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105-456: Originally it was only used to designate a feudal lord or sire , as well as being one of the names of God . With time its usage spread and, as means of differentiation, noble people began to use Senhor Dom X (as when referring to the kings or members of the high nobility), which translates literally in English as "The Lord, Lord X". In 1597, King Philip I issued a decree standardizing

210-417: A beneficium (Latin). Later, the term feudum , or feodum , began to replace beneficium in the documents. The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The term "féodal"

315-452: A Construct" (1974) and Susan Reynolds 's Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism is a useful construct for understanding medieval society. The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1405, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, paralleling the French féodalité . According to

420-1008: A Germanic title of respect (in this case, from the Proto-Germanic root *haira- , "hoary, venerable, grey", likely a loan translation of Latin seniorem ). In other European languages there is Welsh Arglwydd , Hungarian Úr , Greek Kyrie , Polish Pan , Czech pán , Breton Aotrou , and Albanian Zoti . In several Indian languages there are the Hindi Swami , Prabhu , Thakur , Samprabhu (Overlord) and also words like Saheb or Laat Saheb from Lord Saheb were once used but have changed in meaning now, Telugu Prabhuvu , Tamil Koman , Kannada Dore , Bengali Probhu , Gujarati Swami , Punjabi Su'āmī , Nepali Prabhu . Words like Swami and Prabhu are Sanskrit -origin words, common in many Indian languages. Philippine languages have different words for "lord", some of which are cognates. Tagalog has Panginoón for "lord" in both

525-400: A brilliant warrior who secularized church lands for the purpose of providing precarias (or leases) for his followers, in return for their military service. Martel's military ambitions were becoming more expensive as it changed into a cavalry force, thus the need to maintain his followers through the despoiling of church lands. Responding to Brunner's thesis, Paul Fouracre theorizes that

630-497: A classic definition by François Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around the key concepts of lords , vassals and fiefs , though Ganshof himself noted that his treatment was only related to the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word." A broader definition, as described in Marc Bloch 's Feudal Society (1939), includes not only

735-523: A consensus viewpoint is that England before the Conquest had commendation (which embodied some of the personal elements in feudalism) while William the Conqueror introduced a modified and stricter northern French feudalism to England incorporating (1086) oaths of loyalty to the king by all who held by feudal tenure, even the vassals of his principal vassals (holding by feudal tenure meant that vassals must provide

840-418: A feudal order not limited solely to the nobility. It is his radical notion that peasants were part of the feudal relationship that sets Bloch apart from his peers: while the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant performed physical labour in return for protection – both are a form of feudal relationship. According to Bloch, other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms; all

945-415: A feudal relationship with agreed obligations to one another. The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was to provide aid or military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal had to answer calls to military service by the lord. This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition,

1050-428: A house"). In formal contexts o senhor, a senhora, os senhores and as senhoras (masculine singular, feminine singular, masculine plural, and feminine plural "you", respectively) are preferred. However, there is considerable regional variation in the use of these terms, and more specific forms of address are sometimes employed. O senhor and a senhora are the most ceremonious forms of address. English speakers may find

1155-535: A means of political gain. For them "feudalism" meant seigneurial privileges and prerogatives. When the French Constituent Assembly abolished the "feudal regime" in August 1789, this is what was meant. Adam Smith used the term "feudal system" to describe a social and economic system defined by inherited social ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations. In such

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1260-555: A provision that was later extended to various parts of Italian kingdom following the invasion by French troops. In the Kingdom of Naples , Joachim Murat abolished feudalism with the law of 2 August 1806, then implemented with a law of 1 September 1806 and a royal decree of 3 December 1808. In the Kingdom of Sicily the abolishing law was issued by the Sicilian Parliament on 10 August 1812. In Piedmont feudalism ceased by virtue of

1365-577: A quarter of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners. The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the tithe to the church. In the Kingdom of France , following the French Revolution, feudalism was abolished with a decree of 11 August 1789 by the Constituent Assembly ,

1470-401: A set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords , vassals , and fiefs . A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm : the nobility, the clergy , and the peasantry , all of whom were bound by

1575-573: A set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility based on the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. In broad terms a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal provided some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure , consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning

1680-569: A system of manorialism ; this is sometimes referred to as a "feudal society". Although it is derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), which was used during the Medieval period, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown 's "The Tyranny of

