It shouldn't escape our notice, either, that feudalism was robust enough to last for roughly three quarters of a millennium. Probably due in great part to its decentralized nature, which will always be far more adaptive and resilient than centralized, top-down schemes.
Are you seriously pro-feudalism? Why so eager to give up self-governance and freedom? Are you hoping the Church will take care of you so you don't have to take care of yourself?
Absolutely. Even fairly recently, a poor peasant entered the church around 10 years old, having never eaten bread being more expensive than his family could afford. He became pope, as John XXIII.
@@matheuspinho4987 to some extent yes, but many of the highest clerks of the church were related to nobility or the monarchy, second sons and all. For the medieval period meritocratic, but a lot less then even a modern company, bureaucracy, or even modern militaries. The last one I know of personally.
@@parrismd The interdict of celibacy, like so much of the Christian catholic religion, are merely words not deeds. Very few sane priests ever really kept it and rightly so.
The most popular myth about feudalism is that kings have absolute power but its the opposite. The king's power was heavily dependent on the support of the lords who could raised thier own levies in rebellion this made it very decentralised. In absolute monarch, power is concentrated in the capital and lords certainly don't have the means to rebel as easily as they have no fyrds to raise armies from.
Well, an absolute monarchy is actually easier to hold accountable in a Christian nation. The standards of behavior were far higher than for any other leaders in world history besides feudal monarchs, and it is obvious who is at fault if something happens. No blame spreading (like in democracies).
The idea that monarchs have absolute power comes from the rise of absolutism in the 16th and 17th century, and has nothing to do with medieval feudalism
People now a days: “We are peasants serving a corrupt hierarchy!” Me: “No worse. Medieval Lords actually protected their servants and had a vested interest in their success.”
It is True, the Chiefs of the Great Clan Ross the Earls of Ross progenitors to the Majority of Modern Ross' (a Pedigree, a Surname once Protected by Law Across the Empire!), were a Far Better Leader than any Modern Ones...
@@sphtpfhorbrains3592 I Speak the President's Americanese! Additionally, I do pretty good legal work, and my Capitalizations of things, actually isn't to far off from how one can Capitalize words in those Formats... The Fact is, you are trying to Put me down to put yourself up because I am so Visibly Better than you in every way shape and form that attempting to put me down so you can Put Yourself above me helps your Fragile Ego, a shattered Ego after what your Uncle did to you as a Boy... Still Don't Walk Right I Hear...
I mean thats it, he explained how feudalism was the "solution" to the chaos after the fall the of Western Roman empire. which before that was the center of power that kept the regions inside of it "stable" and "safe" before its collapse. If u want west like USA west one could say that the decentralation of poweres to smaller vessels and lords was the upwind to "modern western capitalism" ( not saying its the same thing i just mean bc of the lack of centralized controle through 1 specific king/ruler/dictator) ( english no first speak pls ask if smt unclear m8 )
He’s misinformed if I’m being generous. It seems more likely that he has an agenda on full display for all to witness. I just hope that people don’t buy this any more than MSNBC, Fox News or WWE…
I think he did. He more or less explicated how the feudal system reordered western society in the absence of Central and long reaching institutional authority and administration.
It should be said Feudalism was experienced differently across the continent. Italy I would say experienced it lightly, the eastern Roman Empire never really had it, Spain went back and forth. England was far more legalistic, and the HRH went overboard.
Not true. Agrarian employees were bound to the land in the Eastern Roman Empire and feudalism became deeply entrenched in areas influenced by it to the north and east.
@@kgblankinship no feudalism is the structure of government and society. In the eastern Roman Empire the bureaucracy was separate from holding a estate. And the emperors had much greater control of the empire than the decentralized kingdoms of Europe. And a vibrant merchant class was a very important part of the economy unlike the primitive economies of Europe. At least until the 4th crusade anyway.
In most places, serfs worked on contract and could leave when the contract finished. Usually they didn't leave because they had solid employment. One of the best places to be a serf was on an old roman villa, and people who worked villas were called, "villains" - that term became derogatory in modern speech because as feudal polities were conquered into early states with legislatures and diets, the early states needed basically slave labor, so at that point serfs lost pretty much all their rights.
@@fusion9619 well that’s a great fantasy. Serfs were bound to the land they could not be bought or sold but were transferred with property exchange. There were many laws in Britain, France, the HRH, Russia, etc that explicitly prohibited serfs from leaving. The church men of England record several times when serfs running away and being chased by their lords. Serfdom only began falling apart as agriculture changed. And as I said feudalism was experienced differently. Italy never fully had it so serfdom was lesser. The Habsburgs legislated against under Joseph I. And Russians had well into the 1860s.
The thing about Feudalism is that the governments were allowed to grow and adapt organically based on curcumstance and customs. This happened to such an extent that modern historians have put into question wether feudalism as a system even existed due to the differences of government across Europe at the time!
Classical Feudalism throughout the Late 6Th Century to Mid 14Th Century didn't Operate under a Active Form of Governance with a Adaptive Policy through Time tho.
No system is perfect, but feudal societies maintained cultural and social cohesion, unlike modern society which is collapsing before our eyes. Also, religious faith and a strong sense of local community helped a lot in people's lives, while now so many people feel atomized, lonely and depressed.
@@deutschermichel5807 There still were Cathars/Bogomils - those deemed heretics. Life for them was certainly very tough, there were persecutions and even crusades against them. But I was talking in general, on average, for the majority who were Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox in Eastern Europe).
Agreed. Without a formal legal system, a man's pledge, vow or oath would become paramount. Those who failed to be faithful would quickly be identified. This would put a premium on personal virtue. One's family and community would also become important again
I mean, what would you term "civilizational" collapse? I mean, 20 years ago Iowa was #1 in education, had gay marriage, and was growing. Now we are essentially like West Virginia--education is not only terrible here, it's looked down upon to be educated. That is the nail in the coffin in any society, where the mass of people look at all the intelligent people and confuse them for the politicians, and end up destroying their society.
Here's the thing most people dont get when viewing history, specially political history: the modern systems we know and use came about and were established by people who benefitted greatly from them and largely spread them by demonizing the previous systems. So we get tons of weird and outlandish depictions of feudalism, but when its about greek republican democracy, its mostly depicted as fair and enlightened. Not saying feudalism was perfect or even better, but its not the cartoon that mostly people talk about nowadays.
The same people who criticize the feudal king's "absolute power" are usually the same people who either directly or indirectly want to centralize power in the hands of the state. Figure that one out.
Yes. Because an absolute monarch ist not elected, nor bound by law. The state in itself is not intrinsically good or evil. It all depends on who runs or owns the state. This can be the people ideally, an absolute Monarch or corporate Plutocrats. I'd rather live in a highly centralised democracy where law rules than a warlord who just has bigger guns than me.
as a devoted history lover I would like to add: - Europe is more than the West. In fact Rome survived in the East in Konstantinople about a 1000 years longer than in the West. - it has been the monastries that have provided Western Europe with intellectual knowledge saved from Roman times and developped it further. - regardless of the political system we should acknowledge that stability and security are important if not the most important factors in society
How can you talk about feudalism in medieval Europe without giving it's due to the Catholic Church or the importance of religion for the medieval man, from the serf to the king? Edit: missing question mark
@@asaoa91 Pretty much. Nobles didn't need to follow the church. Since they where above the law. They didn't need to obey it. So long as the nobility put a nice tithe in the popes pocket. The church would make an excuse for them.
@@thesurnamewithnoname7188 That's an extremely superficial, modern and biased view of the Middle Ages. Am I saying that all people in medieval Europe were fervent and sincere believers and followers of Christ and Rome? Of course not. Christianity permeated every strata of medieval society, so at least as a social convention Christianity and Church positions were of great importance and nobles usually thought twice about going against them. Suggesting that nobles in their majority did not believe nor followed Church teaching is not founded in history
Not nearly as chaotic as people think. Most people went their whole lives without any violence. We get the impression that wars were happening a lot because the polities were small, so there's just a lot more history to cover. It was a golden age, really, at least in my opinion because I'd really like to live how they lived.
[Henry III disliked that]. The English were brutal during the hundred-years war, and so were the French, burning towns to deny assets. so it makes sense.
The feudal system didn't go away, we simply democratized it. If you don't pay your tribute (property taxes) to your feudal lord (town/city) then you will be kicked off the land - even if it's been in your family for 10 generations. The land owner ultimately rents all of their land from the state. In return for this tribute you are provided with protection (police, fire fighting) and other public goods (roads, schools, water, etc.) I'm not saying this is good or bad, it's just the way it is.
Feudalism wasn't a so much a system as the absence of a system. When there is no grand impersonal bureaucracy, you have to rely on personal relationships between people.
4:51 Well, but, yeah. That's why there was little social mobility - you had to be a healthy dude who didn't die in battle in order to move up a rung or two. That's an extremely small percentage of the population.
Indeed!! That's we work overtime to bring it back once again. You'll own nothing, pay the rent for every life essential to your rentiers, be traded like a cattle which you deserve, and by golly, you'll be so happy. Thanks again for bringing such good news to our friendly neighborhood.
What's your point exactly? If you think medieval peasants paid rent, you have no idea what feudalism is or was. Wide spread wage labor and the loss of ownership were symptoms of the breakdown and replacement of feudalism.
