What was the feudal system in the medieval Europe?

Answer 1

European feudalism is a peasant or a serf that becomes a slave for a noble to get protection from them.

Answer 2

Feudalism is a convergent social mechanism, where the ownership of land or production becomes concentrated in few hands. In the long run, you have a few folk living the good life, with the many providing it, and themselves living poorly. These conditions still prevail in many countries today. In one of the worst forms, the debts fo a Father have to be repaid by his sons/grandsons, accumulating interest all the time.

The wealthier folk tend to protect their patch, and choose a king, whose word is THE LAW.

In England, the Barons considered that King John was taking too much of their share, and staged a rebellion, and the Magna Carta was the result.

Which addressed the 'problems' of the Barons, but in fact didn't give a lot to the folk at the bottom. Eventually, wiser heads prevailed, and the concept of universal rights arose. New Zealand even took this so far as to allow women full voting rights, and allowed similar privelege to the native peoples as well. This 'white-anting' is now widespread.

3rd Answer

Feudalism is a rather poorly defined term that means different things to different people. It is applied to economic and political systems of reciprocal obligation, in which power is distributed in exchange for support.

Narrowly defined, it is an economic system used in the 9th through 15th centuries in Europe, by larger countries with weak central governments, as a way of distributing power through successive levels of authority in exchange for support. Its advantage was that it meant small, sudden problems, such as Viking raids, could be dealt with without having to mobilize a national military. They way it operated was that a monarch provided land and power to great lords who gave him support in return; the higher lords gave land and power to lesser lords, who in turn supported them. The support was primarily military.

Broadly defined, feudalism is nearly equated with manorialism, in which a landlord gave homes, land to farm, and protection to peasants who worked the land, but on a scale that had implications at the national level. Some countries that operated this way had strong central governments and so were not strictly feudal according to the above narrow definition. England of the 14th century is one example, the small kingdoms in Spain being others.

The term feudalism is extended to include any system that is similar to either of the above, such as in Japan, and so on.

There is a link below to an article on feudalism.

Answer 2

Feudalism is a grouping of legal and military customs, prevalent in medieval Europe, which flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, or any similar grouping of legal and military customs.