1785-510: A system, wealth derived from agriculture, which was arranged not according to market forces but on the basis of customary labour services owed by serfs to landowning nobles. Heinrich Brunner , in his The Equestrian Service and the Beginnings of the Feudal System (1887), maintained that Charles Martel laid the foundation for feudalism during the 8th century. Brunner believed Martel to be

1890-406: Is "The Lord (X)": for example, Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson , can be referred to as "The Lord Tennyson", although the most common appellation is "Lord Tennyson". Marquesses, earls and viscounts are commonly also addressed as Lord. Dukes use the style "The Duke of (X)", and are not correctly referred to as "Lord (X)". Dukes are formally addressed as "Your Grace", rather than "My Lord". "Lord"

1995-643: Is a particle that generally accords respect to an addressee of higher status than the speaker. In the Yoruba language of West Africa, the words Olu and Oluwa are used in much the same way as the English term. Olodumare , the Yoruba conception of God Almighty , is often referred to using either of these two words. In the Yoruba chieftaincy system, meanwhile, the Oluwo of Iwo 's royal title translates to "Lord of Iwo". In Lagos ,

2100-491: Is a shortened form of 'laverd' which is an old Scottish word deriving from an Anglo-Saxon term meaning 'Lord' and is also derived from the middle English word 'Lard' also meaning 'Lord'. The word is generally used to refer to any owner of a landed estate and has no meaning in heraldic terms and its use is not controlled by the Lord Lyon . Lord is occasionally used as part of a substantive British noble title in its own right: In

2205-419: Is a vestigial survival of this function. A liege lord was a person to whom a vassal owed sworn allegiance. Neither of these terms were titular dignities, but rather factual appellations, which described the relationship between two or more persons within the highly stratified feudal social system. For example, a man might be lord of the manor to his own tenants but also a vassal of his own overlord, who in turn

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2310-422: Is also used as a courtesy title for younger sons of a British prince , duke, or marquesses, in the style "Lord (first name) (surname)". The eldest son of a peer would be entitled to use one of his father's subsidiary titles (if any). For example, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent holds the subsidiary title of Earl of St Andrews, which is used by his elder son George Windsor, Earl of St Andrews , while his younger son

2415-450: Is feudalism?", 1944; translated in English as Feudalism ). His classic definition of feudalism is widely accepted today among medieval scholars, though questioned both by those who view the concept in wider terms and by those who find insufficient uniformity in noble exchanges to support such a model. Although Georges Duby was never formally a student in the circle of scholars around Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre , that came to be known as

2520-483: Is followed by another title or job description, such as doctor ( senhor doutor ), engineer ( senhor engenheiro ), teacher or professor ( senhor professor ), or police officer ( senhor polícia ), thus conveying a high level of formality. Traditionally, but not presently, the feminine form senhora was only used for a married woman (a single woman was addressed formally as menina , "young girl", in Portugal or by

2625-511: Is styled Lord Nicholas Windsor . However, if the father has no subsidiary title, the older son will assume a courtesy title of "Lord (last name)", such as in the case of the Earl of Devon . As these forms of address are merely courtesy titles, the holder is not actually a member of the peerage and is not entitled to use the definite article "The" as part of the title. The upper house of the Parliament of

2730-555: Is that early forms of 'fief' include feo , feu , feuz , feuum and others, the plurality of forms strongly suggesting origins from a loanword . The first use of these terms is in Languedoc , one of the least Germanic areas of Europe and bordering Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Further, the earliest use of feuum (as a replacement for beneficium ) can be dated to 899, the same year a Muslim base at Fraxinetum ( La Garde-Freinet ) in Provence

2835-524: The Führerprinzip . In 1974, the American historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown rejected the label feudalism as an anachronism that imparts a false sense of uniformity to the concept. Having noted the current use of many, often contradictory, definitions of feudalism , she argued that the word is only a construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back "tyrannically" into

2940-640: The shoguns , and sometimes in discussions of the Zagwe dynasty in medieval Ethiopia , which had some feudal characteristics (sometimes called "semifeudal"). Some have taken the feudalism analogy further, seeing feudalism (or traces of it) in places as diverse as Spring and Autumn period China, ancient Egypt , the Parthian Empire , India until the Mughal dynasty and the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in

