Transcript Feudalism - Bibb County Schools

Feudalism
Feudalism
• Special system of government
• Organized in levels according to the
amount of power you had
• Under feudalism landowning nobles
governed and protected the people in
return for services, such as fighting in
battle, or farming the land.
The King
• The king was at the top.
• His word was law and the taxes on the
people were paid to him.
• Wore crowns
• He owned all the land, but he needed
support to keep his power. He gave land
to nobles who pledged homage, or agreed
to pay taxes and send knights to fight for
the king.
The nobles
• Gained a lot of power when Charlemagne’s
empire collapsed
• Had the right to collect taxes and enforce laws
on their estates.
• Governed and protected the people in exchange
for services like fighting and farming
• Most power shifted from the king to the nobles
• Most of the “kingdoms” or were very small
• The center of the “kingdom” was a castle or
fortress
The vassals
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Nobles were both lords and vassals
A vassal was a noble who served a lord of higher rank in return he received
protection
Showed loyalty by serving in his lord’s army
In return for his services, the lord granted his vassal land and permission to
rule the people who lived on it. This grant was known as a fief.
These fiefs of land were called manors. A manor consisted of the manor
house or castle, the surrounding fields, and a peasant village.
Vassals were knights or warriors in armor who fought on horseback
Fought for their lord or the king
Played in tournaments or mock battles played as a game for entertainment
Each knight had a coat of arms, a pattern that was a family symbol, passed
down from generation to generation
It was difficult to become a knight, at age 7, a boy had to become a page
and live and work with a knight to learn his job. He usually had to work and
train until he was around 21.
Knights had strict rules they had to follow. This was known as the Code of
Chivalry.
Code of Chivalry
• Unswerving belief in the church and obedience to its
teachings
• Willingness to defend the church
• Respect and pity for all woman and weak people and
steadfastness in defending them
• Love of country
• Refusal to retreat before an enemy
• Unceasing and merciless war against an enemy
• Strict obedience to the feudal lord, so long as those
commands did not conflict with duty to God
• Loyalty to truth and to your pledge
• Generosity in giving
• Championship of the right and the good in every place
and at all times against the forces of evil
The peasants
• Worked the land for the lords
• Some were freeman, who paid the noble
for the right to farm the land, they had
rights under the law and could move
whenever and wherever they wished.
• Most peasants were serfs. Serfs could not
leave the manor, own property, or marry
without the lord’s approval