Feudalism

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Feudalism

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I. What is Feudalism?

• Where landowning nobles governed and protected
  people in return for services, such as serving as
  soldiers or farmers.
• Nobles were both lords and vassals.
• What is a vassal?
• What is a fief?
• Knights were vassals who fought on horseback.

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• Fiefs were called manors.
• Lords ruled manors, and peasants farmed the land.
  
• Some peasants were free, had rights and could
  move.
• Most peasants were serfs, which meant they could
  not leave the manor, own property, or marry
  without the lords approval.
• Lords in turn had to protect the serfs
• To gain freedom, a serf could run away and remain
  in a town for a year. Then he or she would be
  considered free.
• By the end of the Middle Ages, many serfs could
  buy their freedom

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• New technology increased crop production in the
  Middle Ages. The wheeled plow, the horse collar,
  water and wind-powered mills, and crop rotation
  helped farmers produce more food.

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II. Life in Feudal Europe

• Knights followed rules called the code of
  chivalry.
• Brave obey lords, show respect to women of noble
  birth, and honor the church.
• Wives and daughters ran the manors when the
  noblemen went to war.
• A castle was the center of the manor.
• The central building of the castle, called the
  keep was built on the motte.

Motte and Bailey
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• The castle keep contained a basement, kitchens,
  stables, a great hall, chapels, toilets, and
  bedrooms.
• Peasants lived in simple houses. Many of them
  were only one room.
• Peasants worked in the fields year-round.
• Did not work on Catholic feast days.
• Peasant women worked in the fields and raised
  children.
• Bread was a basic staple of the peasant diet.

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III. Trade and Cities

• After Rome fell trade all but ended. People for
  the most part did not leave their villages.
• Feudalism and technology helped promote trade.
• Trade caused large cities like Venice to become
  wealthy.
• In the early Middle Ages, people bartered, but
  later, people began using money again.
• Often towns were controlled by lords.
• In exchange for taxes the lords granted
  townspeople basic rights. Like what?

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• Eventually towns set up their own govts, with
  elected members of city councils.
• Guilds set standards for quality in products,
  determined how many products would be sold, set
  prices, and decided who could enter the trade.
• A child of 10 could become an apprentice.
• Learned from a master craftsman.
• Eventually the apprentice would become a master

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• Medieval cities contained crowded, wooden houses
  on narrow winding streets.
• Cities were dirty and smelled, and pollution
  filled the sky and contaminated the water.

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