3045-510: The American South . The term feudalism has also been applied—often pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions and attitudes similar to those in medieval Europe are perceived to prevail. Some historians and political theorists believe that the term feudalism has been deprived of specific meaning by the many ways it has been used, leading them to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society. The applicability of

3150-639: The Annales school , Duby was an exponent of the Annaliste tradition. In a published version of his 1952 doctoral thesis entitled La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise ( Society in the 11th and 12th centuries in the Mâconnais region ), and working from the extensive documentary sources surviving from the Burgundian monastery of Cluny , as well as the dioceses of Mâcon and Dijon , Duby excavated

3255-857: The Commonwealth , bishops may be addressed as "My Lord" or "My Lord Bishop" or "Your Lordship", particularly on formal occasions. This usage is not restricted to those bishops who sit in the House of Lords . Indeed, by custom, it is not restricted to bishops of the Church of England but applies to bishops of the Church in Wales , the Scottish Episcopal Church , and the Roman Catholic Church , and may be applied (though less commonly) to bishops of other Christian denominations. It has become more common to use simply

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3360-473: The Court of Appeal of England and Wales , are called "Lord Justice". Other Commonwealth judges, for example judges of Canadian provincial supreme courts, are known only as Justices but are addressed with deference in court as 'My Lord', 'My Lady', 'Your Lordship' or 'Your Ladyship'. Examples of judges who use the appellation "lord" include: The Board of Admiralty (1628–1964) was established in 1628 when Charles I put

3465-657: The Duke of Braganza , who was to be addressed as Sua Excelência , Your Excellency , same as the King's grandchildren) and their children, marquesses, counts, the Prior of Crato , viceroys and governors (when not related to the King), and other high authorities of the Kingdom (such as judges or ambassadors). After 1739, as Grandees (dukes, marquesses, counts) were given the style of address of Sua Excelência ,

3570-740: The Inca Empire , in the pre-Columbian era , as 'tributary' societies . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, J. Horace Round and Frederic William Maitland , both historians of medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions about the character of Anglo-Saxon English society before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Round argued that the Normans had brought feudalism with them to England, while Maitland contended that its fundamentals were already in place in Britain before 1066. The debate continues today, but

3675-554: The Lord of Mann , a title previously held by the Queen of the United Kingdom , and female Lords Mayor are examples of women who are styled as "Lord". Under the feudal system , "lord" had a wide, loose and varied meaning. An overlord was a person from whom a landholding or a manor was held by a mesne lord or vassal under various forms of feudal land tenure . The modern term " landlord "

3780-450: The Norman Conquest of 1066. The title "Lord of the Manor" was a titular feudal dignity which derived its force from the existence and operation of a manorial court or court baron at which he or his steward presided, thus he was the lord of the manorial court which determined the rules and laws which were to govern all the inhabitants and property covered by the jurisdiction of the court. To

3885-577: The Oxford Dictionary of English , the etymology of the word can be traced back to the Old English word hlāford which originated from hlāfweard meaning "loaf-ward" or "bread-keeper", reflecting the Germanic tribal custom of a chieftain providing food for his followers. The appellation "lord" is primarily applied to men, while for women the appellation " lady " is used. This is no longer universal:

3990-636: The Peerage of Scotland , the members of the lowest level of the peerage have the substantive title " Lord of Parliament " rather than Baron. The heir to the throne in Scotland holds the title Lord of the Isles . In England, the title Lord of the Isle of Wight used to exist but fell out of use before the creation of the modern peerage system. The British sovereign is also accorded the title Lord of Mann as head of state of

4095-453: The noble styles in use in the Kingdom of Portugal . Sua Senhoria (translated as His Lordship or Her Ladyship ) was the prescribed manner of address to archbishops (with the exception of the Archbishop of Braga who, due to his rank as Primate of Hispania, was entitled to the style of Sua Senhoria Reverendíssima , or His Most Reverend Lordship ), bishops, dukes (with the exception of

4200-694: The territorial state . This form of statehood, identified with the Holy Roman Empire , is described as the most complete form of medieval rule, completing conventional feudal structure of lordship and vassalage with the personal association among the nobility. But the applicability of this concept to cases outside of the Holy Roman Empire has been questioned, as by Susan Reynolds. The concept has also been questioned and superseded in German historiography because of its bias and reductionism towards legitimating

