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CHAPTER
XVIIT.
FEUDALISM.
The feudal organisation of state and society is the dominant
fact of medieval history on its institutional side quite as much
as the city-state is the dominant fact of ancient history from
the institutional point of view. Such dominant facts cannot be
restricted chronologically to a definite period; they arise
gradually and give way slowly to new conditions. But it may be
said in a general way that the epoch when feudalism form ed most
characteristically the centre of political and social
arrangements comprised the eleventh and twelfth centuries. From
the thirteenth century onwards feudal law continued to be
appealed to and feudal principles were sometimes formulated even
more sharply than before, but the modern State was beginning to
assert itself in most European countries in an unmistakable
manner and its influence began to modify the fundamental
conceptions of feudalism. In our survey of feudal society we
shall therefore look for illustrations mainly to the period
between the years 1000 and 1200, though sometimes we may have to
draw on the materials presented by thirteenth century documents.
The essential relations of feudalism are as unfamiliar to us as the conception of the city-state. In one sense it may be defined as an arrangement of society on the basis of contract. Contracts play an important part in the business life of our time, but we do not think of the commonwealth as based on leases; we do not consider a nation primarily as a number of lords and tenants; we do not take the status of every single person to be determined by obligations as to land; we do not assume that the notions of sovereignty and of citizenship depend on the stipulations of an express or implied contract. In the medieval period under consideration, on the other hand, it would be easy to deduce all forms of political organisation and of social intercourse from feudal contract. The status of a person depended in every way on his position on the land, and on the other hand, land-tenure determined political rights and duties. The public organisation of England, for example, was derived from the fact that all the land