It’s not just a matter of labels or interpretation or splitting hairs. This is a realisation that the whole previous model of medieval society was wrong. It’s a new paradigm.
This sounds like a view of medieval history obtained from comic strips, or fantasy novels, or movies. It doesn’t belong in a serious discussion of history. I can only suggest that you read some books giving a good overview of actual medieval history written by professional historians.
Here’s a recent book by a distinguished historian giving a wide overview of medieval history. It’s intended for general readers, not academics, but it’s not sensationalist or dumbed-down. It assumes an intelligent, educated reader with a good vocabulary.
Medieval Europe (2016) by Chris Wickham, emeritus Professor of Medieval History at the University of Oxford
As many mentioned above, the lack of primary/contemporaneous sources for ancient events, and the winners write the history for more recent.
I recall reading a lengthy discussion of the meager documentation of the Battle of the Granicus - pretty widely accepted as a major event. And, of course, there is the limited contemporaneous evidence of Jesus’ very existence.
Lacking such corroboration, is history anything other than the most widely accepted version of what happened?
For a modern example, think of the huge range in death tolls for a lot of 20th century atrocities. A lot of these wildly varying estimates come from serious historians, not hacks, they just have wildly different methodologies and access to different sources. the Holocaust is one of the few atrocities where we’re all in general agreement on the size.
Amusingly, from the description on your link:
[Emphasis]
Seems like the terminology is difficult to escape! 
As for the term … the impression I get is that “feudalism” isn’t so much a governmental/social model, as it is the default state for lack of a better one: you get something like “feudalism” in any agricultural society when governmental power or traditional sources of authority break down enough … only to have the land/loyalty/power thing evolve into new traditional sources of authority. It isn’t all that different from the “social organization” of, say, the Mafia, which under the right circumstances can simply become the government.
However, it is only rarely that “feudalism” (or whatever the label one wishes to put on it) is the uncontested social norm for any length of time, usually it is busy competing with, or being coopted by, other social norms.
It is easy to see why the term annoys scholars. Try to define it too specifically, and it won’t be of any general application … too generally, and it seems incoherent. The notion that all of society for hundreds of years over a broad area worked under a single system is clearly incorrect.
Yet the term remains in use, because you need something to describe that social system that exists when a power and tradition vacuum opens up, and people pledge loyalty and military service in exchange for control over the productivity of the land …
Again, for his singing, not for burning Rome. The use of Apollo (Also playing the lyre or similar) by other emperors in coins was known too:
https://www.ma-shops.com/aeternitas/item.php5?id=271&lang=en
Again, a modern historian does acknowledge the past suspicions, but to be serious, historians do have to note what is known. (Not being sure about what took place and pointing at how misleading people like Suetonius was is unsatisfying for sure, but it is the thing historians should point out)
I’ve said nothing at all about Nero burning Rome. I’ve only been discussing him singing. You seem to have the wrong impression.
FWIW, I think it’s very unlikely he was involved in burning Rome.
That was only one item, the main point was that it clearly was a mistake to think that Nero was the one playing the musical instrument in the coin.
I Agree.
The ‘separated by millennia’ bit also isn’t one way - a Roman would probably also find the idea alien. The ancients in general hadn’t invented the concepts behind modern racial prejudice, that was really more of a 19th century pseudo-scientific classification scheme. Romans, for example, looked down on non-Romans (including the other Italian city-states for a long time), but that wasn’t tied to skin color, and they didn’t have the concept of grouping people with a particular skin color into a ‘race’ distinct from another ‘race’.
Another one that gets missed by modern listeners is that same-sex sexual contact wasn’t specifically stigmatized. Romans thought that you were supposed to be restrained in sexual conduct, and that a man being ‘catcher’ was bad, but there wasn’t a concept of gay or a particular shame on same-sex contact. So there is some mudslinging where that a modern reader will interpret as saying ‘that consul is gay, gay is bad’ but what it was really trying to convey is ‘that consul catches, he’s not a real man and so not fit to rule, also he’s a slut and that’s also bad leadership’. (There’s a specific writing that I’m thinking of but can’t remember any of the names).