4305-679: The 16th-century basis or incorporate what, in a Marxist view, must surely be superficial or irrelevant features from it. Even when one restricts oneself to Europe and to feudalism in its narrow sense it is extremely doubtful whether feudo-vassalic institutions formed a coherent bundle of institutions or concepts that were structurally separate from other institutions and concepts of the time. The term feudal has also been applied to non-Western societies, in which institutions and attitudes similar to those of medieval Europe are perceived to have prevailed (see Examples of feudalism ). Japan has been extensively studied in this regard. Karl Friday notes that in

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4410-636: The 1850s. Slavery in Romania was abolished in 1856. Russia finally abolished serfdom in 1861. More recently in Scotland, on 28 November 2004, the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 entered into full force putting an end to what was left of the Scottish feudal system. The last feudal regime, that of the island of Sark , was abolished in December 2008, when the first democratic elections were held for

4515-515: The 21st century historians of Japan rarely invoke feudalism; instead of looking at similarities, specialists attempting comparative analysis concentrate on fundamental differences. Ultimately, critics say, the many ways the term feudalism has been used have deprived it of specific meaning, leading some historians and political theorists to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society. Historian Richard Abels notes that "Western civilization and world civilization textbooks now shy away from

4620-457: The 9th and 10th centuries receded and gave way to a new feudal order wherein independent aristocratic knights wielded power over peasant communities through strong-arm tactics and threats of violence. In 1939, the Austrian historian Theodor Mayer subordinated the feudal state as secondary to his concept of a Personenverbandsstaat (personal interdependency state), understanding it in contrast to

4725-640: The Admiralty ceased to exist, but the First, Second and Third Sea Lords retained their titles, despite ceasing to be Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty. To this day (2023) the first two senior officers of the Royal Navy are still known as First Sea Lord and Chief of the Naval Staff , and Second Sea Lord and Deputy Chief of Naval Staff . The Lords Commissioners were entitled collectively to be known as "The Right Honourable

4830-790: The Admiralty. With the abolition of the Board of Admiralty and its merger into the Ministry of Defence in 1964, formal control of the Navy was taken over by the Admiralty Board of the Defence Council of the United Kingdom, with the day-to-day running of the Navy taken over by the Navy Board. The office of Lord High Admiral was vested in the Crown (i.e. in the person of the current British monarch) and that of First Lord of

4935-703: The Crown (in reference to the Australian Monarchy) or the Commonwealth (in reference to the Australian Government). Lord is used as a generic term to denote members of the peerage . Five ranks of peer exist in the United Kingdom: in descending order these are duke , marquess , earl , viscount , and baron . The appellation "Lord" is used most often by barons, who are rarely addressed by their formal and legal title of "Baron". The most formal style

5040-572: The Enlightenment wrote about feudalism to denigrate the antiquated system of the Ancien Régime , or French monarchy. This was the Age of Enlightenment , when writers valued reason and the Middle Ages were viewed as the " Dark Ages ". Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages" including feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as

5145-512: The French Revolution, on just one night of 4 August 1789, France abolished the long-lasting remnants of the feudal order. It announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." Lefebvre explains: Without debate the Assembly enthusiastically adopted equality of taxation and redemption of all manorial rights except for those involving personal servitude—which were to be abolished without indemnification. Other proposals followed with

5250-734: The House of Lords by virtue of holding life peerages. Most of them (those who were members of the Appellate Committee ) were known collectively as the Law Lords . All judges, including former Law Lords, lost the right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, despite retaining their life peerages, upon creation of the Supreme Court. The appellation "Lord", though not the style, is also used to refer to some judges in certain Commonwealth legal systems, who are not peers. Some such judges, for instance judges of

5355-608: The Isle of Mann. The feudal title of "Lord of the Manor" is still recognised by the British Government for any such title registered at His Majesty's Land Registry before 13 October 2003 (the commencement date of the Land Registration Act 2002) but after that date titles can no longer be registered, and any such titles voluntarily de-registered by the holder cannot later be re-registered. However any transfer of ownership of registered manors will continue to be recorded in

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5460-428: The Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty", and were commonly referred to collectively as "Their Lordships" or "My Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty", though individual members were not entitled to these styles. More informally, they were known in short as "The Lords of the Admiralty". The Lords of the Admiralty are not peers. In Great Britain and Ireland , and in most countries that are members or former members of