Nobles didn’t own land. The king owned all land. Fiefdoms could be revoked by the king or the liege. It wasn’t a very stable system. Not only were all participants full time trained well-equipped warriors jealous of their rights and honour, scheming and armed conflict was endemic to the system. Most of Europe’s GDP was squandered by the noble houses for centuries, either as outright conspicuous consumption as a marker of status, or for the incredible expenses of training and equipping the noble class and their retinues, fortifying their residences and prosecuting their wars. They all wanted more money all the time, which did allow for a certain rate of economic and agricultural development, but this was a secondary consideration to climbing the greasy often fatal pole of feudal hierarchy by fair means or foul.
I believe it was indeed Martel who introduced the system to Western Europe, as well as Chivalry and the transformation of Germanic military from infantry to cavalry and the elevation of the status of women and the horse. I believe this transformation was partly based on the equal-field system developed in the waring states period in China and transmitted west through the Eastern Roman Empire. This land system in China was responsible for the most successful of the Chinese Empires, the early Tang. Feudalism eventually elevated Western Europe to leadership of the world.
@@kgblankinship During the period 200-100BC the Roman Empire's agricultural economy was transformed from small plebian land holdings into a slave plantation economy. This resulted in the death of the Republic. I see no evidence that Diocletian abolished the slave plantations, freed the slaves and gave them all plots of land to work. Perhaps you could elaborate on your comment.
@@robertenstrom1382100 BC isn't really relevant to the time of Rome's "fall" - "fade" would be more accurate. Slavery had little to do with it. The real reason Rome ended, at least in the west, was because of extremely high inflation, in the form of coin debasement. I say this as an economist - we have to know at least some history in economics. It's really quite similar to the modern problem of inflation causing housing to be unaffordable. The market can't establish a realistic equilibrium for prices when the money supply is expanding. Without truthful price signals, the economy just doesn't work. So, in Rome's case, large land estates became as self sufficient as possible, and that became the new organizing principle for society.
@@fusion9619 You need to read more carefully. I said "Republic", not "Empire". Slavery did indeed cause the end of the Republic and its replacement by an Empire. Before the slave plantation economy took over, the Republic could raise armies almost yearly, but after the destruction of the plebian farming base of the Republic's population, raising armies was difficult domestically. This was why Rome had to recall its armies from the borders to put down the slave uprisings around 100BC, instead of raising new armies as it did so often, on a much smaller population base during the Punic wars.
@@robertenstrom1382 I remember that argument from college. It still strikes me as wrong. Historians don't seem to look deeper at sociological reasons for things. Again, it was the monetary inflation, and the mispricing of goods that inflation causes. This is probably the biggest force that can impact sociology, by which I mean the psychology of both individuals and populations. Again, compare it to modern circumstances. Because the cost of living is unreasonable, most people sell themselves into slavery, although they are too timid to recognize it as slavery. Wages don't keep up with inflation, savings are worth less over time, which forces people to gamble with "investments," the number of years of work required to buy a house is increasing while the quality of everything decreases. This is the disease of bad money. Roman money was so bad that by the end of the empire, the Roman state wouldn't accept Roman money as payment of taxes. Also, a republic can be an empire, but I get your meaning. And Roman slavery wasn't chattel slavery - it wasn't really comparable to the modern conception of slavery. And you should be very suspicious of modern academic versions of history to seem too convenient for modern social issues. Claiming that slavery ended Rome is simplistic and cannot be the whole truth, but is very convenient to modern narratives.
@@SusCalvinwe got modern languages because early states, after subjugating all the small communities, used the public school system to separate kids from parents and force them to use the language of the capital. France was especially brutal, but they learned it from the Prussians. The Chinese are still doing it. Nation states don't like their slaves speaking their own language.
Feudalism was based on balance of three elements: nobility, peasantry and Church. Nobility was providing protection against external threats, peasantry was providing labour and the church was keeping both of them at bay, preventing slavery and excess cruelty.
The whole 'power vacuum' expression is hilarious to me. Our alien conquerors will say that the earth had a power vacuum and that's why they took it. The expression implies a kind of justification. history is indeed written by the
I LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS ALARMING, THOUGH, IS THAT WE ARE ALREADY EXPERIENCING THAT "CIVILIZATIONAL DECLINE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
_"There's no overarching political entity running the show"_ Erm, try telling that to William the Conqueror. He put down all Anglo-Saxon rebellion to his rule in Britain (took him many years) and put in Barons etc. loyal to him to ensure England's full capitulation. In fact, the rapid transformation in English (Angland) culture from Anglo-Saxon to Norman tells us that the Norman's would have slaughtered (genocide) a great many people in Britain whilst supplanting them with Normans. And we see this in the turn of not only the language but also with names of the population changing in like manner and in quick succession. This only happens when the former culture has been wiped out via assimilation or domination, and the Norman conquest was more of the latter.
First of all: England isn't the entirety of Europe, and the previous political entity was the western Roman empire spanning pretty much all of that. So no matter what happened in England specifically, the statement is still 100% true. Besides, William was one of at least three candidates with some hereditary claims in succeeding the previous English king, and the candidates failed working it out diplomatically so they fought over it with the help of those having sworn loyalty to the individual candidates. Eventually one of those candidates, William, won this. Every conflict ends at some point, but that doesn't make William a Europe-spanning overarching political entity, he's a person temporarily ruling over England, depending on the loyalty of his followers. We also see a bit later the war of the barons, and then the sequel war of the barons #1, where the king loses loyalty of (some of their barons. We also still have the Norman territories in France which belong to the English king but also make the English king in his function as duke of Normandy a vassal of the French king, who in turn also struggles with other powerful vassals like Burgundy... which later leads to the 100 years war. And after that, the war of Roses where different families and their followers compete for the English throne... clearly there is no modern-day political sense of a nation during the medieval period. Also, Normans imposed part of their culture as they were, as followers of the new king, in positions of power and nobility even when they were a clear minority numerically. But English is not French and the Anglosaxon culture was not wiped or genocided away, it was merely merged with Norman French culture.
Medieval Europe did rather well considering it was basically a post apocalypse scenario following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Then you consider that most of the things people know about Medieval period is wrong and either a complete lie or applying later absolutist framework of monarchy to Medieval Feudalism. Medieval Kings didn't have absolute power. Quite the opposite, they barely had any say. Modern day Prime Ministers and Presidents have more power than most Medieval Kings...
You do realise what a huge jump "the Fall of the Western Roman Empire" to "Charles Martel" is ? You kind of argue that the Fall of Rome pulled the plug on the bathwater and everything became this huge chaotic whirlwind with nothing left but oaths of honour between individuals, while in three hundred years, Europe had seem some very powerful kingdoms like the Visigoths, the Franks, the Ostrogoths and the return of the Bizantines ? You really can't argue your point like that. I think the feudal system much rather emerged as a heritage from the Germanic tribal system, tempered by christianity, but that it was a legtimate, full scale complex political system dating as far back as the Roman Empire itself, with which it eventually combined : Rome becoming the unifying, central authority once more, as it needed to be, although this time only religiously and spiritually.
Very fair points. I will concur with you that outside the Roman Empire, huge swaths of the "white" world were tribal like the Apache in North America or the Zulu the Brits fought in Africa. I'm half German-American and that is basically what my pre-Christian era Germanic ancestors were during the reign of the Roman Empire: white Apache or white Zulu. What great cathedrals or stone buildings did the Apache and Zulu build, prior to European encounter, like wise where were their libraries and great novelist and literary biographers and theological writings? The Dark Ages never existed, in part because during the reign of the Roman Empire my Germanic ancestors had a verbal language but no written ✍️ language, Catholic monks gave that to them, in addition most of Earth would have to be called the "Dark Ages" prior to European Christian colonialism and "Islamic" nations or empires that colonized more primitive societies. Yes, I know, both colonized some kingdoms or empires that were just as advanced or more so in some aspects, as their own be it the Inca or in portions of what we call India today. The Roman Empire and Europe were not the same thing. Europe as a concept was largely created by the Catholic Church after the Fall of Rome. But I enjoyed this video. He gave some good insights and things to think about.
The problem with feudalism is the vassal or serf has no true freedom because the property isn't his. It's the land lord's property and the land lord has all the power. For a time when education was limited and the economy was mostly small scale agriculture, Feudalism worked. But there's a reason it didn't last forever.
@@corveramoenglish7275 It's yours once you receive the title. Titled property for commoners is one of the cornerstone's of upward social and economic mobility in America.
@@nicolamcostello it's in my understanding that no country would sell the rights to the land except for the institution of an embassy in rare occasions. What you call ownership is in my opinion "the right to occupy" with a "deed" as the proof of a purchase of those rights being "done". If you are the owner of the land then all responsibility to its military protection falls on you, and you don't need to pay taxes to anyone for it. But it has come to my attention that even after having a clean "deed" you have to keep paying taxes for your land. The system is just renamed, complicated and expensive from the land rights perspective. But the basic structure is still there
I always thought Dune was interesting by comparison to Star Trek because Star Trek is just space Liberalism without money whereas Dune imagined a world after all that space Liberalism.
Star Trek is the furthest thing from liberalism. They have no economy at all, and liberalism means economic freedom, and besides, the Federation is a military dictatorship which expands via conquest. They dress everything up in modern moral camouflage, but the real nuts and bolts of the Federation is that they use the threat of force to gain power over planets. But the viewer never thinks about that because there's a female psychologist on the Enterprise and every episode is moral story.
