Feudalism in England

Feudalism as practiced in the Kingdom of England was a state of human society which was formally structured and stratified on the basis of land tenure and the varieties thereof. Society was thus ordered around relationships derived from the holding of land, which landholdings are termed "fiefdoms, fiefs, or fees".

These political and military customs existed in medieval Europe, having developed around 700 A.D., flourished up to about the first quarter of the 14th century and declined until their legal abolition in England with the Tenures Abolition Act 1660.

The word feudal derives from an ancient Gothic source faihu signifying simply "property" which in its most basic sense was "cattle". This can be compared to the very ancient classical Latin word pecunia, which means both cattle and money. Many societies in existence today demonstrate the traditional use of cattle as financial currency, for example the Masai of Kenya, who pay dowries in this form.

Because feudalism was in its origin a Teutonic or Gothic system from northern Europe untouched by Roman civilization, it did not exist in ancient Rome, where the nearest equivalent was clientelism. No classical Latin word therefore exists to signify it, and a new Low-Latin word feodum was invented by mediaeval European scribes to use in their Latinised charters and other writings.

Under the English feudal system, the person of the king (asserting his allodial right) was the only absolute "owner" of land. All nobles, knights and other tenants, termed vassals, merely "held" land from the king, who was thus at the top of the "feudal pyramid". When feudal land grants were of indefinite or indeterminate duration, such grants were deemed freehold, while fixed term and non-hereditable grants were deemed non-freehold. However, even freehold fiefs were not unconditionally heritable--before inheriting, the heir had to pay a suitable feudal relief.

Below the king in the feudal pyramid was a tenant-in-chief (generally in the form of a baron or knight) who was a vassal of the king, and holding from him in turn was a mesne tenant (generally a knight, sometimes a baron, including tenants-in-chief in their capacity as holders of other fiefs) who held when sub-enfeoffed by the tenant-in-chief. Below the mesne tenant further mesne tenants could hold from each other in series. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning the fief form the basis of the feudal relationship.

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