5565-459: The Oluwa of Lagos is one of that kingdom's most powerful chiefs. English -speakers use the word "Lord" (generally with an initial upper-case letter) as a title of deference for various gods or deities. The earliest recorded use of "Lord" in the English language in a religious context occurred in the work of English writers such as Bede ( c.  673 – 735). However, Bede wrote in Latin ( Michael Lapidge describes him as "without question

5670-435: The United Kingdom is the House of Lords , which is an abbreviation of the full title, "The Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled". The Lords Temporal are the people who are entitled to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords in right of a peerage. The Lords Spiritual are the Archbishops of Canterbury and York , the Bishops of London , Winchester and Durham , and

5775-432: The adjectival form of feudum 'fee, feud', first attested in a charter of Charles the Fat in 884, which is related to Old French fé, fié, Provençal feo, feu, fieu, and Italian fio . The ultimate origin of feudālis is unclear. It may come from a Germanic word, perhaps fehu or *fehôd , but these words are not attested in this meaning in Germanic sources, or even in the Latin of the Frankish laws. One theory about

5880-478: The aspects of life were centred on "lordship", and so we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly (and anti-courtly) literature, and a feudal economy. In contradistinction to Bloch, the Belgian historian François Louis Ganshof defined feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulated this concept in Qu'est-ce que la féodalité? ("What

5985-440: The authority and powers held by feudal lords , overlords , and nobles , and preferred the idea of autocratic rule where a king and one royal court held almost all the power. Feudal nobles regardless of ethnicity generally thought of themselves as arbiters of a politically free system, so this often puzzled them before the fall of most feudal laws. Most of the military aspects of feudalism effectively ended by about 1500. This

6090-437: The church itself held power over the land with its own precarias . The most commonly utilized precarias was the gifting of land to the church, done for various spiritual and legal purposes. Although Charles Martel did indeed utilize precaria for his own purposes, and even drove some of the bishops out of the church and placed his own laymen in their seats, Fouracre discounts Martel's role in creating political change, that it

6195-405: The complex social and economic relationships among the individuals and institutions of the Mâconnais region and charted a profound shift in the social structures of medieval society around the year 1000. He argued that in early 11th century, governing institutions—particularly comital courts established under the Carolingian monarchy—that had represented public justice and order in Burgundy during

6300-444: The death of its author Thomas Madox , in 1727. In 1771, in his book The History of Manchester , John Whitaker first introduced the word "feudalism" and the notion of the feudal pyramid. Another theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū (the plural of fay , which literally means "the returned", and was used especially for 'land that has been conquered from enemies that did not fight'). Samarrai's theory

6405-491: The diminutive senhorita , "little lady", in Brazil ). Feudal Feudalism , also known as the feudal system , was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), describes

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6510-403: The earliest attested use being in Vita Hludovici (840) by Astronomus. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant , which can be translated as "Louis forbade that military provender (which they popularly call "fodder") be furnished." Initially in medieval Latin European documents, a land grant in exchange for service was called

6615-424: The edicts of 7 March, and 19 July 1797 issued by Charles Emmanuel IV , although in the Kingdom of Sardinia , specifically on the island of Sardinia , feudalism was abolished only with an edict of 5 August 1848. In the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia , feudalism was abolished with the law of 5 December 1861 n.º 342 were all feudal bonds abolished. The system lingered on in parts of Central and Eastern Europe as late as

6720-439: The election of a local parliament and the appointment of a government. The "revolution" is a consequence of the juridical intervention of the European Parliament , which declared the local constitutional system as contrary to human rights , and, following a series of legal battles, imposed parliamentary democracy . The phrase "feudal society" as defined by Marc Bloch offers a wider definition than Ganshof's and includes within

6825-403: The feudal structure not only the warrior aristocracy bound by vassalage, but also the peasantry bound by manorialism, and the estates of the Church. Thus the feudal order embraces society from top to bottom, though the "powerful and well-differentiated social group of the urban classes" came to occupy a distinct position to some extent outside the classic feudal hierarchy. The idea of feudalism

6930-401: The fief form the basis of the feudal relationship. Before a lord could grant land (a fief ) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony , which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty . During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for