Social mobility is overrated and impossible in a society. Some folks need to be ok with being poor. Not everyone can have everything. Especially for nothing. Id love to be a landowing serf in the 1500s in England.
@@elbryn1If your only alternative to communism is feudal serfdom, I think you will accidentally push people into communism. Land ownership was not guaranteed. Land could be owned by upper aristocracy and rented. You could be a church serf and pay them tax. There is funky city-leagues.
@OddzAre Or maybe equality is a false a priori assumption. Man is necessarily different from one another. Why would that not logically lead to conflict and hierarchy?
Less like a pyramid and more like a cone, it is more versatile than the imperial absolutist system, but was always prone to jams, but could be worked around and fixed the other issues, were the regional border turmoils that "Dark Ages" were best known for, mostly because there was either a lack of focus on borders or the lack of developing them further,
For nearly a millennia, civilization survived despite feudalism, not because of it. Just imagine how many wars might never have happened if not for some noble having a dispute with some other noble. After Rome's fall, feudalism was not some kind of saviour, it was simply the law of the strongest, just like it's always the case when a society collapses.
Your view is wrong. Feudalisms decentralized nature made way for advances in law, especially international. The church served as connective tissue for all of europe. When lords warred, it was not the corrupt nationalist wars of modernity. Civilians and the economy were spared as the rulers saw them as his future dominion, and generally because of familiarity and connectedness of the different peoples in europe thru the church, similar culture, laws etc. Medieval europe was a perfect place of minimaly destructive competition that is needed for all the technological, but more importantly social and political developments to occur that gave way to our modern luxurious lives. Should we bring back feudalism? Absolutely not. But can we learn things from it? Yes.
The primary weakness of Feudalism is that it didn't incentivize innovation. Feudalism incentivized the status quo. This was reinforced by the lack of availability or opportunity for social mobility. Could you move up the ladder? Yes, but it was exceedingly rare compared to today. Also, Feudalism's foundational structure relied upon social relationships and loyalty to those relationships - which were subjective. Versus today's systems are built upon the rule of law - was is far more objective and applied to all equally. Feudalism was reinforced by the Church, another highly unstable parallel power structure that had it's own incentives to maintain the status quo and if anything, revert to traditional ways of thinking. Overall, Feudalism succeeded because of the incentive structures or lack of them.
Feudalism was imposed upon the English by the Normans. The English then tried to impose it on the Irish. Just look up what Ireland was like under the Brehon law system, frankly it worked far better than feudalism.
It was the germanic invaders' way of handling communal structures. Its really reminiscent of the royal arya with the scythians and how they structured things. Almost like the ideas are genetically built in? Blood memory maybe, along with practical necessity?
Chinese also had feudalism so no. It’s not blood it’s simply how large empires are structured in the absence of administration institutions. Western Zhou dynasty and HRE aren’t that different in choosing that governance structure to control their empires the best they could.
@badart3204 You're completely right, and what were the physical characteristics of the ancient "Chinese?" You know, all those 6 ft 5 mummies with red hair? Demographics today are not what they were then. Same as the ainu in northern Japan with blonde hair. At some point, the obvious answer is right there. It's not odd to suppose these ideas were transported around by a common people who could travel far distances. Same as the breeding and migration of horses.
@@demaistre2458I heavily doubt that DNA can transfer information to this detail. Sure it can allow for some pre dispositions of character through brain and physical changes, but there is no reason that these ideas would need to be genetically imprinted the same way breastfeeding or breathing is. It's also silly to think that only one specific group could be capable of doing great things given that whoever is too good ends up failing because of a lack of reasons to change, not to mention conquerors always end up mixing in with local populations, like Hittites, Mongols and Turks. So if anything it's all just cultural.
Seems that other systems that pre-date Rome, or are not European, are not considered “Feudal”, but look similar (e.g. there’s a king and aristocracy). What makes Feudalism different from these?
Not sure about the rest of Europe, but in Italian city states, artistry and mercantilism would very easily get you there, especially if you conducted your business under sanction of the church of the courts.
In this video you say peasants were bound to the vassals and the vassals to the lord. The peasants were vassals of lord and the lord was a vassal of the monarchy or another lord. You’re not wrong about it but I thought I’d mention it since it was omitted in a manor. Yes, pun intended.
The biggest problem with feudalism is succession. Succession can be split into two distinct problems. Nepotism and a lack of clarity in succession. Nepotism is a problem when a good king has an heir that is not remotely qualified. On the up side knowing all your life your going to be king and hopefully being involved with all of the vassals you will be well trained for the job when it’s yours. But there is zero guarantee of that. The second problem occurs when there is no clear heir and all of the potentials start to maneuver to claim the crown. War is all but inevitable. Both cases often lead to war and the wholesale slaughter of the surfs. Solve the succession problem and feudalism could be a great fallback for any rebuilding of society
Something similar has been my thought lately as well. Many of the duties within feudalism were linked to ownership, which is by it's nature handed down within the family. I don't see an easy "systemic" fix. The solution and dire requirement has always been and will be virtue. After all, we don't want to build societies that can last and last without anyone (in power) being virtuous.
My thought is limit the term of the king, say 20 years and must at all times have 3 named successors who cannot be related to the king and will need to be ratified by the lords upon their naming.
@@jamesbarron7512 Impeachability of the King could also be an option. The already named successors seems like a really good idea. I think these things could also work in an elective monarchy.
Roman=slave economy and big estates. Poor farmers. Inflation. Association of big cities. Assimilation of local ruling elites. Borders too long to effectively defend.
The serfs were slaves, so they didn't pay taxes obviously. They became more like free men over time just by the lived tradition of Feudalism. Hillaire Belloc's "The Servile State" gives a nice outline of this development.
When the King fails to protect the fiefs, the fiefs no longer have the obligation to defend the King! Men generally had honour, were generally (at least nominally) Christian and so generally kept their oaths, so the system worked! Interestingly, this system also generated Fief Simple Title, meaning Title that held no obligations to the King. This is the origin of our modern Fee Simple Title, otherwise known as Freehold or Allodial Title. To tax Fee Simple land is a monumental Fraud as it breaches the very notion of Fee Simple meaning "Land Held with No Oath or Obligation to the King". It amounts to pure extortion and this view is not just my own but has been upheld by Common Law High Courts all over the English-Speaking World, including here in Australia, Fejo v NT, 2011, paragraph 11.
Going from the fall of the Roman empire right to feudalism, while ignoring what was going on outside rome before the fall and who took over is already not very promising for the quality of the video
It's an interesting era to study how & why it formed, just because the entirety of Europe was apparently not 100% governed through absolute monarchies before Christianization. Generally speaking, the entirety of Europe didn't exactly societal collapse with the fall of Rome, but trade with the wider world into Europe was disrupted & everyone in Europe was jealous of Rome & wanted to emulate its culture. The Germanic peoples conquered almost all of western Europe during the Dark Ages & created what we think of as Medieval Europe, while the Byzantines worked hard to Christianize the Slavs, causing some Slavs to turn to the Muslims for protection & the two cultures merged with what was already there to give Eastern Europe its own culture & style- the classical fairy tale look, with the spire like towers and white washed castles upon plateaus & other easily defensible natural structures. The think that is sad, though, is Germanic peoples were democratic, with elected Jarls who governed alongside a council of land owners, anyone could have upward mobility to becoming a land owner & women had things easier in pagan times than they did under Medieval Christianity, where their only real options for the average woman were to exist as a sex object & free maid while simultaneously being treated like a monster for other people deciding they're a sex object, or become a nun. They weren't a well off as they are in modern society, but definitely had more mobility, freedom & value in pagan times. Yet, the Germans wanted to be the next Rome & adopting varying degrees of absolute monarchy made them increasingly easier for the church to generate & Convert, so they could push it onto the average persons. And, over time, the level of absolute power got increasingly concentrated in the king while everyone else slowly lost power & just had to be OK with being better off than others in return for loyalty & hope they didn't get a dangerously unhinged monarch. And then the power games start over which family can get closest to the king & manipulate his every move from behind the scenes, because that's really the only level of control you can ever hope to have over your life, now. Then, we get the late Dark Ages & early Medieval period, which are almost entirely aggressively, yet randomly & haphazardly stamping down people still practicing paganism or anyone continuing practices deemed too pagan, creating a pretty odd level of diversity in European customs across Northern Europe. People came up with new explanations for practices & church leaders were lax about it in one province & obsessed with ending it for good in another, while trying not to go so far that the peasants snap & revolt. One thing I do know is that Christianity literally does not have the capacity to do what it did back then all over again in Western Civilization & that is because the Pagans didn't really fight back that hard against conversion until it was too late for them to ever hope to win that fight. Once they were pissed, it was for literally the same exact reasons why people don't like it today. Same exact thing happened to the Native Americans- they didn't really try to stop it at first, until they saw what Christianity actually did to people, and then they were vehemently against it, but whites already had a foothold here & their numbers were getting too high to hold them off forever. People already have enough of an understanding of Christianity to be pissed enough to fight back against being pressed into conversions en masse from day one & aren't as ignorant of natural forces & the way the world works as they used to be. So, if western civilization were to collapse, it would either be conquered or dissolve into a bunch of failed states & warlords fighting over every little bit of land they can get & trying to punish one another enough to where no one ever gets ahead & manages to truly rebuild, all the while someone else is consolidating money & power & building something new somewhere in the world.
