘second feudal age’ from the mid-eleventh century to the mid-thirteenth century, which saw the flowering of feudal culture and the growth of hereditary nobility”-M Bloch 1949

It's strengths? It brought about a general stability that was lacking during the Germanic invasions of the Empire I suppose.

[Fade the Butcher]

It was an improvement upon slavery which perished in Western Europe during the 'Dark Ages'.