What is feudalism?

Historian Maurice Dobb defines feudalism as a system “virtually identical with what
we usually mean by serfdom: an obligation laid on the producer by force and independently
of his own volition to fulfil certain economic demands of an overlord, whether these demands
take the form of services to be performed or of dues to be paid in money or in-kind”.
He describes the main features of feudalism as the use of primitive techniques and
instruments of production with the unsophisticated division of labour.
In feudalism, demesne-farming was the dominant type of labour carried out on lands owned
by a feudal lord and the vast majority of produce was used for the immediate needs of the
lord and his subjects.

Decline of Feudalism

These lords possessed almost total superiority over their serfs and could do almost anything
short of executing them.
Under feudalism, a monarch ruled over the state, which was divided into lands of various
sizes among hereditary feudals, who received lands and estates in accordance with their
services for the kingdom.
But around the 13th-14th centuries feudalism entered the period of decline in Western Europe
gradually giving way to capitalism.
Historian Henri Martin observed that “Feudalism concealed in its bosom the weapons with
which it would be itself one day smitten”, referring to the struggle of monarchs to establish
more control over the state and its feudal subjects through the support they had received from
an emerging class of townspeople capitalists, whose rise was possible due to growth of urban
centres, towns, and cities as a result of the expansion of trade.

1. Crusades

Crusades, which at first glance do not seem like something that could have had a negative
impact on feudalism.
 The driving force of the Crusades were large feudal landowners, who would often use
their own money and resources to raise armies for this endeavour.
 Surviving and returning feudals would often be so broke that they would accept
peasants buying lands and becoming essentially free from feudal control. The same is
true for towns, which used to be under feudal control and now were able to purchase
their freedom for their former lords.
 Crusades also played a role in the import of new military technologies like gunpowder
and guns from the East. Gunpowder enabled the production of cannons and the
cannons made feudal castles, one of the key factors behind their autonomy, more
susceptible to military actions. In the pre-gunpowder era, it was extremely difficult
and costly to capture castles and feudal lords were confident in the impenetrability of
their walls and hence their autonomy. Now it was easier for kings to break feudal
resistance and establish more solid control over their lands, which made Western
European states more centralized.
 Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the Crusades also played a major role in the
expansion of trade in Western Europe.
 2. Expansion of Trade

Following the collapse of the Western Roman Empire, there was no major authority in
Western Europe to protect and maintain the road network. Along with that, the Caliphate
expanded to important trading regions like Gibraltar, Alexandria, Sardinia, and Malta, hence
the long-distance trade conducted by Western Europeans gradually diminished and became
localized.

 One of the key tenets of feudalism was its self-sufficiency, as often all of the produce
from the feudal lands were used for mostly the feudal and a small portion of it for the
feudal subjects living and working on these lands. There was a very small surplus left
for major trade operations.
 Crusades helped to expand the Western European reach to major cities like
Constantinople and Alexandria, along with gaining a temporary foothold in the Holy
Land. Moreover, Western Europeans regained control of important islands and trade
outposts in the Mediterranean. This played an important role in the restoration of
long-distance trade in Europe.

3. Long distance Trade

 The Belgian historian Henri Pirenne argued that long-distance trade not only enabled
economic development and growth of civilizations, but was also a major driver of
exchange of ideas, exposure of civilizations and cultures amongst each other.
 Expansion of trade led to the accumulation of money by merchants and a gradual
transition from an exchange-based economy to a money-based economy.
 The merchant class was made up of commoners and was the predecessor of
bourgeoisie class, which would in the upcoming centuries upend the European
aristocracy.
 The emergence of major cities was another important factor causing the crisis of
feudalism. Dropping revenues forced feudal lords to give up control over a large
number of serfs, some of whom moved to cities for employment and new life. While
the exploitation of labour and the general hardship of course existed in cities as well,
urban centres were attractive to peasants for, at least, being safe from feudal
arbitrariness and oppression, along with providing them with certain rights and
freedoms.
 The mere fact that now there was an alternative for peasants to leave for cities put
additional pressure on feudal landowners and feudalism.

