¿QUÉ ES EL FEUDALISMO? La explicación definitiva

0:00The word feudalism is almost synonymous with the Middle Ages, but what if I told you

0:04there are historians who hate it so much they want to ban it? I'm David Cot,

0:08presenter of The History of Spain, and in episode 63 I'll explain the three

0:12different ways of understanding feudalism, the most intense debates about this concept,

0:16and the economic logic behind most pre-capitalist societies.

0:33Origin of the concept of 'feudalism' Feudalism is a very

0:38controversial concept among historians. So much so that some academics have banned the word,

0:43because there is no consensus definition and feudalism is not a term of medieval origin.

0:49The term fief is first documented in the 9th century among the Franks and did not

0:53become common until the 11th century, when it was used to define a type of

0:58land ownership conditional on the fidelity of the vassal and given by his lord as a reward for his

1:04services, mainly military. According to Richard Abels and David Herlihy,

1:08the adjective feudal was coined by Giacomo Alvarotto, an Italian Renaissance jurist.

1:14In his treatise De feudis, he studied the legal principles governing fiefs. He studied it

1:19from a 12th-century Lombard legal code called the Libri Feudorum, or Book of Fiefs,

1:24a compilation of treatises on this type of property not found in Roman law.

1:30As was common among those knowledgeable about Roman law, Giacomo assumed that, despite the

1:35different names they might receive depending on the region, fiefs derived from common customs,

1:42from a universal legal system in Europe. However, it was not yet thought that the fief

1:47defined a society or form of government. In the 16th century, French jurists traced the origin

1:54of the fief to the customs of barbarian peoples such as the Franks, and the study of so-called

1:59feudal law became popular in France, Germany, and England. However, it was not until

2:04the 18th century, during the Enlightenment, that the term "feudal" took on a broader meaning

2:09and was used much more frequently. In 1737, the Count of Boulainvilliers was the first

2:17to coin the term "féodalité" (feudality), or, as we would translate it in English, "feudalism.

2:24" For the Enlightenment, feudalism was everything they disliked: the institutions

2:29and customs of a dynastic, manorial state, which they conceived as dominated by the

2:34private interests of parasitic nobility and clergy, as opposed to the centralized,

2:40territorial, and national bourgeois state they wanted to build. They understood feudalism as a system

2:45of coercion and exploitation of peasants that fragmented national sovereignty, an

2:52arbitrary private power that was a source of injustice and lack of freedom, and an obstacle to progress.

2:58When the National Constituent Assembly abolished the feudal system in August 1789,

3:04they were referring to this. For the Scottish philosopher Adam Smith, feudalism led to a

3:09poor society and widespread socioeconomic inequalities, compared to his capitalist model

3:15based on market forces, which he believed represented prosperity and economic freedom.

3:20These negative views have led to the adjective feudal, like medieval, persisting in the

3:26collective imagination as a pejorative term for something antiquated, retrograde, oppressive, and

3:32violent. The popularization of the concept of feudalism must be contextualized within the struggles against the

3:38survival of the institutions of the Ancien Régime, but it must also be understood that they spread myths that have now

3:44been superseded or qualified by historiography. What is feudalism? Its three definitions.

3:54We have seen where the idea of feudalism comes from, but as I said, there is no

3:57consensus definition. No one can say that they created the original definition of

4:02feudalism and that the others are flawed, but the problem arises when

4:07contradictory and inconsistent definitions are used, when the term feudalism is used

4:11without a clear understanding of what it is that they are talking about. That's why Chris Wickham's synthesis,

4:17which reduces the definitions of feudalism to three, is very useful. The first is the Marxist one,

4:24feudalism as a mode of production; the second is the Blochian one, due to its association

4:29with the Frenchman Marc Bloch, who conceives of feudalism as a model of political and social organization;

4:35And the third definition is the institutionalist one, the most restrictive of all, which limits

4:40feudalism to the set of legal institutions that govern relations between lords and vassals,

4:46without including dependent peasants. Let's examine each of these definitions. The

4:52Marxist one is an analysis of the economic basis of a society based on modes of production.

