what was feudalism?
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So basically feudalism was a system of governance in which all the people living in a certain area(of a certain caste but generally the majority) were the subjects of a feudal lord. The land was all considered the property of the lord who had it by the grace of a higher power (king, God, etc) and the lord allowed the peasant class to live on it in exchange for working the land or their trade and providing a portion (often significant) of the fruits of their labor to the lord in the form of taxes. They also would swear fealty to their lords and may need to serve in the military if called on to do so (for the men). Basically they had no rights and the lord controlled everything autocratically and taxed everything.
A country is ruled by a monarch. The monarch is the big boss of the country – technically, the country belongs to him.
The monarch lets certain allies of his, called Lords, own and run parts of the country as their land. In exchange for this privilege, they have to help the monarch when he requests it.
The Lords let certain allies of theirs, called Vassals (who may be Knights) own and run parts of their land. In exchange for this privilege, the vassals have to help the lords when they request it.
The common people, who are mostly peasants, merchants and artisans, live on the land owned by the vassals/lords/monarch and pay taxes (in the form of food or other goods they produce) to whoever owns the plot of land they live on.
So the Monarch owns all the land. But he subdivides some land for his allies (the lords) to use. The lords subdivide their land into even smaller chunks for the vassals to use. The king, lords, and vassals all benefit from the taxes provided by the peasants, merchants and artisans who make up the majority of the population.
If you want an explanation of Japanese feudalism, replace Monarch with Shogun, Lord with Daimyo, Vassal with Samurai.
Feudalism was a political/economic/social hierarchy that governed societies in the middle ages in Europe and parts of Asia.
The basic idea is that you have someone at the top called the lord. The lord owns a bunch of land and all the stuff on the land. The lord would grant some of that land (called a fief) to lesser nobility or members of the clergy and promised to protect these lesser nobles, and in exchange, those lesser nobles would swear allegiance to their lord. They agreed to pay taxes to their lord and to provide troops for the lord from the knights and peasants that lived in their fief. Those lesser nobles would then give some of the land in their fiefs to people like knights or even more minor nobles. In exchange, these knights and minor nobles would fight for their lord or their lord’s lord. Finally, these knights and minor nobles had peasants. The peasants worked on the land held by the knights and minor nobles. Mostly they were farmers and blacksmiths and things like that – they did all of the menial, hard labor. They worked the land for their lords and would fight for their lords (or their lord’s lord) and in exchange were given protection.
So basically you had 1 person at the top with a lot of land, power and money, some people under them with less land and power and money, some people under them with very small amounts of land power and money, and then at the bottom people with no power, land, or money. Each layer gave something to the layer above it and the layer below it in exchange for something else.
I’ll try to give a simpler but possibly more useful approach.
It’s the opposite of how we live today. Today the more money you make the more you’re taxed (with some exceptions in some countries _cough_ America).
This means that those who are well off are contributing a larger amount of their money to things like healthcare, education, welfare for poor people, etc.
Feudalism was the opposite. In feudalism the rich paid no taxes, and the poor paid all the taxes. That’s not a joke. That’s actually what they thought was a good idea. They believed that nobility and especially the crown were to be given taxes, not paying them.
And not only did the poorest pay all the taxes and the rich paid none, but the poor were not even free people. They were indentured servitudes, which is not that far off from literal slavery at various points in history.
The entire European continent ran on this power structure for god knows how long. It took the Enlightenment age and the industrial revolution to crush this catastrophic idea, but unfortunately it persisted, most notably in Russia.
If you ever wondered why Russia is still a miserable country, this is one of the reasons. They had this entire power structure right up until the Soviet revolution. It’s also the primary reason for the Soviet revolution. Tzar Nickolas was a dogshit monarch.
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