Absolute monarchy is not a medieval phenomenon. The shape it took was due to the nation state, which is a modern phenomenon. What Christianity does is different from what Christians do.
@@QuekksilberI agree, absolutely monarchies were in Europe before Christianity, it just wasn't every single group. The Germanic peoples appear to have ruled by a democratic council of landowners, excepting the Goths & Franks, once they conquered down into former Roman territory.
@@MrChristianDT Monarchy in general and absolute monarchies are also a different thing. The medieval conception of the king was very different than the baroque one.
The average marriage age for women in the Middle Ages was like 27. If they were “basically sex slaves” the average age for marriage would have been in the teens. I think there’s some gross misrepresentation here. Women in pagan Rome could be forced into temple prostitution, a practice strictly forbidden in Jewish (and Christian) law. The idea that a woman (and thereby men) could participate in sex only after a man promised lifelong fidelity to her is notably Judeo-Christian and a stark contrast to the way they were used and abused in pagan society. That’s not to say every person upheld the Christian laws, but the fact that they existed at all gives indication that justice was a guiding virtue.
Military service in the U.S. is still a great way to move up in social class. Serve 8 years honorably and make sufficient rank, and you'll be solidly in the middle class.
The Thing with sozial Mobilität is a Tricky Thing. If you wanted to rise up you had to start aß knight. Fight brave and maybe become a noble man in return. Could everybody start aß a knight? Yes and no. The law said everybody who has Equipment and Training can be a knight. Problem Equipment and Training was expensive. And a lot could not afford it. Sometimes the lord run of knights and recruted men with second Hand Equipment. Ind late medival times new forgetecnikes made armor cheaper. New battletaktices made cheaper Equipment.ent more useful. Mercenarygroups had to recruit new man and sold them equipment that had to be paid with later salaries. Trade and banking flourished and some could afford expensive stuff. However sozial mobility might have existed to a degree but it was not aß comon aß you say.
more like feudalism thru lack of centralized gov allowed people to return to their own ideas and beliefs, and founded the regionals identities that nowadays we call the european nations
7:10 yeah, we would. Would be fairly easy but that doesn’t mean they did anything wrong. Nowadays we are just a lot more educated and there is more cohesian in society - well this could of cause errode away before hand, but that then the word "we" would not fit anymore. As long as, "we" live our education isn't taken from us.
I had Jehovah's Witnesses at my door the other day. Literal Theocrats, waiting for God to come down out of the clouds and genocide everyone who isn't JW. Apparently many Catholics are into similar stuff. I had no idea.
It is really hard to make general statements about this world and all its funky nonsense and buggery. You move just a short bit and suddenly there is early parliament or heathens or independent cities.
Well, part of the dire situation of the West up until the 10th century was also due to arab piracy in the Mediterranean sea, which destabilized the continent and stunted trade for quite some time.
@@Quekksilber sure, but Europe rose 500 years later, from knowledge and gold that of course came from where knowledge and gold were at the time (the arabs). That´s why Venece and Spain developed first.
I belive that a better system Might be anarchy, as Long as evryone gets along, wich i Think they Will, as Long as there is enough resources to go around, and pepole arrent raised in a violent culture, wich i dont Think we are, anarchy should work! And if they. Cant, we Can allways just do direct democracy! With universal suffarage this time!
What a great idea! Now all you have to do is change man's inclination to do evil i.e. original sin and you could make it work. Your statement is why I consider you Libertarians and your "philosophy " childish.
0:20: "Millennia" is plural, "millennium" is singular. I hate how people butcher the language. It's like saying "I am an alumni of (name of school)". Clearly you didn't study any Latin there.
Agreed. I wish we had latin classes in school. It took me an embarrassingly long time to start using -a/-on/-us/-um correctly. I heard "phenomenons" earlier today, it was sooooo bad 😂
As a rule of thumb you can invert every normative assessment that modern historians make in order to arrive at decently accurate picture of the past. The worse something is described, the better it was and vice versa.
That is wrong and one sided on so many levels, given the rest of your content portfolio i would really appreciate to talk to an actual historian or base your research on actual scriptures.
Feudalism meant fighting- feud. There was no private property and no wealth was created. It wasn’t until after the magma carta and the passing of enclosure laws that private property was created and great wealth was created. Feudalism was not a wealth creating system and it is akin to socialism so its praise by this guy is woefully misplaced.
This video needs more neutral language if it wants to highlight history accurately. Being of the nobility and noble are terms that should be used carefully, likewise oaths and honour etc. There's better terms out there. Fealty. Bonds. Aristocracy. Etc ities were a haven from the feudal system. It began to break down with the famines and black death of the 14th century and although it limped on into the early modern period it had long ceased to be feasibly stable structure, and then the reformation came along and changed even more. The fact it persisted in the Russian empire until the end of the 19th in one form or another is insane. And in France and other continental into the enlightenment...
i could see rural areas adopting a more libertarian feudalism. America has deep roots in individual freedom and communities would come together to defend their homes and their neighbors. conservatives morality, although differs, is similar enough to see different towns as friendlies
It shouldn't escape our notice, either, that feudalism was robust enough to last for roughly three quarters of a millennium. Probably due in great part to its decentralized nature, which will always be far more adaptive and resilient than centralized, top-down schemes.
Yeah and a cave will stand up to strong winds better than a tower, that doesn't make it better
@@ScabiousGarde Caves (underground structures) are widely used even today.
@@ScabiousGarde Cave is better than a tower when you're in a storm. The tower won't stand forever.
Are you seriously pro-feudalism? Why so eager to give up self-governance and freedom? Are you hoping the Church will take care of you so you don't have to take care of yourself?
@@sakamotosan1887if it's built by a dumbass, sure.
People don't say it, but there were social mobility and meritocracy around the Church
…but one couldn’t have kids
Absolutely. Even fairly recently, a poor peasant entered the church around 10 years old, having never eaten bread being more expensive than his family could afford. He became pope, as John XXIII.
@@matheuspinho4987 to some extent yes, but many of the highest clerks of the church were related to nobility or the monarchy, second sons and all. For the medieval period meritocratic, but a lot less then even a modern company, bureaucracy, or even modern militaries. The last one I know of personally.
@@parrismd The interdict of celibacy, like so much of the Christian catholic religion, are merely words not deeds. Very few sane priests ever really kept it and rightly so.
@WilhelmEley Celibacy was already mandatory in the Western Church since at least the fourth century
The most popular myth about feudalism is that kings have absolute power but its the opposite. The king's power was heavily dependent on the support of the lords who could raised thier own levies in rebellion this made it very decentralised. In absolute monarch, power is concentrated in the capital and lords certainly don't have the means to rebel as easily as they have no fyrds to raise armies from.
They designed Europe to have a balance of powers. Competition.
Well, an absolute monarchy is actually easier to hold accountable in a Christian nation. The standards of behavior were far higher than for any other leaders in world history besides feudal monarchs, and it is obvious who is at fault if something happens. No blame spreading (like in democracies).
The idea that monarchs have absolute power comes from the rise of absolutism in the 16th and 17th century, and has nothing to do with medieval feudalism
@@truetory6231 have you just repeated the very first thing stated in the video as a comment?
@@John_Kennedy27 oh really? That wasn't my intention. Just stating the contrast between fuedalism and absolutism which often gets conflated
People now a days: “We are peasants serving a corrupt hierarchy!”
Me: “No worse. Medieval Lords actually protected their servants and had a vested interest in their success.”
@@jacobrobinson7594 indeed. the eye of Sauron cares not for anyone.
It is True, the Chiefs of the Great Clan Ross the Earls of Ross progenitors to the Majority of Modern Ross' (a Pedigree, a Surname once Protected by Law Across the Empire!), were a Far Better Leader than any Modern Ones...
@@randyross5630 You don't seem to understand how capitalisation works in English.
I say this often too 😅.
@@sphtpfhorbrains3592 I Speak the President's Americanese! Additionally, I do pretty good legal work, and my Capitalizations of things, actually isn't to far off from how one can Capitalize words in those Formats... The Fact is, you are trying to Put me down to put yourself up because I am so Visibly Better than you in every way shape and form that attempting to put me down so you can Put Yourself above me helps your Fragile Ego, a shattered Ego after what your Uncle did to you as a Boy... Still Don't Walk Right I Hear...
Not sure he delivered on his thesis that feudalism 'rebuilt' the west, he just talked about how it typically worked
i agree, this strikes me more as a part 1 to the fuller explanation of how feudalism rebuilt the west.
I mean thats it, he explained how feudalism was the "solution" to the chaos after the fall the of Western Roman empire. which before that was the center of power that kept the regions inside of it "stable" and "safe" before its collapse. If u want west like USA west one could say that the decentralation of poweres to smaller vessels and lords was the upwind to "modern western capitalism" ( not saying its the same thing i just mean bc of the lack of centralized controle through 1 specific king/ruler/dictator) ( english no first speak pls ask if smt unclear m8 )
this video is trash
He’s misinformed if I’m being generous. It seems more likely that he has an agenda on full display for all to witness. I just hope that people don’t buy this any more than MSNBC, Fox News or WWE…
I think he did. He more or less explicated how the feudal system reordered western society in the absence of Central and long reaching institutional authority and administration.