4:57According to Karl Marx, a mode of production is the way a society organizes

5:02economic activity, the combination of productive forces and relations of production. Or,

5:08to put it another way, a combination of the means of production,

5:12human labor and technologies, and who controls the means of production and how.

5:18The focus of the analysis is on the economic relations between producers

5:21and non-producers and the manner in which surpluses are appropriated. For historical materialists,

5:27feudalism is an economic system in which a non-producing ruling class,

5:32generally separated from the productive process, uses force or the threat of force—

5:37non-economic coercion—to extract part of the surplus production from peasant families.

5:43This contrasts with the slave mode of production,

5:47where all surplus value is extracted from unfree people who receive only enough to subsist,

5:53and the capitalist mode of production, in which workers have to become

5:57wage laborers because they do not control the means of production—that is, it is fundamentally a matter

6:02of economic coercion. I'll leave this discussion of modes of production to be

6:08addressed in much more detail in a separate section, because there's a lot to cover here.

6:13The second definition of feudalism is Blochian, which understands that feudalism

6:18can be applied to the entire society because political and legal institutions cannot be separated

6:23from socioeconomic reality. Feudalism would thus be a political,

6:30social, and economic system that revolves around land ownership and relations of

6:34protection and obedience. Marc Bloch offered this description, listing its characteristics:

6:41“Peasant subjugation; instead of wages, which were generally impossible, widespread use of

6:46tenancy-service, which is, in the precise sense, the fiefdom; the superiority of a

6:51specialized warrior class; ties of obedience and protection that bind man to man and,

6:57in this warrior class, take the pure form of vassalage; the fragmentation of powers,

7:03generating disorder; but amidst all this, the survival of other systems of

7:08grouping, kinship, and state, among which the latter had to regain, during the second

7:14feudal age, a new vigor: these seem to be the fundamental features of European feudalism.”

7:21This description represents the image that many people think of when

7:26discussing feudalism and medieval Europe. Criticisms of this definition focus on how

7:32broad it is, and on the fact that it raises doubts about whether a society that does not meet all of these criteria

7:37can be characterized as feudal . According to Susan Reynolds, only two elements on Bloch's list—

7:43the subjugation of peasants and a class specialized in warfare—match

7:48the evidence for medieval Western Europe. That renders the definition useless in

7:53her view, but I will discuss this later. Finally, there is the institutionalist definition,

8:00especially influential in Germany and often identified with the

8:04Belgian historian François-Louis Ganshof. On this reading, feudalism is the body of

8:08institutions regulating the obligations of obedience and service of a freeman

8:13who is a vassal to another freeman who is his lord, as well as the lord's obligations

8:20of protection and rewards to his vassal. Such obligations to reward a vassal's services

8:25translated into the granting of fiefs, lands from which vassals kept

8:31their rents, but which ultimately remained the property revocable by their lord. Thus,

8:37according to institutionalists, feudalism would be limited to everything that revolves around the

8:42fiefdoms themselves and feudal-vassal relationships. This

8:47rigid definition excludes the majority of society from feudalism.

8:52Which definition of feudalism is correct? I've explained the three definitions of feudalism,

8:59but are they all equally valid? The first thing to keep in mind is that

9:04all three are ideal types, as formulated by the influential sociologist Max Weber. An ideal type

9:11is a tool used to approximate reality, a simplified theoretical construct

9:17that doesn't claim to be perfect or to describe reality exactly as it is.

9:22Ideal types are categories to which we give a very clear and concise definition.

9:28For example, categories like capitalism or anarchy are ideal models. They have

9:34the great value of allowing us to compare real historical societies with the ideal and, from there,

9:40help us understand a society, generating empirical observations and new questions.

9:46This is what is called heuristic capacity. Ideal models are refined according to

9:52new evidence and interpretations; that is, empirical research and the theoretical framework

9:57are in constant dialogue to bring us closer to a more reliable understanding of history. For

10:03example, to discuss feudalism as a society, it would be pertinent to make some modifications

10:08to Marc Bloch's characterization to make it more useful for analyses beyond France.

