FEUDAL MODE OF PRODUCTION: CHARACTERISTICS AND ORGANIZATION - HISTORY - 2025

The feudal mode of production is characterized by the production of material goods by exploited peasants. Between the 9th and 15th centuries, during the Middle Ages, feudalism developed as a social, political and economic system in Western Europe. It expanded into Eastern Europe when the Modern Age arrived, between the 15th and 18th centuries.

The products of agriculture and livestock were produced by serfs and peasants, who were exploited by their masters and landowners. The feudal system was characterized by decentralizing the political power of the king or emperor. The aristocratic class became autonomous and thus the nobles were founded.

The titles of nobility were initially granted only to dukes, marquises, counts, barons, knights and personalities of socio-political prestige. However, the institutions expanded their licenses and feudal titles were also distributed among landowners and upper-class bourgeoisie.

Main features

- The feudal lord was the owner of the land and the means of production.

- The workers had a partial slavery relationship. They were partially owners of their farms and some work tools.

- The feudal property included several villages, from which they obtained their profits.

- Servitude existed as the predominant dependency relationship.

- The feudal lands had two functions. First, to generate profits for the feudal lord through agriculture produced by the peasants. And second, to generate profits for the peasant's farm, where he will produce his own food.

- Lots of land for peasants were granted in exchange for the agricultural products obtained.

Antecedents of feudalism

In the 5th century, after the inability of the Roman emperors to control the vast occupied territory, the Empire was in decline until it disappeared as such.

To distribute power, the emperors began to hire knights who, in turn, had their own vassals.

During five centuries the control of the lands of Western Europe was distributed in small regions. The owners of these lands, who had noble titles, also appropriated the workforce: the peasants.

Role of the Catholic Church

The role of the Catholic Church in the formation of power relations is fundamental. She gave the feudal lords the "power of God", of generational transmission. It also sanctioned disobedience to the rules imposed by the new system.

Demographic distribution

With the exception of the ancient great cities of the Roman Empire, feudalism corresponded to a predominantly rural system. The social administration was controlled from the castles, home of the feudal lords.

Social organization for production

The social classes of the time were divided into various groups, some with privileges and rights over others.

Among the privileged were those belonging to the clergy, feudal lords and knights. On the other hand, there were the most oppressed groups, which were serfs, peasants and artisans. At the end of the noble system was the first bourgeoisie.

The clergy

It was also subdivided; Depending on the area to which they belonged, they could be of the high or low clergy.

Any free member of society could be a member of the clergy. However, it depended on their social ancestry to which of the strata their function corresponded.

Monasteries generally owned large tracts of land and a feudal lord responded to them. Another of the main economic sustenance of the clergy came from the rent collected from the serfs and peasants.

The army

The feudal system had those in charge of the defense of the feudal lord and his assets. The vassals put themselves at the service of the lord in exchange for reciprocal protection.

While the vassal provided military protection, the lord gave him socioeconomic protection. Therefore, these knights were free people who could render their services to different feudal lords.

To be a knight at first you only needed a horse and combat elements. However, with the passage of time, more requirements were wielded, to the point that one could only be a knight through inherited ancestry.

The peasantry

There were two fundamental classes of peasants: the free peasants and the serfs. The majority corresponded to the first group. However, both carried out their activities on the lands of some feudal lord.

Free peasants had the possibility to move, marry and exchange their goods. As a second (mandatory) task, they had to militarily protect their lord and their lands. They also had to pay tributes to the lord for the use of his land.

The social condition of servile peasantry, or serf, was considered semi-free. It was a new form of slavery overcoming the rights of the ancient Roman slaves.

They depended on a feudal lord who gave them a portion of land where they produced their own goods. But the main task of the serf was to develop agricultural production on the lands of the feudal lord, who kept all of the produce.

In addition, they were also obliged to militarily protect the feudal lord, his lands and his assets.

The bourgeoisie

Prior to the transition from the feudal system to capitalism, a new social class emerged that corresponded neither to the nobility nor to the peasantry. They were merchants, artisans or new professionals who emerged mainly from the cities.

The bourgeoisie transformed the feudal mode of production. Through the bourgeois revolutions produced between the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, they managed to position themselves as one of the ruling classes. They even managed to gradually insert themselves into the noble class, although maintaining distances based on inheritance.

End of feudalism

The expansion of the bourgeoisie managed to produce the changes necessary for the period of revolutions to establish a new system that was more beneficial for its class.

After the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the American Revolution and other specific revolts, the 19th century marked the end of the nobility as the dominant system in the West, giving birth to capitalism.

Themes of interest

High Middle Ages.

Middle Ages.

Feudal monarchy.

References

1. Anderson, P. (1979). Transitions from Antiquity to Feudalism. Madrid: XXI century.
2. Bean, J. (1968). Decline of English Feudalism.
3. Harbison, R. (1996). The Problem of Feudalism: An Historiographical Essay. Western Kentucky University.
4. Hunt, MR (1996). The Middling Sort: Commerce, Gender, and the Family in England, 1680–1780. University of California Press.
5. Mackrell, JQ (2013). The Attack on Feudalism in Eighteenth-century France. Routledge.