what was feudalism?
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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.
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