Feudalism is the system of social order that produced the knight. It is the subject of fantasy, but also a symbol of oppressive government and corruption. Also, it isn’t as much a thing of the past as you might think.
Feudalism is in many ways the most basic type of government conceivable. It is reflected in the classical organization of the Italian Mafia, and its vestiges remain in the majority of the world’s governments. The simple premise is that one person enters a binding contract with another. The first person offers land, money, or other goods or rights capable of supporting them permanently, and in return the second person is bound to come to the assistance of the first in times of trouble. Seems simple enough, but let’s not forget what we’re talking about. The first person is called a “lord” and the second is called a “vassal.”
How is this a system? You have to think it through. A king, of England, for example, may offer a territory, let’s call it “Wales,” to a vassal. That vassal may then subinfeudate said land to a series of other vassals. The water doesn’t have to run down stream, either. At one point the King of England owned a good part of his kingdom in fealty to the King of France, who in turn did not have the political power to undermine his vassal. There is nothing stopping a noble who is vassal to a second noble from being lord to a third who is in turn lord to the first (that’s right, your boss’s boss just might be your employee). There we have the complicated stuff, but don’t worry, there is still more.
Normally, feudalism was a top-down affair with Kings over nobles. The real point was to conscript a standing army to defend yourself against other nobles in the absence of any national or global law to ensure your safety. Security through society was the order of the day, and the size of your wealth was the size of your army. Such were the ways of war.
The everyday people, also know as peasants, or serfs, were bound laborers. Yes, the majority of the population was bound to the land they lived on, which was owned by a lord, and were to work said land for the profit of their lord. Crummy life, right? Their obligations were to pay taxes on their profits and be productive, and in return their towns would be protected from foreign invasion by their lord’s armies.
On second thought, this is starting to look pretty familiar. In modern America, landowners lose their land if they fail to pay land taxes to the government. Income is taxed and actions are legislated in exchange for the common defense. Despite ideals about government existing to provide common services and a common defense, in reality laws are passed to serve various interests, and a common justification for a law is that it helps the population that it affects. Perhaps pure government theorists would argue that no redistribution of wealth is justified, whether in the form of hospitals or tax breaks for businesses, but our tradition of law comes from the feudal system. The lord of a fiefdom creates laws to maximize the profit of his holdings, and that means supporting the wellbeing of his serfs, forcibly if necessary.
At the city level, though, peasants had something a little more akin to a modern democracy with elected officials and public services provided for by the public treasury. They were given a good deal of self-rule so long as it did not interfere with the needs of the gentry.
This is one difference: serfs do not elect their lords. This single detail sets up a whole series of problems and solutions. Absolute power is removed from the equation, making the lords accountable to their subjects. Instead of military might being the source of power, it is now popularity, and tyranny is no less present. What is more troubling is that, while Royalty claimed the divine right to rule and were regularly ousted from their thrones by rivals, modern lords claim popular mandate, and can be more difficult to remove so long as the masquerade holds up.
Perhaps modern government would be best described as neo-feudalism. The new feudalism cares about what the subjects think, although not necessarily about their wellbeing. Furthermore, modern governments often live in a bit more fear of their subjects, and will often take counterproductive actions in seeking popular support.
Ultimately, the idea that the people are in direct control of their government is at best half-true, and perhaps there is some wisdom in a system that places its rulers in debt to the wellbeing of the subjects rather than to those subject’s whims.
It’s a difficult position to maintain, I’ll admit, but next time you’re paying your land taxes on pain of foreclosure, and derived from an artificially inflated property value, you might want to ask yourself who really owns the land.
Photo by: yashima
