ETYM French féodal, or Late Lat. feudalis.
Of or relating to or characteristic of feudalism; SYN. feudalistic.
Pertaining to feoff or fee; pertaining to medieval social system of overlords and vassals.

Množina: feudalisms

ETYM Cf. French féodalisme.
The social system that developed in Europe in the 8th C; vassals were protected by lords who they had to serve in war; SYN. feudal system.
The main form of social organization in medieval Europe. A system based primarily on land, it involved a hierarchy of authority, rights, and power that extended from the monarch downward. An intricate network of duties and obligations linked royalty, nobility, lesser gentry, free tenants, villeins, and serfs. Feudalism was reinforced by a complex legal system and supported by the Christian church. With the growth of commerce and industry from the 13th century, feudalism gradually gave way to the class system as the dominant form of social ranking.
In return for military service the monarch allowed powerful vassals to hold land, and often also to administer justice and levy taxes. They in turn “sublet” such rights. At the bottom of the system were the serfs, who worked on their lord’s manor lands in return for being allowed to cultivate some for themselves, and so underpinned the system. They could not be sold as if they were slaves, but they could not leave the estate to live or work elsewhere without permission. The system declined from the 13th century, partly because of the growth of a money economy, with commerce, trade, and industry, and partly because of the many peasants’ revolts 1350–1550. Serfdom ended in England in the 16th century, but lasted in France until 1789 and in the rest of Western Europe until the early 19th century. In Russia it continued until 1861.