It should be said Feudalism was experienced differently across the continent. Italy I would say experienced it lightly, the eastern Roman Empire never really had it, Spain went back and forth. England was far more legalistic, and the HRH went overboard.
Not true. Agrarian employees were bound to the land in the Eastern Roman Empire and feudalism became deeply entrenched in areas influenced by it to the north and east.
@@kgblankinship no feudalism is the structure of government and society. In the eastern Roman Empire the bureaucracy was separate from holding a estate. And the emperors had much greater control of the empire than the decentralized kingdoms of Europe. And a vibrant merchant class was a very important part of the economy unlike the primitive economies of Europe. At least until the 4th crusade anyway.
Th Frisians were the last people in Europe where Feudalism was forced.. we had the Frisian Freedom
In most places, serfs worked on contract and could leave when the contract finished. Usually they didn't leave because they had solid employment. One of the best places to be a serf was on an old roman villa, and people who worked villas were called, "villains" - that term became derogatory in modern speech because as feudal polities were conquered into early states with legislatures and diets, the early states needed basically slave labor, so at that point serfs lost pretty much all their rights.
@@fusion9619 well that’s a great fantasy. Serfs were bound to the land they could not be bought or sold but were transferred with property exchange. There were many laws in Britain, France, the HRH, Russia, etc that explicitly prohibited serfs from leaving. The church men of England record several times when serfs running away and being chased by their lords. Serfdom only began falling apart as agriculture changed. And as I said feudalism was experienced differently. Italy never fully had it so serfdom was lesser. The Habsburgs legislated against under Joseph I. And Russians had well into the 1860s.
The thing about Feudalism is that the governments were allowed to grow and adapt organically based on curcumstance and customs. This happened to such an extent that modern historians have put into question wether feudalism as a system even existed due to the differences of government across Europe at the time!
Classical Feudalism throughout the Late 6Th Century to Mid 14Th Century didn't Operate under a Active Form of Governance with a Adaptive Policy through Time tho.
No system is perfect, but feudal societies maintained cultural and social cohesion, unlike modern society which is collapsing before our eyes. Also, religious faith and a strong sense of local community helped a lot in people's lives, while now so many people feel atomized, lonely and depressed.
Well a factor that canʼt be ignored is that there was just ome religious faith. There were no thousands of protestant splitter groups
@@deutschermichel5807 There still were Cathars/Bogomils - those deemed heretics. Life for them was certainly very tough, there were persecutions and even crusades against them. But I was talking in general, on average, for the majority who were Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox in Eastern Europe).
@@Perceval777 Cathars and other heretics and basically all non-Christians were usually given thr opportunity to repent and convert.
Feudal society replaced the Roman one, which provided far better cultural and social cohesion. Even many knights and noblemen were illiterate.
@@deutschermichel5807 : We'll eventually get a Church of America here, cobbled together from Evangelical denominations.
If civilization collapsed today. We would probably end up with a similar system.
Agreed. Without a formal legal system, a man's pledge, vow or oath would become paramount. Those who failed to be faithful would quickly be identified. This would put a premium on personal virtue. One's family and community would also become important again
I mean, what would you term "civilizational" collapse? I mean, 20 years ago Iowa was #1 in education, had gay marriage, and was growing. Now we are essentially like West Virginia--education is not only terrible here, it's looked down upon to be educated. That is the nail in the coffin in any society, where the mass of people look at all the intelligent people and confuse them for the politicians, and end up destroying their society.
Here's the thing most people dont get when viewing history, specially political history: the modern systems we know and use came about and were established by people who benefitted greatly from them and largely spread them by demonizing the previous systems.
So we get tons of weird and outlandish depictions of feudalism, but when its about greek republican democracy, its mostly depicted as fair and enlightened.
Not saying feudalism was perfect or even better, but its not the cartoon that mostly people talk about nowadays.
The same people who criticize the feudal king's "absolute power" are usually the same people who either directly or indirectly want to centralize power in the hands of the state.
Figure that one out.
Yes. Because an absolute monarch ist not elected, nor bound by law.
The state in itself is not intrinsically good or evil.
It all depends on who runs or owns the state.
This can be the people ideally, an absolute Monarch or corporate Plutocrats.
I'd rather live in a highly centralised democracy where law rules than a warlord who just has bigger guns than me.
@@sebastianb5036 feudal kings weren't absolute monarchs
as a devoted history lover I would like to add:
- Europe is more than the West. In fact Rome survived in the East in Konstantinople about a 1000 years longer than in the West.
- it has been the monastries that have provided Western Europe with intellectual knowledge saved from Roman times and developped it further.
- regardless of the political system we should acknowledge that stability and security are important if not the most important factors in society
How can you talk about feudalism in medieval Europe without giving it's due to the Catholic Church or the importance of religion for the medieval man, from the serf to the king?
Edit: missing question mark
Watch the video again, and you'll see how he did it.
Kings and lords rarely, if ever, actualy believed in the church. It's just something they did for PR.
@@thesurnamewithnoname7188 Ok. So only serfs believe in the Catholic Church and it's teachings?
@@asaoa91 Pretty much. Nobles didn't need to follow the church. Since they where above the law. They didn't need to obey it. So long as the nobility put a nice tithe in the popes pocket. The church would make an excuse for them.
@@thesurnamewithnoname7188 That's an extremely superficial, modern and biased view of the Middle Ages.
Am I saying that all people in medieval Europe were fervent and sincere believers and followers of Christ and Rome? Of course not. Christianity permeated every strata of medieval society, so at least as a social convention Christianity and Church positions were of great importance and nobles usually thought twice about going against them.
Suggesting that nobles in their majority did not believe nor followed Church teaching is not founded in history
Well. Oaths yes. But it was because it was a Chaotic time. Power could shift and the Peasents stayed loyal to a Lord who would Protect them.
Or you smuggle salt. Or skip town. Or poach.
Not nearly as chaotic as people think. Most people went their whole lives without any violence. We get the impression that wars were happening a lot because the polities were small, so there's just a lot more history to cover. It was a golden age, really, at least in my opinion because I'd really like to live how they lived.
@@fusion9619 lol good serf
[Henry III disliked that]. The English were brutal during the hundred-years war, and so were the French, burning towns to deny assets. so it makes sense.
@@nobilesnovushomo58 What sticks out to me is things like border reaving between Scotland and England. Like a long, low-intensity back and forth.
We have the social mobility capacity of going from the middle class to bank slave
The feudal system didn't go away, we simply democratized it. If you don't pay your tribute (property taxes) to your feudal lord (town/city) then you will be kicked off the land - even if it's been in your family for 10 generations. The land owner ultimately rents all of their land from the state. In return for this tribute you are provided with protection (police, fire fighting) and other public goods (roads, schools, water, etc.) I'm not saying this is good or bad, it's just the way it is.
Great content and channel brother!
Thank you!
Feudalism wasn't a so much a system as the absence of a system. When there is no grand impersonal bureaucracy, you have to rely on personal relationships between people.
An absolute lack of a system would be just anarchy.
Feudalism is a shstem, a simple and flexible one, but still a system.
This channel is popping off
Thanks bro!
What a good video. Your channel is really good and I plan to marathon the videos. A hail from Brazil 🇧🇷
Suddenly caralho
4:51 Well, but, yeah. That's why there was little social mobility - you had to be a healthy dude who didn't die in battle in order to move up a rung or two. That's an extremely small percentage of the population.
This is brilliantly well put together, thank you.
No it’s not.
@@ElNuevoEstado Why?
@@ivansalamon7028 no mention of the Pope.
It’s tiny hat propaganda
I think there's much more to be explored about this topic. Very interesting
Indeed!! That's we work overtime to bring it back once again. You'll own nothing, pay the rent for every life essential to your rentiers, be traded like a cattle which you deserve, and by golly, you'll be so happy. Thanks again for bringing such good news to our friendly neighborhood.
What's your point exactly? If you think medieval peasants paid rent, you have no idea what feudalism is or was. Wide spread wage labor and the loss of ownership were symptoms of the breakdown and replacement of feudalism.
Nobles didn’t own land. The king owned all land. Fiefdoms could be revoked by the king or the liege. It wasn’t a very stable system. Not only were all participants full time trained well-equipped warriors jealous of their rights and honour, scheming and armed conflict was endemic to the system. Most of Europe’s GDP was squandered by the noble houses for centuries, either as outright conspicuous consumption as a marker of status, or for the incredible expenses of training and equipping the noble class and their retinues, fortifying their residences and prosecuting their wars.
They all wanted more money all the time, which did allow for a certain rate of economic and agricultural development, but this was a secondary consideration to climbing the greasy often fatal pole of feudal hierarchy by fair means or foul.
Spoken like a true Marxist.
@@v1e1r1g1e1are you seriously calling a valid critique of feudalism and nobility Marxist? The brain rot is insane
@@v1e1r1g1e1how is a critique of FEUDALISM Marxist?
@@OddzAre Have you read the Communist Manifesto? How about Das Kapital? Read them... and get back to me.
@@v1e1r1g1e1If you’re a Marxist then I retract my original comment, I read your comment as a reactionary writing that.