10:15Advocates of the most restrictive definition of feudalism are the ones most likely to fall

10:20into the trap of believing theirs is not an abstraction and is a faithful description of

10:25reality. Therefore, we must be very careful not to confuse the simplified construct with reality,

10:31which is why so much confusion and Byzantine discussion among historians arises. We

10:36must also avoid mixing types of definitions. The three definitions of feudalism are correct,

10:41insofar as they are theoretical abstractions and cannot be refuted.

10:46That does not mean they can all be equally useful, and by usefulness I refer again

10:52to their heuristic value. The Marxist definition is useful for studying the economic structure,

10:57the Blochian definition for society as a whole, taking primarily a political perspective,

11:02and the institutional definition for studying the internal structuring of the aristocratic order. There's no need to

11:08limit yourself to choosing just one type of feudalism, and each of the three can be used in

11:12different contexts depending on the focus of the study. Feudalism as feudal-vassal relations in

11:18the Iberian Peninsula is observed primarily in the Catalan counties and Aragon, to a lesser extent

11:25in other territories, and is something that is chronologically limited between the 11th and 13th or 14th centuries.

11:32However, if we use feudalism in the Blochian definition, this extends

11:35further back, and up to the 19th century in the Marxist one. In my program, I will be explicit about which definition

11:42I use on each occasion. I believe I will use feudalism in a Blochian way in the High

11:48Middle Ages to refer to a type of society and political system that, with its particularities,

11:54was common throughout much of medieval Europe. It is the feudalism most characteristic of the popular imagination,

11:59associated with kings, knights, castles, vassals, and peasants subject to a lord. However

12:05, in later stages, he will probably only use the adjective feudal to

12:10refer to the economic structure and medieval reminiscences that survived

12:15until the end of the Ancien Régime. The Tributary Mode of Production

12:22Historical materialist analysis deserves special attention in order to

12:26understand the economic structure of medieval societies. It should be noted that

12:30Karl Marx conceived of modes of production as stages of socioeconomic development,

12:36as steps that all societies would go through until they inevitably reached

12:40communism. This is why so many Marxists were confused by the Russian Revolution, where they believed

12:46that an attempt was being made to move from feudalism to socialism, bypassing capitalism.

12:51However, this teleological and deterministic view of history is unsustainable,

12:57not only from my anarchist perspective, but also because of the historical and anthropological evidence

13:01that shows that history is not linear and there are different possibilities. Nor does the economic base

13:07ultimately determine everything else, and there are more factors that change history and interact.

13:12among themselves. Materialist analysis is important and useful, but it's not all about economics, and

13:18I think I'll discuss this in more detail in the next episode, so subscribe so you don't miss it.

13:23That said, it's worth emphasizing again that modes of production are ideal types that

13:27serve to reduce the world's almost infinite forms of political and social organization

13:33into a few forms of production and appropriation of wealth. Real historical societies,

13:39with all the complexity and nuances that this entails, are the so-called social formations.

13:45The classic modes of production in Marxism are primitive communism, slave-owning,

13:51feudal, capitalist, and communist. Marx greatly developed the analysis of capitalism,

13:57but he only partially commented on other modes and in an uninformed way

14:02based on the knowledge we have now. For example, he believed that the slave-owning mode defined

14:07the Roman Empire, but historians of the period have noted that this wasn't the case. This

14:13doesn't mean that the slaveholder isn't a useful ideal type for analyzing some

14:19specific societies and relationships, because it's important to understand that in most societies there is more than

14:24one mode of production. However, the important thing in classifying a society is

14:31to determine which mode of production is dominant. For example, the capitalist mode of production,

14:36centered on wage relations, existed in ancient and medieval societies,

14:41but it wasn't the dominant mode. In addition to the classic model formulated by Marx,

14:46later theorists have added several more. One would be the domestic mode of production, which is

14:52production within the home without remuneration and focused on self-consumption, where there is a

14:57division of labor based on sex and age. Chris Wickham proposed the

15:02peasant mode of production as a model that fits well with the reality of many peasants

15:07in the Early Middle Ages in Europe and elsewhere. It refers to peasants free from any

15:12state or feudal control whose production is domestic or familial. They have total or almost total control over

15:18production, and the families of a community support each other without expectation of compensation.

