Feudalism is a grouping of legal and military ideas, prevalent in medieval

Europe, which flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries. Simply defined,
it was a system for structuring society around relationships derived from the
holding of land in exchange for labour.
For safety and for defense, people in the Middle Ages formed small
communities around a central lord or master. Most people lived on a manor,
which consisted of the castle, the church, the village, and the surrounding
farm land. These manors were isolated, with occasional visits from peddlers,
pilgrims on their way to the Crusades, or soldiers from other fiefdoms.
In this "feudal" system, the king awarded land grants or "fiefs" to his most
important nobles, his barons, and his bishops, in return for their contribution
of soldiers for the king's armies. At the lowest echelon of society were the
peasants, also called "serfs" or "villeins." In exchange for living and working
on his land, known as the "demesne," the lord offered his peasants
protection.
Nobles divided their land among the lesser nobility, who became their
servants or "vassals." Many of these vassals became so powerful that the
kings had difficulty controlling them. By 1100, certain barons had castles and
courts that rivaled the king's; they could be serious threats if they were not
pleased in their dealings with the crown.
In 1215, the English barons formed an alliance that forced King John to
sign the Magna Carta. While it gave no rights to ordinary people, the Magna
Carta did limit the king's powers of taxation and require trials before
punishment. It was the first time that an English monarch came under the
control of the law.
Peasants worked the land and produced the goods that the lord and his
manor needed. This exchange was not without hardship for the serfs. They
were heavily taxed and were required to relinquish much of what they
harvested. The peasants did not even "belong to" themselves, according to
medieval law. The lords assumed the roles of judges in carrying out the laws
of the manor.
Feudalism itself decayed and disappeared in most of Western Europe by
about 1500. It lingered on in parts of Central and Eastern Europe as late as
the 1850s. Russia finally abolished serfdom in 1861.