I believe it was indeed Martel who introduced the system to Western Europe, as well as Chivalry and the transformation of Germanic military from infantry to cavalry and the elevation of the status of women and the horse. I believe this transformation was partly based on the equal-field system developed in the waring states period in China and transmitted west through the Eastern Roman Empire. This land system in China was responsible for the most successful of the Chinese Empires, the early Tang. Feudalism eventually elevated Western Europe to leadership of the world.
No. Feudalism was introduced by the Roman emperor Diocletian centuries before.
@@kgblankinship During the period 200-100BC the Roman Empire's agricultural economy was transformed from small plebian land holdings into a slave plantation economy. This resulted in the death of the Republic. I see no evidence that Diocletian abolished the slave plantations, freed the slaves and gave them all plots of land to work. Perhaps you could elaborate on your comment.
@@robertenstrom1382100 BC isn't really relevant to the time of Rome's "fall" - "fade" would be more accurate. Slavery had little to do with it. The real reason Rome ended, at least in the west, was because of extremely high inflation, in the form of coin debasement. I say this as an economist - we have to know at least some history in economics. It's really quite similar to the modern problem of inflation causing housing to be unaffordable. The market can't establish a realistic equilibrium for prices when the money supply is expanding. Without truthful price signals, the economy just doesn't work. So, in Rome's case, large land estates became as self sufficient as possible, and that became the new organizing principle for society.
@@fusion9619 You need to read more carefully. I said "Republic", not "Empire". Slavery did indeed cause the end of the Republic and its replacement by an Empire. Before the slave plantation economy took over, the Republic could raise armies almost yearly, but after the destruction of the plebian farming base of the Republic's population, raising armies was difficult domestically. This was why Rome had to recall its armies from the borders to put down the slave uprisings around 100BC, instead of raising new armies as it did so often, on a much smaller population base during the Punic wars.
@@robertenstrom1382 I remember that argument from college. It still strikes me as wrong. Historians don't seem to look deeper at sociological reasons for things. Again, it was the monetary inflation, and the mispricing of goods that inflation causes. This is probably the biggest force that can impact sociology, by which I mean the psychology of both individuals and populations. Again, compare it to modern circumstances. Because the cost of living is unreasonable, most people sell themselves into slavery, although they are too timid to recognize it as slavery. Wages don't keep up with inflation, savings are worth less over time, which forces people to gamble with "investments," the number of years of work required to buy a house is increasing while the quality of everything decreases. This is the disease of bad money. Roman money was so bad that by the end of the empire, the Roman state wouldn't accept Roman money as payment of taxes.
Also, a republic can be an empire, but I get your meaning. And Roman slavery wasn't chattel slavery - it wasn't really comparable to the modern conception of slavery. And you should be very suspicious of modern academic versions of history to seem too convenient for modern social issues. Claiming that slavery ended Rome is simplistic and cannot be the whole truth, but is very convenient to modern narratives.
Can y'all link y'all's sources? Not tryna sound skeptical I want to read more about these topics
a feudalist democracy would realistically be the closest thing to a meritocracy to exist
That would just end up in a sort of noble oligarchy, a monarchy works better it seems
Sounds like your against the united states thingy than....
A Ponzi system with the local king at the top . This only broke down across language barriers limiting the extent of the local fiefdoms.
I like how many wonky little dialects there are. There is no modern German or Italian or Spanish as we know it.
@@SusCalvinwe got modern languages because early states, after subjugating all the small communities, used the public school system to separate kids from parents and force them to use the language of the capital. France was especially brutal, but they learned it from the Prussians. The Chinese are still doing it. Nation states don't like their slaves speaking their own language.
Excellent work!
Feudalism was based on balance of three elements: nobility, peasantry and Church. Nobility was providing protection against external threats, peasantry was providing labour and the church was keeping both of them at bay, preventing slavery and excess cruelty.
A vassal wasn't just about military service. It also provided an administrator for the region as well
The whole 'power vacuum' expression is hilarious to me. Our alien conquerors will say that the earth had a power vacuum and that's why they took it. The expression implies a kind of justification. history is indeed written by the
I LOVE THIS STUFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHAT IS ALARMING, THOUGH, IS THAT WE ARE ALREADY EXPERIENCING THAT "CIVILIZATIONAL DECLINE"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Trickle Down Economics
That's... actually accurate.
_"There's no overarching political entity running the show"_
Erm, try telling that to William the Conqueror. He put down all Anglo-Saxon rebellion to his rule in Britain (took him many years) and put in Barons etc. loyal to him to ensure England's full capitulation. In fact, the rapid transformation in English (Angland) culture from Anglo-Saxon to Norman tells us that the Norman's would have slaughtered (genocide) a great many people in Britain whilst supplanting them with Normans. And we see this in the turn of not only the language but also with names of the population changing in like manner and in quick succession.
This only happens when the former culture has been wiped out via assimilation or domination, and the Norman conquest was more of the latter.
First of all: England isn't the entirety of Europe, and the previous political entity was the western Roman empire spanning pretty much all of that.
So no matter what happened in England specifically, the statement is still 100% true.
Besides, William was one of at least three candidates with some hereditary claims in succeeding the previous English king, and the candidates failed working it out diplomatically so they fought over it with the help of those having sworn loyalty to the individual candidates. Eventually one of those candidates, William, won this.
Every conflict ends at some point, but that doesn't make William a Europe-spanning overarching political entity, he's a person temporarily ruling over England, depending on the loyalty of his followers.
We also see a bit later the war of the barons, and then the sequel war of the barons #1, where the king loses loyalty of (some of their barons.
We also still have the Norman territories in France which belong to the English king but also make the English king in his function as duke of Normandy a vassal of the French king, who in turn also struggles with other powerful vassals like Burgundy... which later leads to the 100 years war. And after that, the war of Roses where different families and their followers compete for the English throne... clearly there is no modern-day political sense of a nation during the medieval period.
Also, Normans imposed part of their culture as they were, as followers of the new king, in positions of power and nobility even when they were a clear minority numerically.
But English is not French and the Anglosaxon culture was not wiped or genocided away, it was merely merged with Norman French culture.
(Excuse the typos near the war of barons, long comments on phone are a pain to write and edit)
Good overview of medieval history during the feudalistic era. Il
Did a landlord write this ????!!!
So what you're suggesting is I should own more land and have private army. So, the future collapse of civilization I can become a lord?
Your private army totally wouldn't abandon you in a collapse of civilization
Medieval Europe did rather well considering it was basically a post apocalypse scenario following the fall of the Roman Empire in the West.
Then you consider that most of the things people know about Medieval period is wrong and either a complete lie or applying later absolutist framework of monarchy to Medieval Feudalism.
Medieval Kings didn't have absolute power. Quite the opposite, they barely had any say. Modern day Prime Ministers and Presidents have more power than most Medieval Kings...
You do realise what a huge jump "the Fall of the Western Roman Empire" to "Charles Martel" is ? You kind of argue that the Fall of Rome pulled the plug on the bathwater and everything became this huge chaotic whirlwind with nothing left but oaths of honour between individuals, while in three hundred years, Europe had seem some very powerful kingdoms like the Visigoths, the Franks, the Ostrogoths and the return of the Bizantines ? You really can't argue your point like that. I think the feudal system much rather emerged as a heritage from the Germanic tribal system, tempered by christianity, but that it was a legtimate, full scale complex political system dating as far back as the Roman Empire itself, with which it eventually combined : Rome becoming the unifying, central authority once more, as it needed to be, although this time only religiously and spiritually.
But the Roman villa is also the manor in seed form.
Very fair points. I will concur with you that outside the Roman Empire, huge swaths of the "white" world were tribal like the Apache in North America or the Zulu the Brits fought in Africa. I'm half German-American and that is basically what my pre-Christian era Germanic ancestors were during the reign of the Roman Empire: white Apache or white Zulu.
What great cathedrals or stone buildings did the Apache and Zulu build, prior to European encounter, like wise where were their libraries and great novelist and literary biographers and theological writings?
The Dark Ages never existed, in part because during the reign of the Roman Empire my Germanic ancestors had a verbal language but no written ✍️ language, Catholic monks gave that to them, in addition most of Earth would have to be called the "Dark Ages" prior to European Christian colonialism and "Islamic" nations or empires that colonized more primitive societies.
Yes, I know, both colonized some kingdoms or empires that were just as advanced or more so in some aspects, as their own be it the Inca or in portions of what we call India today.
The Roman Empire and Europe were not the same thing. Europe as a concept was largely created by the Catholic Church after the Fall of Rome.
But I enjoyed this video. He gave some good insights and things to think about.
I came looking for this comment, i was expecting more info about those 300 years of gap in this video
DUDE THIS SYSTEM, SOUNDS AWESOME!
The problem with feudalism is the vassal or serf has no true freedom because the property isn't his. It's the land lord's property and the land lord has all the power. For a time when education was limited and the economy was mostly small scale agriculture, Feudalism worked. But there's a reason it didn't last forever.
Legal question: is the land on USA yours when you buy it? Or, is that purchase a permit to temporarily manage the land?
@@corveramoenglish7275 It's yours once you receive the title. Titled property for commoners is one of the cornerstone's of upward social and economic mobility in America.
