"Nero fiddled while Rome Burned". FAKE NEWS? How much of History class is even true?

[Latro]

If you consider Henry V existing to be the only important factor in medieval life, you are right.

There were kings, there were nobles, there were serfs. That much has indeed not changed.

What has changed is the view that the pyramid of King - Noble - lesser noble- serf was the make up of society. What has been found is that there were many more people that fell outside this pyramid, that owned land and goods of their own. That the daily rule of law was not just the fickle rule of the bully noble.

That makes the feudal system not as special as it was thought to be but as normal as any other society with a monarch and an aristocracy.

[Alessan]

@GreenWyvern

Medieval society was complex and diverse - far more complex than most people seem to imagine - and varied considerably in different places and times.

Can we have some examples please? This thread is strangely short on actual data - lots of people saying what isn’t true, but very few saying what is.

[GreenWyvern]

@Alessan

Can we have some examples please? This thread is strangely short on actual data - lots of people saying what isn’t true, but very few saying what is.

I suggest you do some reading using the Amazon ‘Look Inside’ feature in the book I recommended above,

Medieval Europe (2016) by Prof. Chris Wickham

and in

A Short History of the Middle Ages by Prof. Barbara Rosenwein

[Alessan]

Have you read these books? If so, could you give us something - an anecdote, even - that supports your claim?

[GreenWyvern]

@Alessan

Have you read these books? If so, could you give us something - an anecdote, even - that supports your claim?

Don’t expect other people to chew your food for you.

If you want real knowledge you have to go out and get it yourself.

[Alessan]

@GreenWyvern

Don’t expect other people to chew your food for you.

If you want real knowledge you have to go out and get it yourself.

You’ve been here long enough to know that that’s not how this board works. You made a claim, now support it in your own words.

[GreenWyvern]

@Alessan

You’ve been here long enough to know that that’s not how this board works. You made a claim, now support it in your own words.

No, I’m not going to, because I’ve wasted enough time on this already.

Real knowledge of any subject doesn’t come from glib soundbites and a few superficial facts.

If you really want to understand the complexities of medieval society, then no discussion here will give that to you. If you just want to argue for the sake of arguing and massage your ego, you’ll have to do it with someone else.

[Alessan]

What do you mean, “massaging my ego”? I honestly came here to read how medieval European wasn’t feudal, but no-one’s willing to tell me anything! Do you have any idea how frustrating that is!?

[Stanislaus]

@GreenWyvern

I suggest you do some reading using the Amazon ‘Look Inside’ feature in the book I recommended above,

Medieval Europe (2016) by Prof. Chris Wickham

and in

A Short History of the Middle Ages by Prof. Barbara Rosenwein

I Looked Inside the Wickham book. About 7/8ths of the way down, he discusses feudalism. His reference point is Henry II’s failed campaign to claim Toulouse. The failure occurred despite Henry’s overwehlming strategic and logistical advantage (he was there firstest with the mostest). Louis VII was Henry’s liege lord, to whom “he had done homage and sworn fidelity”. When Louis arrived at Toulouse to direct the defences personally, Henry felt he had no choice but to call off the attack. He could not attack his sworn lord, still less kill or capture or him. What would that imply for his own relations with his barons, who stood in the same relationship to him that he did to Louis?

I can’t copy/paste, so I shall type out some short excerpts:

Here we are in the middle of the world of what is often called military feudalism: a wide elite of great aristocrats and knights did military service, and showed political loyalty, in return for gifts of office or land from kings or lesser lords, which they would lose if they were disloyal
…
As it happens, the terminology of feudalism has been questioned recently. Susan Reynolds has pointed out that military or political obligations, or the meaning of words like “fief” were seldom as clear cut as this, and certainly not in 12th century France.
…
I myself think it [the word “feudalism”] is still useful, when carefully defined. If I hardly use it in this book, it is only because I have tried here to avoid as much technical vocabulary as possible, not because it is intrinsically more problematic than any of the other terms historians employ.

[Malthus]

On feudalism - the way I tend to look at it is like this.

There term is a perfectly useful one, in that it describes a very real phenomenon - the exchange of land for loyalty and military service.

The problem with its use in the notion, perhaps unconsciously used by some historians, that this was a formal, unified system that was similar in all places and over time. Though the critics perhaps make too much of their target’s use of this notion in ways that risk straw-manning. I suspect most if not all historians these days (users of the term or not) would readily admit that “feudalism” varied greatly over time and place, and competed and interacted with other ways of organizing society.