You are probably thinking of the slandering of Julius Caesar who is alleged (by his enemies) to have been seduced by the King of Bithynia. Leading to the mocking title “Queen of Bithynia”!
So you are saying that modern historians have shown that none of the rulers existed, none of the wars were fought, and that the anarcho-syndicalist committee that ran medieval Europe cared deeply about the opinions of the common muck collector? Having read a lot of them that comes as a surprise to me.
Yes, for some reason I thought that it specifically wasn’t Julius Caesar, so I didn’t look for him when I did a search to refresh my memory. It’s really funny to me that an insult like “Queen of Bithynia” managed to last for over 2000 years, it seems like something a middle-schooler would say and then forget, not something that’s forever preserved in history.
It is also a good illustration of what can, and can’t, be proven historically - we can never “know” (without a time machine) whether Julius enjoyed a bit of submissive action with the King of Bithynia - but the fact that his enemies spread it about that he did, and that the insults were widespread enough to get recorded, tells us indirectly a lot about Roman society!
No, I’m not saying that. Why talk such nonsense?
I gave a list of facts. You said “This sounds like a view of medieval history obtained from comic strips, or fantasy novels, or movies. It doesn’t belong in a serious discussion of history.”
All those facts are true the “feudal” rulers (with the exception of the early rulers who only appear of semi-mythical king-lists) did exist and ruled. The wars and battles they fought did happen on whole, basically as they are described in the historical accounts. The society they ruled was one dominated by a tiny military/aristocratic elite and a large rural peasant class (whose opinions were almost never included in the decision making process of the elite)
The concept of feudal society is a later interpretation of those facts, by historians. Whether that interpretation is accurate or useful can be argued about ad nasuem, because it is just that: an interpretation.
She’s saying that the idea of “feudalism” didn’t exist in the Middle Ages. It was an idea invented by later people to try to explain the social systems of the past. And that our idea of feudalism doesn’t describe or explain the actual sociopolitical structure of the middle ages very well.
Yes, there were kings and nobles and knights and peasants. And there were wars and battles, and we actually have very good records of who all the various nobles and kings were, and where and when the battles and wars happened, and the outcomes of those battles and wars, and the peace treaties afterwards.
But those lists of nobles and their lands and wars isn’t the feudal system.
You are setting up a straw-man argument to attack. Nobody is saying that rulers didn’t exist or battles were not fought.
I suggested that your concept of medieval society is overly simplistic, and it certainly seems to be.
Yeah, that was my point, the feudal system was an interpretation of those facts based on biases and political opinions of the historians who came up with it. The opposition to the feudal interpretation that is more fashionable in modern historical circles is ALSO an interpretation of those facts based on biases and political opinions of the historians who came up with it. That debate will continue forever because of it is just a matter of interpreting facts and choosing which facts matter more.
It doesn’t change the basic facts, which aren’t going to change excepting some earth shattering archaeological discovery or lost manuscript.
You’re talking as though there is a static, fixed body of facts, which is not the case at all.
The basic outlines of rulers, battles, and dates have changed very little. But many other understandings have changed considerably as new information has come to light. A large amount of research and analysis of medieval documents has been done over the past few decades, bringing to light many new facts and many new insights.
Understandings of economics, trade, finances, taxes, legal and judicial structures, social relationships, land-holding, different kinds of tenants, ranges of social status and their flexibility, relationships between secular and religious authorities, gender relations, education, codes of behaviour, etc., etc. have changed and deepened and grown considerably, and understandings continue to change as new knowledge comes to light.
Medieval society was complex and diverse - far more complex than most people seem to imagine - and varied considerably in different places and times.
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Which filled in the gaps in existing knowledge, it didn’t over turn it. No one discovered that Henry V never existed or that the Barons won the 2nd Baron’s War.
Now who’s fighting straw men? Not even the most moralizing Victorian proponent of the feudal model of medieval history would disagree with this statement.
The basic difference between the “feudal model” and the models that oppose it IS a matter of interpretation, they are both “constructs” based on the opinions and political alignment of the historians that created them. There certainly was new research but it didn’t change the basic facts of what happened in the medieval period.