@@nicolamcostello it's in my understanding that no country would sell the rights to the land except for the institution of an embassy in rare occasions. What you call ownership is in my opinion "the right to occupy" with a "deed" as the proof of a purchase of those rights being "done". If you are the owner of the land then all responsibility to its military protection falls on you, and you don't need to pay taxes to anyone for it. But it has come to my attention that even after having a clean "deed" you have to keep paying taxes for your land.
The system is just renamed, complicated and expensive from the land rights perspective. But the basic structure is still there
I always thought Dune was interesting by comparison to Star Trek because Star Trek is just space Liberalism without money whereas Dune imagined a world after all that space Liberalism.
You mean space Islamism.
Star Trek is the furthest thing from liberalism. They have no economy at all, and liberalism means economic freedom, and besides, the Federation is a military dictatorship which expands via conquest. They dress everything up in modern moral camouflage, but the real nuts and bolts of the Federation is that they use the threat of force to gain power over planets. But the viewer never thinks about that because there's a female psychologist on the Enterprise and every episode is moral story.
Social mobility is overrated and impossible in a society.
Some folks need to be ok with being poor.
Not everyone can have everything.
Especially for nothing.
Id love to be a landowing serf in the 1500s in England.
“Yes I love inefficient societal systems that critically underutilize its Human Resources”
@@OddzAre ok bolshevik
@@elbryn1If your only alternative to communism is feudal serfdom, I think you will accidentally push people into communism.
Land ownership was not guaranteed. Land could be owned by upper aristocracy and rented. You could be a church serf and pay them tax. There is funky city-leagues.
@OddzAre Or maybe equality is a false a priori assumption. Man is necessarily different from one another. Why would that not logically lead to conflict and hierarchy?
@@demaistre2458 They are like family groups who figure out that a little inbreeding is worth keeping it in the family.
Less like a pyramid and more like a cone, it is more versatile than the imperial absolutist system, but was always prone to jams, but could be worked around and fixed the other issues, were the regional border turmoils that "Dark Ages" were best known for, mostly because there was either a lack of focus on borders or the lack of developing them further,
Good analysis 👍
The kings didn't mess with the peasants, but I'm sure the lords did
The precise opposite would be a more convincing proposition.
For nearly a millennia, civilization survived despite feudalism, not because of it. Just imagine how many wars might never have happened if not for some noble having a dispute with some other noble. After Rome's fall, feudalism was not some kind of saviour, it was simply the law of the strongest, just like it's always the case when a society collapses.
so many dudes in these comments want feudalism back cuz they think they'd be the Lord, when in reality they would be the peasant lmao
@@quixote_7 I would be fine with being the peasant.
The worst and most destructive wars in human history happened after feudalism. They couldn't have happened without what replaced it: nation states.
You're describing the least war-torn era in recorded history
Your view is wrong. Feudalisms decentralized nature made way for advances in law, especially international. The church served as connective tissue for all of europe. When lords warred, it was not the corrupt nationalist wars of modernity. Civilians and the economy were spared as the rulers saw them as his future dominion, and generally because of familiarity and connectedness of the different peoples in europe thru the church, similar culture, laws etc.
Medieval europe was a perfect place of minimaly destructive competition that is needed for all the technological, but more importantly social and political developments to occur that gave way to our modern luxurious lives.
Should we bring back feudalism? Absolutely not. But can we learn things from it? Yes.
The primary weakness of Feudalism is that it didn't incentivize innovation. Feudalism incentivized the status quo. This was reinforced by the lack of availability or opportunity for social mobility. Could you move up the ladder? Yes, but it was exceedingly rare compared to today. Also, Feudalism's foundational structure relied upon social relationships and loyalty to those relationships - which were subjective. Versus today's systems are built upon the rule of law - was is far more objective and applied to all equally. Feudalism was reinforced by the Church, another highly unstable parallel power structure that had it's own incentives to maintain the status quo and if anything, revert to traditional ways of thinking. Overall, Feudalism succeeded because of the incentive structures or lack of them.
Early Middle Ages were incredibly decentralized.
someone is finally saying it...
Very basic stuff. Brilliant. The importance of your word, your integrity as an individual, rebuilt the West. What better foundation could you ask for?
Feudalism was imposed upon the English by the Normans. The English then tried to impose it on the Irish. Just look up what Ireland was like under the Brehon law system, frankly it worked far better than feudalism.
loss of meritocracy - leads to nepotism... which is just feudalism.
Not so much honour so much as if you reneged on your oath you got invaded and conquered by the other vassals.
Is Pax Tube the narrator for this one???
It was the germanic invaders' way of handling communal structures. Its really reminiscent of the royal arya with the scythians and how they structured things. Almost like the ideas are genetically built in? Blood memory maybe, along with practical necessity?
Chinese also had feudalism so no. It’s not blood it’s simply how large empires are structured in the absence of administration institutions. Western Zhou dynasty and HRE aren’t that different in choosing that governance structure to control their empires the best they could.
@badart3204 You're completely right, and what were the physical characteristics of the ancient "Chinese?" You know, all those 6 ft 5 mummies with red hair? Demographics today are not what they were then. Same as the ainu in northern Japan with blonde hair. At some point, the obvious answer is right there. It's not odd to suppose these ideas were transported around by a common people who could travel far distances. Same as the breeding and migration of horses.
@badart3204 Though honestly, I agree with it being a practical system to utilize as well. Multiple things can be true at the same time.
@@demaistre2458I heavily doubt that DNA can transfer information to this detail. Sure it can allow for some pre dispositions of character through brain and physical changes, but there is no reason that these ideas would need to be genetically imprinted the same way breastfeeding or breathing is. It's also silly to think that only one specific group could be capable of doing great things given that whoever is too good ends up failing because of a lack of reasons to change, not to mention conquerors always end up mixing in with local populations, like Hittites, Mongols and Turks. So if anything it's all just cultural.
Seems that other systems that pre-date Rome, or are not European, are not considered “Feudal”, but look similar (e.g. there’s a king and aristocracy). What makes Feudalism different from these?
What other ways could you move up the social ladder besides martial prowess?
Not sure about the rest of Europe, but in Italian city states, artistry and mercantilism would very easily get you there, especially if you conducted your business under sanction of the church of the courts.
In this video you say peasants were bound to the vassals and the vassals to the lord. The peasants were vassals of lord and the lord was a vassal of the monarchy or another lord. You’re not wrong about it but I thought I’d mention it since it was omitted in a manor. Yes, pun intended.
The biggest problem with feudalism is succession. Succession can be split into two distinct problems. Nepotism and a lack of clarity in succession. Nepotism is a problem when a good king has an heir that is not remotely qualified. On the up side knowing all your life your going to be king and hopefully being involved with all of the vassals you will be well trained for the job when it’s yours. But there is zero guarantee of that. The second problem occurs when there is no clear heir and all of the potentials start to maneuver to claim the crown. War is all but inevitable. Both cases often lead to war and the wholesale slaughter of the surfs. Solve the succession problem and feudalism could be a great fallback for any rebuilding of society
Something similar has been my thought lately as well. Many of the duties within feudalism were linked to ownership, which is by it's nature handed down within the family. I don't see an easy "systemic" fix. The solution and dire requirement has always been and will be virtue.
After all, we don't want to build societies that can last and last without anyone (in power) being virtuous.
My thought is limit the term of the king, say 20 years and must at all times have 3 named successors who cannot be related to the king and will need to be ratified by the lords upon their naming.
@@jamesbarron7512 Impeachability of the King could also be an option. The already named successors seems like a really good idea. I think these things could also work in an elective monarchy.
What was the system under Romans= Taxes ,Land ownership,
Roman=slave economy and big estates. Poor farmers. Inflation. Association of big cities. Assimilation of local ruling elites. Borders too long to effectively defend.
The serfs were slaves, so they didn't pay taxes obviously. They became more like free men over time just by the lived tradition of Feudalism. Hillaire Belloc's "The Servile State" gives a nice outline of this development.
It's crazy what you can accomplish when you control a large population body mind and soul.
Funny how feudalism was a better system than we live under now
Debatable lol
When the King fails to protect the fiefs, the fiefs no longer have the obligation to defend the King! Men generally had honour, were generally (at least nominally) Christian and so generally kept their oaths, so the system worked! Interestingly, this system also generated Fief Simple Title, meaning Title that held no obligations to the King. This is the origin of our modern Fee Simple Title, otherwise known as Freehold or Allodial Title.
To tax Fee Simple land is a monumental Fraud as it breaches the very notion of Fee Simple meaning "Land Held with No Oath or Obligation to the King". It amounts to pure extortion and this view is not just my own but has been upheld by Common Law High Courts all over the English-Speaking World, including here in Australia, Fejo v NT, 2011, paragraph 11.
Going from the fall of the Roman empire right to feudalism, while ignoring what was going on outside rome before the fall and who took over is already not very promising for the quality of the video
That's like saying that socialism preserved the Rus after the Bolsheviks murdered the royal family.
And then all the nobles were sent to the meat grinder in the 100 years war.(of France at least, England were already dead by that point.)