The other criticism of the term is that, if it isn’t a formal, unified system that was similar in all places and over time, then it is too incoherent to be useful. This is really a battle of lumpers and splitters, though. I tend to side with the lumpers: there is enough similarity in various ways of organizing land for loyalty and service to make “feudalism” a perfectly useful term.

[Malthus]

Another thought: perhaps the resistance to use of the term “feudalism” is in response to the perceived over-rigidity of Marxist-inspired historical theory, which really tended to see feudalism as a historical stage ('and now we see the decay of feudal society in a struggle with emerging capitalism, to reach a synthesis … ').

[GreenWyvern]

From discussions about ‘feudalism’ on an academic forum for medieval history (MEDIEV-L) in 2012:

(Most of the participants are professors of medieval history.)

Michelle Thetford:
The Seigneurie round table discussion at theInternational Congress on Medieval Studies this past May discussed this paradigm. Leading scholars on lordship, those on the panel (including Bouchard and Barton) and in the room, agreed that “feudalism” never truly existed as an actual structure, but is a construct developed by historians to understand how society worked in the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, it is a construct that was popularized and has been very hard to dislodge from the popular intellect.

Steve Muhlberger:
For the last 25 years I have taught undergrads without using the word.

Andrew E. Larsen:
I tell students to forget everything they learned in high school and movies about the Middle Ages. It’s virtually all wrong. The “Feudal System” is exhibit A. I’m still working on a way to teach what did exist, but I spend time exploring “manorialism” and time exploring the development of the English legal system.
Part of the problem is that when one offers generalizations about medieval society and government, there is always at least one significant region where the generalization is largely false. I’m increasingly focused on using one region (England or France) as an example of what could develop, rather than trying to build up a false generalization for the whole of Western Europe.

Mary Loomer Oliver:
After reading Fiefs and Vassals on top of a couple other books about what was happening in other areas, I decided to call it “medieval power relationships” instead

Jolanta N. Komornicka:
I’m not sure that issue is really any different than disabusing students of what a knight was (and when and where), or a castle, or the constructed places of women and men, etc. Students come into our classrooms with lots of preconceptions regarding medieval history. I’ve found that presenting students with two quick case-studies that highlight some of the differences in socio-political systems gives teeth to the statement “well, it’s complicated.” At least the movie industry is less invested in presenting a glorified idea of feudal relations (or feudalism, as it were) than it is in knights and damsels.

David M. Perry:
Feudalism, presented as a system, serves little purpose for me in my classroom. But medieval power relationships, governed by oaths and obligations, often linked to military service and use of land or other resources, can be characterized as “feudal.” The adjective feudal - feudal bonds, feudal ties, feudal oaths - still holds as useful and presents a bridge between the preexisting knowledge of my students and the more complex model I’d like them to consider.

Rod McCaslin:
As a high school teacher who does not teach about Feudalism in the Middle Ages, I have my students read and discuss Elizabeth Brown’s AHR essay (1974). One of her points is that it is insulting to students to think they must have a simplistic model that’s false because they can’t understand complexities. So, I don’t insult my students and I try to summarize the complexities inherent in medieval social, political and economic relationships. The other point she makes is that word “feudalism” has lost its usefulness as it has acquired to many meanings- land in exchange for military service, social hierarchy, serfdom and the triennial system, as a synonym for medieval, as a pejorative. Every time a historian writes “feudalism,” the reader has to stop and ask, "what does he/she mean by that? So, not just false but vague.

Skip Knox:
…But there is a quantum jump from that sort of analysis to the synthesizing work of trying to characterize the Middle Ages or some era within the Middle Ages. That’s where a word like “feudalism” gets invented. The question is not whether the construct holds up in the specific case–almost by definition it isn’t going to–but rather whether the construct helps us understand or explain that era in some useful way, better than some other construct, or no construct. I think that’s what the OP was about: if not “feudalism” with all its warts and caveats, then what? I don’t think there’s ever been a viable alternative, so the only real choice we offer is that of no construct.

Paul Halsall:
I am NOT keen on using the word “feudalism”, although I have to address it in classes over here. That does not mean other “grand narratives” are all false, nor that even if they are false they might not be an aid in teaching. (You do not begin teaching students of arithmetic by announcing that they must understand what is meant by the square root of -1.)