7035-461: The highly profitable rights of justice, etc. (what Georges Duby called collectively the " seigneurie banale " ). Power in this period became more personal. This "fragmentation of powers" was not, however, systematic throughout France, and in certain counties (such as Flanders , Normandy , Anjou , Toulouse ), counts were able to maintain control of their lands into the 12th century or later. Thus, in some regions (like Normandy and Flanders ),

7140-520: The historical record. Supporters of Brown have suggested that the term should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval history entirely. In Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1994), Susan Reynolds expanded upon Brown's original thesis. Although some contemporaries questioned Reynolds's methodology, other historians have supported it and her argument. Reynolds argues: Too many models of feudalism used for comparisons, even by Marxists, are still either constructed on

7245-459: The latter construction akin to the parliamentary convention of referring to fellow legislators in the third person (as "my colleague", "the gentleman", "the member", etc.), although the level of formality conveyed by o senhor is not as great. In fact, variants of o senhor and a senhora with more nuanced meanings such as o professor ("professor"), o colega ("colleague") and o pai ("father") are also employed as personal pronouns. Often senhor

7350-424: The latter. As of December 2016, 92 Lords Temporal sit in the House in right of hereditary peerages (that being the maximum number allowed under the House of Lords Act 1999 ) and 19 sit in right of judicial life peerages under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 . The rest are life peers under the Life Peerages Act 1958 . Until the creation of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom (2009), certain judges sat in

7455-416: The lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces. Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. "Fealty" also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage; such an oath follows homage. Once the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in

7560-478: The lord for criminal offences, including capital punishment in some cases. Concerning the king's feudal court, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. These are examples of feudalism ; depending on the period of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied. In its origin, the feudal grant of land had been seen in terms of a personal bond between lord and vassal, but with time and

7665-464: The manor of lands they have inherited. The UK Identity and Passport Service will include such titles on a British passport as an "observation" (e.g., 'The Holder is the Lord of the Manor of X'), provided the holder can provide documentary evidence of ownership. The United States forbids the use of all titles on passports. Australia forbids the use of titles on passports if those titles have not been awarded by

7770-465: The middle of the 18th century, as a result of works such as Montesquieu 's De L'Esprit des Lois (1748; published in English as The Spirit of Law ), and Henri de Boulainvilliers 's Histoire des anciens Parlements de France (1737; published in English as An Historical Account of the Ancient Parliaments of France or States-General of the Kingdom , 1739). In the 18th century, writers of

7875-787: The modern French Monsieur , derives directly from the Latin seniorem , meaning "elder, senior". From this Latin source derived directly also the Italian Signore , the Spanish Señor , the Portuguese Senhor . Non- Romance languages have their own equivalents. Of the Germanic family there is the Dutch Meneer/Mijnheer/De Heer (as in: aan de heer Joren Jansen ), German Herr , and Danish Herre . All three of these stem from

7980-482: The most accomplished Latinist produced in these islands in the Anglo-Saxon period" ). He used an Anglo-Saxon phrase that indicated a noble, prince, ruler or lord to refer to God ; however, he applied this as a gloss to the Latin text that he was producing, and not as a clear translation of the term itself. "Lord", as a gloss to Old English dryhten , meant "royal", "ruler", "prince", or "noble", and did not indicate

8085-506: The noble and the religious senses. Its root, ginoo , is also found in Visayan languages like Cebuano as the term for "lord". Ginoo is also the Tagalog root for Ginoóng , the modern equivalent of the English term " Mister " (akin to how Romance language terms like señor may be glossed as either "lord", "mister", or "sir"). Ilocano meanwhile employs Apo for "Lord" in religious contexts; it

8190-492: The obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm : the nobility, the clergy , and those who lived off their labour, most directly the peasantry , which was bound by a system of manorialism . This order is often referred to as a feudal society , echoing Bloch's usage. Outside its European context, the concept of feudalism can be extended to analogous social structures in other regions, most often in discussions of feudal Japan under

8295-596: The office of Lord High Admiral into commission. The title Naval Lord to the Board of Admiralty was first used around the 1600s. These were a body of Senior Admirals, first called Naval Lord Commissioners, then Naval Lords then Professional Naval Lords then Sea Lords. The President of the Board was known as the First Lord of the Admiralty (with the other five Naval appointments being the Second Sea Lord, Third Sea Lord, etc. sequentially), or sometimes First Lord Commissioner of

