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A
system of economic and social organization found historically in several areas of the
world including Japan, other parts of Asia, the Americas and many countries of eastern and
western Europe.
In western Europe, feudalism was at its height between about
1000 and 1500. The system was founded on a web of military obligations between powerful
overlords and their vassals.
Vassals, who were usually landlords of knightly rank, owed
duties of military service in return for grants of land (fiefs) from the overlord. The
land, and the military obligations, were usually passed from father to son.
The usual economic foundation of the system was the feudal
manor, an agricultural organization that included a central farm owned by the landlord and
small land holdings for a class of bonded farm labourers (serfs).
The serfs were required to work the central manorial farm and
to provide the lord with produce and money payments in return for their own rights to land
use.
The system gradually declined as cities and towns grew, money
became the basis for economic transactions and power became centralized in nation states
under monarchies. Loss of rural population from plague also hastened the end of this
system of economic organization, especially in England.
“The philosopher and lover of man have much harm to say
of trade; but the historian will see that trade was the principle of Liberty; that trade
planted America and destroyed Feudalism; that it makes peace and keeps peace, and it will
abolish slavery” - Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes (American Poet, Lecturer and Essayist,
1803-1882)
"The First World War, and especially the latest one, largely swept away what was left
in Europe of feudalism and of feudal landlords, especially in Poland, Hungary, and the
South East generally." - Emily G. Balch
“In the information age, you don't teach philosophy as they did after feudalism. You
perform it. If Aristotle were alive today he'd have a talk show.” - Timothy Leary
quotes (American Psychologist and Author who was a leading advocate for the use of LSD and
other psychoactive drugs, 1920-1996).
“The Americans still think that feudalism rules the world and therefore demand that
Iran explain its handling of the hijacking affair. Iran explains nothing to anyone but
God.”
"Totalitarianism is feudalism in the twelfth century sense of the word." -
Barbara Amiel
"In the last quarter of the eighteenth century bourgeois Europe needed to emancipate
itself from that combination of feudalism and commercial capitalism which we know as
mercantilism." - C. L. R. James
"We modern Marxists regard socialism as a historically brief transitional stage
between feudalism and capitalism, necessary only in backward countries." - John
McCarthy
"I'm not just antimachismo, I'm a feminist. One thing that really awakens my
rebellious streak is 20 centuries of one sex dominating the other. We talk of slavery,
feudalism, exploitation, but the most unjust domination is that of one half of the human
race over the other half." - Jose Luis Rodriguez
"Growing up in the 1930's was like 100 years before. There was a feudalism system
that lasted until the early 40's. Life changed only after the war." - Max von Sydow
Feudalism in History by Rushton Coulborn, Joseph R. Strayer, Edwin O. Reischauer,
Derk Bodde, Burr C. Brundage, William F. Edgerton, Daniel Thorner, Ernst H. Kantorowicz,
Marc Szeftel
Carl J. Friedrich - The American Political Science Review, Vol. 50, No. 4 (Dec., 1956),
pp. 1136-1138 doi:10.2307/1951350
Feudalism, Capitalism, and the World-System in the Perspective of Latin America and the
Caribbean: "Ever More Solitary"
Steve J. Stern - The American Historical Review, Vol. 93, No. 4 (Oct., 1988), pp. 886-897
doi:10.2307/1863528 |
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