Bernard Bachrach:
The major problem with getting a proper understanding of military organization in the medieval West is the dead hand of “feudalism” which has now been invalidated for more than a decade as a means to understanding medieval military organization.
Part of this problem concerns “oaths” which are classified as “feudal” without recognizing that both the Romans and the Byzantines took oaths of faithfulness both to the emperor and to their commanders. These oaths are classified as an antiqua consuetudo in the early Middle Ages, which makes clear that they were based upon Roman imperial models.
… “feudalism” has no place in our understanding of Carolingian history, pace my old teacher F.L. Ganshof.

2015 discussion on the same forum:

Kurt Sherry:
I find the words feudal and feudalism useful when I’m dealing with a lay audience. I would say that if we’re dealing with students in a world history, European History, or even Survey of Medieval History class, they are a lay audience. If I were teaching a 300-level medieval history course, I would be more reluctant to use the term. In a 400-level and above, I would make a critique of the term a course assignment (probably requiring students to read Ganshof). Feudalism is nonetheless a convenient shorthand for a broad complex of interrelated, yet semi-independent social, political,military, and economic arrangements. Most students have heard the term, but have no clue what it refers to, so they require far less “de-education” than we probably assume. That allows us to define it operationally with lots of caveats.

Bernard Bachrach:
It seems to me that Kurt is subscribing to a form of willful ignorance, for a “good cause”. In doing so is he perpetuating the ignorance, now informed by an instructor, i.e. no longer willful ignorance on the part of the student.
Do we have an obligation to avoid perpetuation ignorance regardless of the audience?

Kurt Sherry:
Bernard, I’m not sure that I would characterize it as perpetuating ignorance, but being pragmatic in meeting one’s audience where it is and establishing reasonable expectations.

Bernard Bachrach:
If for example the instructor continues to perpetuate “feudalism” because this is what the audience “Knows” when is the cycle broken? If your students believed in a geocentric solar system would not disabuse them of their ignorance.? How does the teacher break the cycle without breaking the cycle?

Skip Knox:
No, of course not. We teach what we believe to be correct. My only contribution to the discussion was to argue that we should not be surprised if students continue to believe in (say) feudalism despite our best efforts. I would qualify that by saying my expectations are lowest with the students who take only 101. If they take an upper division course on the Middle Ages and still think feudalism was a real system, then they deserve the lousy grade. And if they continue to do so as a graduate student, well then they’d better not ask me to be their adviser. And going further, and this was really the origin of the point, to think we can somehow change the thinking of the General Public on this, or many other matters, is to engage in wishful thinking. Finally (hah!), to castigate ourselves for somehow failing to have already done so is pointless. We teach. We do not cause learning.

Bernard Bachrach:
My view is that the professor has the obligation to get it right, e.g. explain that “feudalism” is a bankrupt concept, regardless of how his students may resist and regardless of how much each of us can undermine popular ignorance over time.

[Alessan]

I give up.

All I asked is for someone to tell me why “feudalism” is an incorrect term. As in, “Feudalism is a poor term for defining medieval society because A, B and C.” You know, **actual arguments, backed by facts. **

Instead, all you’re giving me are meta-arguments. So to hell with it.

[Malthus]

Sounds like the typical academic tempest in a teapot over terminology. The splitters are “lording” it (pun mildly intended) over the lumpers.

Happens all the time in lots of different contexts. (‘I’m such an expert, I never say a word about anything other than the state of society in Oxford in 1252 - those who generalize more than that are ignoramuses not worth talking to’ - ‘oh yeah? Well, I only ever talk about monks in Oxford in 1252’).

“Feudalism” has become a dirty work, because it is associated with lumpers.

There may be more to it than that, but so far, I’m not convinced.

[GreenWyvern]

@Alessan

I give up.

All I asked is for someone to tell me why “feudalism” is an incorrect term. As in, “Feudalism is a poor term for defining medieval society because A, B and C.” You know, **actual arguments, backed by facts. **

Instead, all you’re giving me are meta-arguments. So to hell with it.

Why don’t you read the original link that I gave above. There’s a good, clear explanation of what you’re asking.

The F-Word - The Problem with Feudalism

[GreenWyvern]

For those who don’t even want to click on the link, here’s an extract:

Every student of the Middle Ages is at least somewhat familiar with “feudalism.” The term is usually defined as follows:

• **Feudalism **was the dominant form of political organization in medieval Europe. It was a hierarchical system of social relationships wherein a noble **lord **granted land known as a **fief **to a free man, who in turn swore fealty to the lord as his **vassal **and agreed to provide military and other services. A vassal could also be a lord, granting portions of the land he held to other free vassals; this was known as “subinfeudation,” and often led all the way up to the king. The land granted to each vassal was inhabited by serfs who worked the land for him, providing him with income to support his military endeavors; in turn, the vassal would protect the serfs from attack and invasi*on.