4. The Bubonic Plague

 Feudal lords would assign bailiffs amongst their peasants to manage and oversee the
cultivation, storage, and disposal of the produce made on their lands. Naturally, not all
dealings between lords and bailiffs had been honest, as bailiffs tended to keep some of
the produce and money made from trading it for themselves. Gradually bailiffs
accumulated enough money to start renting parts of the lands owned by their feudal
lords. They would employ peasants to work on rented lands in exchange for wages or
produce.
 This paved the way for the gradual emergence of capitalist relations in the countryside
and the class of capitalist farmers. Such farmers would usually become better
 managers of lands, since they were driven by the motivation to pay the rent and
accumulate more profit by selling the surplus produce in town markets, which
enhanced trade between the countryside and cities further boosting the process of
decline of feudalism.
 The decrease of population in Western Europe also played a major role in the demise
of feudalism. In the mid-14th century the bubonic plague reached Europe and
devastated the whole continent over the next decades. There are different estimates of
the bubonic plague casualties in Europe ranging from 24 million to 70 million.Some
claim that 60% of the European population was wiped out during the pandemic.
Whole towns and communities would disappear. It brought chaos and social
disruption to European states.
 Many serfs would run away from the countryside, hoping that the bubonic plague
would not catch them in the cities. Trade, enterprise, economic relations - all
collapsed and it had to be rebuilt again. There were fewer people to employ due to a
drastic decrease in population.
 Therefore, enforcing serf labour was not as easy anymore, since serfs now had more
leverage and often used it to do wage labour instead. This was a further blow to
feudalism.

5. The Hundred Years War

 The Hundred Years’ War between England and France had a similar impact on
feudalism. This long-lasting conflict had major implications on military strategy, the
organization of armies, the emergence of national identities in Europe, and the
increase of the role of commoners against the nobility, which all had a negative
influence on feudalism.
 Longbows were used extensively during the war and proved to be an effective
weapon against mounted knights, one of the key components of feudal armies.
Cannons were also used during the Hundred Years’ War. They would penetrate castle
walls making feudals vulnerable to the power of the state, where the role of the
monarch was gradually growing.
 (France would be the first country since Roman times to use a standing army in 1445,
making the monarch less dependent on levies and mercenaries, which were the key
components of the feudalism era armies). Standing armies would consist of
commoners, which helped to boost their value in society and decrease their feudal
dependence. Moreover, the large-scale nature of the Hundreds Years’ War and
participation of different strata of English and French societies increased the sense of
patriotism, national identity, and loyalty to the state and the king, rather than the
feudal lord, like it used to be.
 This process led to the emergence of more centralized territorial states, where feudal
aristocracy was still prominent but was gradually losing its rights to absolutist
monarchs. Territorial states or nation-states paved the way for the further progression
of the urban-based bourgeoisie and capitalism in Western Europe.
 While feudal aristocracy still enjoyed political influence well into the Modern Era, the
economic power was shifting to bourgeoisie and capitalists mirroring the process of
transformation of the mode of production in Western Europe from feudalism to
capitalism.
 6. Peasant Rebellions

 In the 14th century, Europe was a ground for numerous major peasant rebellions in
England, Flanders, France, Italy, Germany, and Spain. The 1381 peasant revolt in
England is especially notable in that respect.
 In the initial phase, the revolt was so successful that rebels advanced to London and
forced King Richard II to meet with the rebels and promise them to abolish serfdom.
The rebellion was eventually defeated and Richard II failed to honour his promise, but
it definitely pushed the English landowners and nobility to think hard and long about
necessary changes, eventually leading to the disappearance of serfdom, the key pillar
of feudalism, by the 15th century and its substitution with wage labour.

7. Political Struggle

 The political struggle between monarchs and the nobility also played its part in the
decline of feudalism.
 Particularly in England, the period of the 12th-13th centuries was a time of adoption
of laws expanding individual liberties, including for commoners.
 In the 12th century, Henry II strengthened the role of royal courts as new laws
stipulated that an individual could not be jailed or executed for no legal reason, which
in theory weakened the position of feudal lords against their subjects.

8. Overexploitation

 The greed and desire for ever-increasing profit were so high for feudal landlords that
peasants were overworked and exhausted and as soon as better opportunities emerged
on the horizon they fled the countryside causing the gradual decline of feudalism.
 This is not to say that over-exploitation ended together with feudalism, as it in fact
turned into capitalist exploitation instead, but it was different in its nature and
undoubtedly progress for humankind, manifesting if not in better living and economic
standards, then at least, in terms of civil and political rights, which they utterly lacked
in the feudal era.
 Over-exploitation was also a cause for peasant rebellions, dropping economic
productivity and gradual recognition that serf labour would have to be substituted by
wage labour.

It is necessary to remember that the decline of feudalism and the emergence of capitalism as
the dominant mode of production was not a rapid process. It took centuries and numerous
crises for capitalism to upend feudalism.
In major Eastern European powers like Russia serfdom existed until the 19th century and the
economy was primarily feudal and agrarian for a very long time.
According to Dobb, there were three decisive moments in the process of transition from
feudalism to capitalism. First, the crisis of feudalism in the 14th century.
Second, the beginning of capitalism in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Third, the victory of capitalism through the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth and
early nineteenth centuries. Based on Maurice Dobb’s theory, it took 5 long centuries for
feudalism to give way to capitalism.