It's an interesting era to study how & why it formed, just because the entirety of Europe was apparently not 100% governed through absolute monarchies before Christianization. Generally speaking, the entirety of Europe didn't exactly societal collapse with the fall of Rome, but trade with the wider world into Europe was disrupted & everyone in Europe was jealous of Rome & wanted to emulate its culture. The Germanic peoples conquered almost all of western Europe during the Dark Ages & created what we think of as Medieval Europe, while the Byzantines worked hard to Christianize the Slavs, causing some Slavs to turn to the Muslims for protection & the two cultures merged with what was already there to give Eastern Europe its own culture & style- the classical fairy tale look, with the spire like towers and white washed castles upon plateaus & other easily defensible natural structures.
The think that is sad, though, is Germanic peoples were democratic, with elected Jarls who governed alongside a council of land owners, anyone could have upward mobility to becoming a land owner & women had things easier in pagan times than they did under Medieval Christianity, where their only real options for the average woman were to exist as a sex object & free maid while simultaneously being treated like a monster for other people deciding they're a sex object, or become a nun. They weren't a well off as they are in modern society, but definitely had more mobility, freedom & value in pagan times. Yet, the Germans wanted to be the next Rome & adopting varying degrees of absolute monarchy made them increasingly easier for the church to generate & Convert, so they could push it onto the average persons. And, over time, the level of absolute power got increasingly concentrated in the king while everyone else slowly lost power & just had to be OK with being better off than others in return for loyalty & hope they didn't get a dangerously unhinged monarch. And then the power games start over which family can get closest to the king & manipulate his every move from behind the scenes, because that's really the only level of control you can ever hope to have over your life, now.
Then, we get the late Dark Ages & early Medieval period, which are almost entirely aggressively, yet randomly & haphazardly stamping down people still practicing paganism or anyone continuing practices deemed too pagan, creating a pretty odd level of diversity in European customs across Northern Europe. People came up with new explanations for practices & church leaders were lax about it in one province & obsessed with ending it for good in another, while trying not to go so far that the peasants snap & revolt.
One thing I do know is that Christianity literally does not have the capacity to do what it did back then all over again in Western Civilization & that is because the Pagans didn't really fight back that hard against conversion until it was too late for them to ever hope to win that fight. Once they were pissed, it was for literally the same exact reasons why people don't like it today. Same exact thing happened to the Native Americans- they didn't really try to stop it at first, until they saw what Christianity actually did to people, and then they were vehemently against it, but whites already had a foothold here & their numbers were getting too high to hold them off forever. People already have enough of an understanding of Christianity to be pissed enough to fight back against being pressed into conversions en masse from day one & aren't as ignorant of natural forces & the way the world works as they used to be. So, if western civilization were to collapse, it would either be conquered or dissolve into a bunch of failed states & warlords fighting over every little bit of land they can get & trying to punish one another enough to where no one ever gets ahead & manages to truly rebuild, all the while someone else is consolidating money & power & building something new somewhere in the world.
Absolute monarchy is not a medieval phenomenon. The shape it took was due to the nation state, which is a modern phenomenon.
What Christianity does is different from what Christians do.
@@QuekksilberI agree, absolutely monarchies were in Europe before Christianity, it just wasn't every single group. The Germanic peoples appear to have ruled by a democratic council of landowners, excepting the Goths & Franks, once they conquered down into former Roman territory.
@@MrChristianDT Monarchy in general and absolute monarchies are also a different thing. The medieval conception of the king was very different than the baroque one.
The average marriage age for women in the Middle Ages was like 27. If they were “basically sex slaves” the average age for marriage would have been in the teens. I think there’s some gross misrepresentation here. Women in pagan Rome could be forced into temple prostitution, a practice strictly forbidden in Jewish (and Christian) law. The idea that a woman (and thereby men) could participate in sex only after a man promised lifelong fidelity to her is notably Judeo-Christian and a stark contrast to the way they were used and abused in pagan society. That’s not to say every person upheld the Christian laws, but the fact that they existed at all gives indication that justice was a guiding virtue.
Come to think of it, even marriage in the teens would not necessarily indicate a “use and abuse” culture, depending on life expectancy…but I digress…
Military service in the U.S. is still a great way to move up in social class. Serve 8 years honorably and make sufficient rank, and you'll be solidly in the middle class.
But we want even more decentralization. We want to lord ourselves... which has created a world lorded by greedy and unethical corporations.
You see the indigenous people cowering at 2:11 mark?
Can you just imagine what methods of brutality ensued during this occupation. 😢
What are rambling on about?
The Thing with sozial Mobilität is a Tricky Thing. If you wanted to rise up you had to start aß knight. Fight brave and maybe become a noble man in return. Could everybody start aß a knight? Yes and no. The law said everybody who has Equipment and Training can be a knight. Problem Equipment and Training was expensive. And a lot could not afford it. Sometimes the lord run of knights and recruted men with second Hand Equipment. Ind late medival times new forgetecnikes made armor cheaper. New battletaktices made cheaper Equipment.ent more useful. Mercenarygroups had to recruit new man and sold them equipment that had to be paid with later salaries. Trade and banking flourished and some could afford expensive stuff. However sozial mobility might have existed to a degree but it was not aß comon aß you say.
what is described is warlord ism
We can trace my dads family back to 1585. Yeomanry is like 5 generations from there down.
Feudalism is a buzzword used to describe many different societies of the era.
Great Britain ended black slavery........but substituted it with indentured Indian workers and trafficked Chinese labour.
more like feudalism thru lack of centralized gov allowed people to return to their own ideas and beliefs, and founded the regionals identities that nowadays we call the european nations
7:10 yeah, we would. Would be fairly easy but that doesn’t mean they did anything wrong. Nowadays we are just a lot more educated and there is more cohesian in society - well this could of cause errode away before hand, but that then the word "we" would not fit anymore. As long as, "we" live our education isn't taken from us.
That's exactly where you are wrong. We are not more educated. We have vastly different skills but we are as dumb as we've always been.
I like health I SM = governance held with in the reach of medical support.
To run PR for feudalism is startling!
I had Jehovah's Witnesses at my door the other day. Literal Theocrats, waiting for God to come down out of the clouds and genocide everyone who isn't JW. Apparently many Catholics are into similar stuff. I had no idea.
It is really hard to make general statements about this world and all its funky nonsense and buggery. You move just a short bit and suddenly there is early parliament or heathens or independent cities.
Robots built it
I prefer Family Feud.
right... so Venece trading with the easten arabs and Spain inheriting all western arab riches and knowledge had nothing to do with it.
Well, part of the dire situation of the West up until the 10th century was also due to arab piracy in the Mediterranean sea, which destabilized the continent and stunted trade for quite some time.
@@Quekksilber sure, but Europe rised again 500 years later, all in all, thanks to the arabs.
@@Quekksilber sure, but Europe rose 500 years later, from knowledge and gold that of course came from where knowledge and gold were at the time (the arabs). That´s why Venece and Spain developed first.
From Feudalism, to mercantilism, imperialism, capitalism, crony corporatism, communism, wokeism, and now Islamism, we have surely come a long way.
I belive that a better system Might be anarchy, as Long as evryone gets along, wich i Think they Will, as Long as there is enough resources to go around, and pepole arrent raised in a violent culture, wich i dont Think we are, anarchy should work! And if they. Cant, we Can allways just do direct democracy! With universal suffarage this time!
Direct democracy and anarchy just turn into hell in no time.
What a great idea! Now all you have to do is change man's inclination to do evil i.e. original sin and you could make it work. Your statement is why I consider you Libertarians and your "philosophy " childish.
Yeah, not like city states had a way larger impact. 😂
0:20: "Millennia" is plural, "millennium" is singular. I hate how people butcher the language. It's like saying "I am an alumni of (name of school)". Clearly you didn't study any Latin there.
Agreed. I wish we had latin classes in school. It took me an embarrassingly long time to start using -a/-on/-us/-um correctly. I heard "phenomenons" earlier today, it was sooooo bad 😂
Because you found one example of peasant who became a knight, it doesn't mean that social mobility was a thing.
Are we look at the past through an objective lends..?
Or are we suggesting monarchies and nobilities need to return with a V lmao
As a rule of thumb you can invert every normative assessment that modern historians make in order to arrive at decently accurate picture of the past. The worse something is described, the better it was and vice versa.
Lets see if this comment show up
I wouldn’t want to live under feudalism, but I can appreciate the social stability it offered.
That is wrong and one sided on so many levels, given the rest of your content portfolio i would really appreciate to talk to an actual historian or base your research on actual scriptures.
Then write a critique or get out
Feudalism meant fighting- feud. There was no private property and no wealth was created. It wasn’t until after the magma carta and the passing of enclosure laws that private property was created and great wealth was created. Feudalism was not a wealth creating system and it is akin to socialism so its praise by this guy is woefully misplaced.
This video needs more neutral language if it wants to highlight history accurately. Being of the nobility and noble are terms that should be used carefully, likewise oaths and honour etc. There's better terms out there. Fealty. Bonds. Aristocracy. Etc
ities were a haven from the feudal system. It began to break down with the famines and black death of the 14th century and although it limped on into the early modern period it had long ceased to be feasibly stable structure, and then the reformation came along and changed even more. The fact it persisted in the Russian empire until the end of the 19th in one form or another is insane. And in France and other continental into the enlightenment...
i could see rural areas adopting a more libertarian feudalism. America has deep roots in individual freedom and communities would come together to defend their homes and their neighbors. conservatives morality, although differs, is similar enough to see different towns as friendlies