Political Communities Reordered (900-1050) - The West: Fragmentation and Resilience - Public Power and Private Relationships

3 important questions on Political Communities Reordered (900-1050) - The West: Fragmentation and Resilience - Public Power and Private Relationships

What military difference was their between European rulers and Byzantines and Muslims?

  • Unlike the Byzantines and Muslims, European rulers had no mercenaries and no salaried officials. They commanded others by ensuring personal loyalty.
  • The Carolingian king had had their fideles - their faithful men. Tenth-century rulers relied even more on ties of dependency: they needed their "men" (homines), their "vassals" (vassalli).

Why has the term "feodalism" provoked controversy?

  • Some historians argue that it has been used in too many different and contradictory ways to mean anything at all.
  • Was it a mode of exploiting the land that involved lords and serfs? A condition of anarchy and lawlessness? Or a political system of ordered gradations of power, from the king on down? Scholars have used all of these definitions.
  • Another area of contention is the date for the emergence of feudal institutions - around the year 1000, as used to be argued? Or in the twelfth century, as more recent historians maintain?

When did feudalism take place?

The answer depends on the region. In most of France by the late tenth century, in much of Germany in the twelfth, and in many parts of Italy never.

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