Chapter 17
The Early Middle Ages
Section 3
Feudalism and Manor Life
From the fall of the Roman Empire in
476 to about 1450.
State Standards
• 2.01 Understand the fundamental economic
concepts and their application to a variety of
economic systems.
• 5.11 Understand feudalism and the rise of the
Christian church as dominant factors in Medieval
Europe.
• 6.4 spi 5 Recognize the roles assigned to
individuals in various societies.
• 6.4 spi 5 Compare and contrast the lives of
individual citizens in various government
organizations
• 6.6 spi 2 Recognize the impact of individuals on
world history
When the
Vikings
Maygars
and
Mongols
began their raids in the 800’s, the
Frankish kings were unable to defend
their empire.
(The raiders moved really fast, but the
king’s army moved really slowly.)
So nobles (the rich and powerful people)
had to defend their own lands.
• The power of the nobles grew, and the
kings became less powerful.
The nobles were still loyal to the king, but
they ruled their lands as independent
territories.
• Nobles needed soldiers to defend their
lands, and the best soldiers were knights,
warriors who fought on horseback.
• Nobles gave the knights fiefs (feefs), or
pieces of land, as payment for their
military service.
A noble who gave land to a knight was
called a lord.
A knight who promised to support a lord in
exchange for land was called vassal.
The system of promises that governed the
relationships between lords and vassals is
called feudalism.
A Lords Duties to his vassals
• To send help if an enemy attacked.
• To be fair. He couldn’t cheat them or punish
them for no reason.
• To settle any disputes among the people living
on his land.
If a lord failed to fulfill these duties, his vassals
could break all ties with him.
• Many lords built castles to defend their
land.
• Most early castles were made of wood.
• (The big stone castles you’ve seen in
movies were built later, in the Middle
Ages.)
A Vassal’s duties to his lord
• To fight for him if his lord went to war.
• To give him money on special occasions
(such as when the lord’s son became a
knight or the lord’s daughter got married).
• To give him food and shelter if he came to
visit.
• If a vassal was able to gain enough land,
he could become a lord.
• A person could be both a vassal and a
lord.
• A knight could also accept fiefs from two or
more lords and become a vassal to each.
Feudal obligations could get complicated!
• Feudalism was first created by the
Franks, the people who had conquered
the land that is now France.
• In the 1000s Frankish knights introduced
feudalism into northern Italy, Spain, and
Germany.
• Feudalism then spread to eastern Europe.
• Feudalism also reached Britain in the
1000s.
• It was brought to England by the duke of
Normandy, an area of in northern France.
• This duke, William, invaded England,
defeated the English king, and declared
himself the new king of England.
He became known as
William the Conqueror.
• Because knights did not farm land, and
peasants (the small farmers) did not own
any land to farm, a new economic system
developed.
• Under this system the knights allowed
peasants to farm on the knights’ land, and
the peasants paid the knights, usually with
a portion of the crop or livestock.
• The large estate owned by a knight or lord
was called a manor.
• Most manors included a large house or
castle, pastures, fields, forests, and a
village where the peasants who worked on
the manor lived.
• Most medieval lords kept about one-fourth
to one-third of their land for their own use.
• The rest of the land was divided among
the peasants and serfs—workers who
were tied to the land on which they lived.
• About nine-tenths of the population were
serfs who lived on a noble’s land and
worked for him.
• If a noble sold his land to another lord, the
serfs were part of the deal!
• The serfs spent about half of their time
working for the lord. In exchange for their
labor, they were given a small piece of
land to farm for themselves.
• Peasants and serfs worked hard, often
continuing to work in the fields late into the
night.
• Men did most of the farming.
• Women made clothing, cooked, grew
vegetables, and gathered firewood.
• Even children tended the sheep and
chickens!
• Most manors also had skilled workers and
tradesmen, because lords wanted the
people who lived on the manor to produce
everything that was needed.
• These workers traded their goods and
services for food.
• In the Middle Ages many surnames (family
names) were derived from a person’s
occupation.
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
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Miller
Cooper
Tanner
Fletcher
Driver
Skinner
Hunter
Smith
• Women in the Middle Ages had fewer
rights then men.
• They had to obey the wishes of their
fathers or husbands.
• Some women who wanted to have power
and influence joined the most powerful
institution of the Middle Ages, the Christian
Church.
One of the most powerful women in the
Middle Ages was Eleanor of Aquitaine.
• She ruled Aquitaine, a region in southwester
France, as the king’s vassal.
• She became queen of France when she married
King Louis VII.
• She later divorced him and became queen of
England when she married King Henry II.
• Even as Queen of England, she continued to
rule her own territory.
• She had many children, including two kings of
England.
• During the Middle Ages most people lived
on manors or small farms, so towns
stayed small.
• As new technology was developed that
made farming easier, the population grew.
• In time trade increased, towns grew into
cities, knights began to demand money
instead of land, and serfs and peasants
left the manors for work in the towns.
These changes gradually weakened
the manor system.
State Standards
• 2.01 Understand the fundamental economic
concepts and their application to a variety of
economic systems.
• 5.11 Understand feudalism and the rise of the
Christian church as dominant factors in Medieval
Europe.
• 6.4 spi 5 Recognize the roles assigned to
individuals in various societies.
• 6.4 spi 5 Compare and contrast the lives of
individual citizens in various government
organizations
• 6.6 spi 2 Recognize the impact of individuals on
world history
• Most of the text in these slides is taken
directly from Holt Tennessee World
History, copyright 2008 by Holt, Rinehart,
and Winston.