Transcript Feudalism

Feudalism
15.2
I. What is Feudalism?
Where landowning nobles
governed and protected
people in return for
services, such as serving
as soldiers or farmers.
Nobles were both lords
and vassals.
What is a vassal?
What is a fief?
Knights were vassals who
fought on horseback.
Fiefs were called manors.
Lords ruled manors, and peasants farmed the land.
Some peasants were free, had rights and could
move.
Most peasants were serfs, which meant they could
not leave the manor, own property, or marry without
the lord’s approval.
Lord’s in turn had to protect the serfs
To gain freedom, a serf could run away and remain in
a town for a year. Then he or she would be
considered free.
By the end of the Middle Ages, many serfs could
buy their freedom
New technology increased crop production
in the Middle Ages. The wheeled plow, the
horse collar, water and wind-powered
mills, and crop rotation helped farmers
produce more food.
II. Life in Feudal Europe
Knights followed rules called the code of
chivalry.
Brave; obey lords, show respect to women of
noble birth, and honor the church.
Wives and daughters ran the manors
when the noblemen went to war.
A castle was the center of the manor.
The central building of the castle, called the
keep was built on the motte.
Motte and Bailey
 The castle keep contained a basement,
kitchens, stables, a great hall, chapels, toilets,
and bedrooms.
 Peasants lived in simple houses. Many of them
were only one room.
 Peasants worked in the fields year-round.
Did not work on Catholic feast days.
 Peasant women worked in the fields and raised
children.
 Bread was a basic staple of the peasant diet.
III. Trade and Cities
 After Rome fell trade all but ended. People for
the most part did not leave their villages.
 Feudalism and technology helped promote
trade.
Trade caused large cities like Venice to become wealthy.
 In the early Middle Ages, people bartered, but
later, people began using money again.
 Often towns were controlled by lords.
In exchange for taxes the lords granted townspeople
basic rights. Like what?
Eventually towns set up their own gov’ts,
with elected members of city councils.
Guilds set standards for quality in
products, determined how many products
would be sold, set prices, and decided
who could enter the trade.
A child of 10 could become an apprentice.
Learned from a master craftsman.
Eventually the apprentice would become a
master
Medieval cities contained crowded,
wooden houses on narrow winding streets.
Cities were dirty and smelled, and pollution
filled the sky and contaminated the water.