Theories Regarding the Origin of European Feudalism

Theories Regarding the Origin of European Feudalism

In 1887 a German Historian Brunner,concentrating on the military aspects, traced the genesis of feudalism to the horse stirrup. He argued that in 733 A.D, the emperor of France (then called Gaull, Charles Martin),defeated the Arabs in a battle at Poitiers near Paris. However, Martin could not pursue the Arabs because his army consisted primarily of infantry, whereas the Arab soldiers escaped on the far more mobile horsebacks.Martin realized the need for introducing a large segment of cavalry in his defence forcer.` Maintaining a cavalry, however, was after all a more expensive proposition than an infantry. For this Martel needed more resources. Land being the chief resource in pre-modern societies, the Emperor began by acquiring land from those who had a great deal of it - the Church for example. But the acquisition of land did not solve all of Martin's problems. Medieval Europe was also short of money in circulation, because of declining trade,though it was not short of wealth. Thus, while Martel acquired land from the Church as well as his rich subjects, he could not pay his cavalrymen in cash which was scarce;consequently, he began to alienate land to them in fief. This according to Brunner was the origin of

feudalism.Brunner's argument was supported and opposed with equal vehemence by subsequent historians for a long time. The chief weakness of the argument,however, was that it attributed the rise and development of a vast social, economic and political structure which lasted over a housand years to one small device, the horsestirrup.

.1.Henry Pirenne's View on Feudalism. Meanwhile, the concept of feudal society began to grow and included many more dimensions than the military one. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Belgian historian Henry Pirenne visualized feudal system in terms of the nature of its economy. Pirenne believed that Europe of antiquity was marked by a developed urban economy based on long distance trade or the 'grand trade' as he called it. The long distance trade was possible owing to cheap navigation across the Mediterranean. However, in the late seventh and early eighth century, the Arabs invaded parts of Europe and occupied crucial control points of the Mediterranean; Gibralter, the point of entry from the West, and Sardinia right in the middle of the Sea besides Alexandria,the eastern entry point, which was already under their control. Thus, alien control of these points of navigation disrupted the long distance trade and led to the localization as well as ruralization of the economy, or what Pirenne called the 'closed estate economy'. From the eleventh century, the Christian Crusaders drove the Arabs out of Gibralter and Sardinia; long distance trade revived again, as also the urban nature of the economy; as that happened feudalism declined. Pirenne, thus posited a dichotomy between trade and feudalism-a concept that has been questioned and given up in European historiography but continues to exercise a strong influence on historians in other regions of the world, including India.

2.Thesis of Marc Bloch

The great French historian Marc Bloch undertook a comprehensive analysis of feudal society, covering
every dimension: the economic, the social, the cultural, the ethical as also the politico-administrative. He noticed that Western Europe was subjected to a series of invasions from a number of sources. In the fifth century, the Germanic tribes had barged into the region from Very long distances and had brought the grand
edifice of the Roman Empire to pieces. The Arab invasions followed the Germanic. The Arabs in turn were followed by the Magyars of Hungary, and the series culminated in the Scandinavian raids in the tenth century. All these invasions had created a great deal of insecurity; they also disrupted the economy. Thus, everyone in Western Europe during the middle ages was searching for security and subsistence. This search for security and subsistence led to the formation of what Marc Bloch described as 'ties of interdependence".
All sections of society entered into these ties; peasants surrendered their lands and resources to the local lord who promised them security and subsistence and returned the lands to them on condition of their cultivating his fields without being paid wages. The local lord in turn, similarly, sought security and subsistence from the one more powerful than him by surrendering his lands etc., to be given back as fiefs on condition of rendering military service to the bigger lord. The smaller lord thus became the vassal of the bigger lord. The
process went on until everyone became the lord of some and the vassal of others except the king who was the vassal of none and the peasant who was the lord of none. These ties of interdependence also produced corresponding religious ideology and cultural ethos. In all these views, the

emergence of feudal society was attributed to some or the other dramatic event or events.

.3Perry Anderson on Feudalism

It was Perry Anderson, an English scholar, who looked at the rise of feudalism as a long drawn process occurring at the base of society. For Anderson feudalism arose as a consequence of a mighty clash between two social systems, each in a process of transition. The European society of antiquity, based on the use of slave labour, was increasingly facing problems of productivity falling short of rising demand. The gap was
widening because slave labour was essentially an inefficient form of labour where slaves had no interest in adopting new productivity raising devices. The ancient Graeco-Roman civilisation was thus facing a crisis.The tribal social organisation of the Germanic peoples too was facing a crisis of a different kind: its tribal egalitarian social structure was under strain partly due to the growth of stratification within and partly owing to contact with the highly developed Roman civilisation. Their clash in the fifth century resulted in the collapse of both, giving rise to a new social and economic system, named feudalism.Feudalism is, thus, considered today by historians to be the result of complex interaction between various

forces of social existence-economic. political, cultural, institutional and so forth-at all levels of society. Its rise is thus a long drawn process rather than a sudden event.