Of course, this is an extremely simplified definition, and there are many exceptions and caveats that go along with this model of medieval society, but the same could be said of any model applied to a historical period. Generally, it is fair to say that this is the explanation for feudalism you’ll find in most history textbooks of the 20th century, and it is very close to every dictionary definition available.

The problem? Virtually none of it is accurate.

Feudalism was *not *the “dominant” form of political organization in medieval Europe. There was *no *“hierarchical system” of lords and vassals engaged in a structured agreement to provide military defense. There was *no *“subinfeudation” leading up to the king. The arrangement whereby serfs worked land for a lord in return for protection, known as manorialism or seignorialism, was *not *part of a “feudal system.” Monarchies of the early Middle Ages may have had their challenges and their weaknesses, but kings did *not *use feudalism to exert control over their subjects, and the feudal relationship was *not *the “glue that held medieval society together.”

In short, feudalism as described above never existed in Medieval Europe.

I know what you’re thinking. For decades, even centuries, “feudalism” has characterized our view of medieval society. If it never existed, then why did so many historians say it did for so long? Weren’t there entire books written on the subject? Who has the authority to say that all those historians were wrong? And if the current consensus among the “experts” in medieval history is to reject feudalism, why is it still presented as reality in nearly every medieval history textbook?

The best way to answer these questions is to engage in a little historiography. Let’s begin with a look at the origin and evolution of the term “feudalism.”
…

[griffin1977]

@Malthus

Sounds like the typical academic tempest in a teapot over terminology. The splitters are “lording” it (pun mildly intended) over the lumpers.

Happens all the time in lots of different contexts. (‘I’m such an expert, I never say a word about anything other than the state of society in Oxford in 1252 - those who generalize more than that are ignoramuses not worth talking to’ - ‘oh yeah? Well, I only ever talk about monks in Oxford in 1252’).

“Feudalism” has become a dirty work, because it is associated with lumpers.

There may be more to it than that, but so far, I’m not convinced.

Agreed.

It is a perfectly reasonable discussion to have, but it is completely an argument on interpretation.

[Nametag]

I’m with Alessan - the feudalism posts and GW’s links are long on criticism but short on details.

Fortunately, one of the links contained a useful reference, Steven Lane’s review of Reynolds’s Fiefs and Vassals, presently at Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning

Some meaty quotes:

In the traditional view as summarized by Reynolds, fief (feodum) and vassal (vasallus etc.) were used by medieval scribes in precise technical ways, as terms of art. When those terms are examined and their technical meanings recovered, it is said, they reveal a European Middle Ages in which notions of public order and property rights were decidedly weaker than they were to become in modern times – weaker, or non-existent. Vassalage, for instance, in the traditional view, is taken to be an affective personal bond uniting a free man to his lord, a bond usually symbolized by a ceremony of submission (“homage”) and sometimes argued to have had its origin in the allegiance of the members of a war-band to their military leader. The widespread existence of this “personal” bond is taken to indicate the weakness or absence of more abstract ideas of public order, whether described by “the state,” Latin respublica, or some other term. Likewise, the fief is traditionally taken to be a grant of land from a lord to a free follower, with tenure of the land contingent on the performance of certain specified services, usually military, and more generally on the allegiance of man to lord. The prevalence of such revocable and dependent grants is taken to indicate medieval man’s weak understanding of full property rights. Finally, in the traditional view, fief and vassalage are thought to have been unified and generalized, such that by a certain point (variously located depending on the national historiography in which one is working), most free men were vassals of some superior, and “held” their land in fief, rather than owning it. Government in this “feudal society” would have consisted of the dues and services exacted by lords from their immediate vassals. The result, it is said, was a society in which governmental relations were essentially “personal,” dependent on specific contracts between lords and men rather than on general notions of public order and duty.

Between 500 and 1300, she argues, most people expected to have what we would today call full rights of property in their land. They expected to be able to bequeathe what they had inherited and acquired, and expected to be secure from the threat of unreasonable confiscation of their lands. She further argues that medieval Europe saw no real decay or diminution of ideas of public order. Such ideas remained firm, she argues, and were centered on the figure of the king, who was always widely thought to command the allegiance of all his free subjects, not merely those to whom he happened to have given some land.