8400-590: The one word " Bishop ". In the United States, bishops are addressed as "Excellency". Various other high offices of state in the United Kingdom, Commonwealth and Republic of Ireland are prefixed with the deferential appellation of "lord". These include: Holders of these offices are not ex officio peers, although the holders of some of the offices were in the past always peers. In most cultures in Europe an equivalent appellation denoting deference exists. The French term Mon Seigneur ("My Lord"), shortened to

8505-782: The oppression of feudal subjects with a holistic integration of political and economic life of the sort lacking under industrial capitalism. He also took it as a paradigm for understanding the power-relationships between capitalists and wage-labourers in his own time: "in pre-capitalist systems it was obvious that most people did not control their own destiny—under feudalism, for instance, serfs had to work for their lords. Capitalism seems different because people are in theory free to work for themselves or for others as they choose. Yet most workers have as little control over their lives as feudal serfs." Some later Marxist theorists (e.g. Eric Wolf ) have applied this label to include non-European societies, grouping feudalism together with imperial China and

8610-400: The order coming before capitalism . For Marx, what defined feudalism was the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy ) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce and money rents. He deemed feudalism a 'democracy of unfreedom', juxtaposing

8715-514: The origin of fehu was proposed by Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern in 1870, being supported by, amongst others, William Stubbs and Marc Bloch . Kern derived the word from a putative Frankish term *fehu-ôd , in which *fehu means "cattle" and -ôd means "goods", implying "a movable object of value". Bloch explains that by the beginning of the 10th century it was common to value land in monetary terms but to pay for it with objects of equivalent value, such as arms, clothing, horses or food. This

8820-419: The purchaser the impression of a physical existence. Whether a title of "Lord of the Manor" is registered or unregistered has no effect on its legal validity or existence, which is a matter of law to be determined by the courts. Modern legal cases have been won by persons claiming rights as lords of the manor over village greens . The heads of many ancient English land-owning families have continued to be lords of

8925-489: The quota of knights required by the king or a money payment in substitution). In the 20th century, two outstanding historians offered still more widely differing perspectives. The French historian Marc Bloch , arguably the most influential 20th-century medieval historian, approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one, presenting in Feudal Society (1939; English 1961)

9030-416: The register, on the appropriate notification. Thus in effect the register is closed for new registrations. Such titles are legally classified as "incorporeal hereditaments" as they have no physical existence, and usually have no intrinsic value. However a lucrative market arose in the 20th century for such titles, often for purposes of vanity, which was assisted by the existence of an official register, giving

9135-412: The same period or later: Counties and duchies began to break down into smaller holdings as castellans and lesser seigneurs took control of local lands, and (as comital families had done before them) lesser lords usurped/privatized a wide range of prerogatives and rights of the state, including travel dues, market dues, fees for using woodlands, obligations, use the lord's mill and, most importantly,

9240-434: The same success: the equality of legal punishment, admission of all to public office, abolition of venality in office, conversion of the tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, prohibition of plural holding of benefices ... Privileges of provinces and towns were offered as a last sacrifice. Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than

9345-597: The tenants of a certain class of manor known in Saxon times as Infangenthef their lord was a man who had the power of exercising capital punishment over them. The term invariably used in contemporary mediaeval documents is simply "lord of X", X being the name of the manor. The term "Lord of the Manor" is a recent usage of historians to distinguish such lords from feudal barons and other powerful persons referred to in ancient documents variously as "Sire" (mediaeval French), "Dominus" (Latin), "Lord" etc. The Scottish title Laird

9450-464: The term 'feudalism'." Lord Lord is an appellation for a person or deity who has authority , control, or power over others, acting as a master, chief, or ruler. The appellation can also denote certain persons who hold a title of the peerage in the United Kingdom , or are entitled to courtesy titles . The collective "Lords" can refer to a group or body of peers . According to

9555-459: The term feudalism has also been questioned in the context of some Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, with scholars observing that the medieval political and economic structure of those countries bears some, but not all, resemblances to the Western European societies commonly described as feudal. The word feudal comes from the medieval Latin feudālis ,

9660-484: The territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres. These acquired powers significantly diminished unitary power in these empires. However, once the infrastructure to maintain unitary power was re-established—as with the European monarchies—feudalism began to yield to this new power structure and eventually disappeared. The classic François Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes

9765-508: The transformation of fiefs into hereditary holdings, the nature of the system came to be seen as a form of "politics of land" (an expression used by the historian Marc Bloch ). The 11th century in France saw what has been called by historians a " feudal revolution " or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" (Bloch) that was unlike the development of feudalism in England or Italy or in Germany in

9870-522: The twenty-one longest-serving bishops of the Church of England from among the other bishops (plus some female bishops of shorter service in consequence of the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 ), who are all entitled to receive writs of summons in right of their bishoprics or archbishoprics. The Lords Temporal greatly outnumber the Lords Spiritual, there being nearly 800 of the former and only 26 of

9975-454: The use of Sua Senhoria became restricted to address the lesser ranks of titled nobility ( viscounts and barons), the legitimate sons and daughters of titled nobility, occupants of some offices at court, diplomats, some other authorities, and canons. Presently it is used in the same context as mister ( senhor Silva , or Sr. Silva , meaning "Mr. Silva "), or as a way of saying a formal " you " ( O senhor tem uma casa meaning "You (male) have

10080-440: The vassal could have other obligations to his lord, such as attendance at his court, whether manorial , baronial, both termed court baron , or at the king's court. It could also involve the vassal providing "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. At the level of the manor this might be a fairly mundane matter of agricultural policy, but also included sentencing by

10185-472: The vassal/feudal system was an effective tool for ducal and comital control, linking vassals to their lords; but in other regions, the system led to significant confusion, all the more so as vassals could and frequently did pledge themselves to two or more lords. In response to this, the idea of a "liege lord" was developed (where the obligations to one lord are regarded as superior) in the 12th century. Around this time, rich, "middle-class" commoners chafed at

10290-436: Was a vassal of the King. Where a knight was a lord of the manor, he was referred to in contemporary documents as "John (Surname), knight, lord of (manor name)". A feudal baron was a true titular dignity, with the right to attend Parliament, but a feudal baron, Lord of the Manor of many manors, was a vassal of the King. The substantive title of "lord of the manor" came into use in the English medieval system of feudalism after

10395-633: Was established. It is possible, Samarrai says, that French scribes, writing in Latin, attempted to transliterate the Arabic word fuyū (the plural of fay ), which was used by the Muslim invaders and occupiers at the time, resulting in a plurality of forms – feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others—from which eventually feudum derived. Samarrai, however, also advises to handle this theory with care, as Medieval and Early Modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically "fanciful roots" to support outlandish claims that something

10500-494: Was first used in 17th-century French legal treatises (1614) and translated into English legal treatises as an adjective, such as "feodal government". In the 18th century, Adam Smith , seeking to describe economic systems, effectively coined the forms "feudal government" and "feudal system" in his book The Wealth of Nations (1776). The phrase "feudal system" appeared in 1736, in Baronia Anglica , published nine years after

10605-451: Was known as feos , a term that took on the general meaning of paying for something in lieu of money. This meaning was then applied to land itself, in which land was used to pay for fealty, such as to a vassal. Thus the old word feos meaning movable property would have changed to feus , meaning the exact opposite: landed property. Archibald Ross Lewis proposes that the origin of 'fief' is not feudum (or feodum ), but rather foderum ,

10710-489: Was of Arabian or Muslim origin. Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire: such as in the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century AD, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without allocating land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land and their power over

10815-628: Was partly since the military shifted from armies consisting of the nobility to professional fighters thus reducing the nobility's claim on power, but also because the Black Death reduced the nobility's hold over the lower classes. Vestiges of the feudal system hung on in France until the French Revolution of the 1790s. Even when the original feudal relationships had disappeared, there were many institutional remnants of feudalism left in place. Historian Georges Lefebvre explains how at an early stage of

10920-417: Was simply a military move in order to have control in the region by hording land through tenancies, and expelling the bishops who he did not agree with, but it did not specifically create feudalism.   Karl Marx also uses the term in the 19th century in his analysis of society's economic and political development, describing feudalism (or more usually feudal society or the feudal mode of production ) as

11025-491: Was unknown and the system it describes was not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the medieval period. This section describes the history of the idea of feudalism, how the concept originated among scholars and thinkers, how it changed over time, and modern debates about its use. The concept of a feudal state or period, in the sense of either a regime or a period dominated by lords who possess financial or social power and prestige, became widely held in

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