15:24In pre-capitalist societies, the peasant mode of production basically encompasses the

15:28domestic mode, but the domestic mode has also continued to exist under capitalism. I'll return

15:34to the peasant mode of production later, because first, an important correction must be made to

15:39something I've been saying so far. We defined

15:45al-Andalus society as tributary through the payment of tributes and taxes to a state, in contrast to feudal society,

15:50defined by the payment of rents to landowners. However, John Haldon argued very convincingly

15:56that these are two distinct modes of distributing wealth once it has been appropriated,

16:03but they are one and the same mode of production and appropriation of the surplus, which he calls the

16:08tributary mode of production. This is consistent with Marx's postulates, who defined rent as the

16:15dominant form by which surplus labor was extracted from producers in

16:20pre-capitalist societies, and rent could be extracted through services, in kind, or in money.

16:27That is to say, it matters little whether the appropriation of resources is through feudal rents from

16:31peasants subject to some degree of dependency or through taxes and tributes paid by

16:37free peasant proprietors and landowners who exploit their lands as sharecroppers.

16:42Taxes and tributes are the way in which modern states extract resources from the population,

16:47but they are not the determining characteristic of the mode of production we call capitalist.

16:53Rather, they are a secondary form of appropriation and distribution of surpluses, after

16:58the necessary primary form, which is the surplus value extracted from workers by entrepreneurs.

17:04The tributary mode of production is marked by a social division into two classes: the peasants

17:10and the ruling elites, be they a state bureaucracy or a landed aristocracy, who in

17:16both cases dominate the state. To argue that what we have been calling tributary and feudal are two

17:22distinct modes of production would be to imply that those who control the state and the economic class

17:27The ruling class is a class of two independent social classes. In reality, the state and landed classes

17:33frequently coincided, and if not, they were two factions of the same

17:39ruling class. They could work in the same direction, but also clash violently over how much

17:45each kept and how the pie was divided, not because of a

17:50different economic position vis-à-vis the producers. This antagonism over the distribution of the surplus

17:55is very clearly observed in the relations between the state and the landed aristocracies

18:00of medieval Christian Europe, which competed directly for control of the means of

18:04production to obtain the material foundations that would guarantee their autonomy, but also in

18:10the power struggles to control the state in al-Andalus. In conclusion, taxes and

18:15rents are two distinct political relations, as well as forms of distribution of surplus

18:21wealth, but not different modes of production. This explanation convinced Manuel Acién and

18:27Chris Wickham, and although the latter has decided to retain the classic Marxist terminology of the

18:33feudal mode of production, it seems to me to sound Eurocentric and easily misleading when

18:39speaking of ancient China, the Roman Empire, or the Aztecs as feudal. What I previously called

18:44tributary and feudal are subtypes of the same mode of production: the tributary mode. To distinguish them,

18:51I think it's appropriate to speak of a state-based tributary society and a feudal tributary society.

18:56Why is the difference still relevant? Because institutionally and politically

19:01it's important. That is, using the Blochian prism, a tributary state and a feudal state

19:07are very different. A tributary state, like the various ones that occurred

19:12in al-Andalus, has a great capacity to extract resources, while a feudal state

19:17has little or no capacity to collect revenue, and power is articulated differently.

19:22The difference between a state-based tributary society and a feudal tributary society is very important

19:27in terms of the degree of political and territorial centralization, the type of military organization,

19:33the degree of monetization of the economy, the role and magnitude of cities and the relationship between the

19:39countryside and the city, and whether bureaucrats or

19:45rural lords dominated society. However, it is of little relevance to the economic structure at its most fundamental level.

19:52It has been argued that feudal lords were more interested in influencing the productive process,

19:57for example, by demanding changes in what was grown and raised, how it was done,

20:02or in determining who controlled the mills and water canals. But a tributary state

20:07could also influence this by demanding certain types of agricultural products or by building

20:13irrigation canals. The degree of exploitation of peasants need not be different,

20:18and ultimately the class struggle between the state or seigneurial ruling class and the

20:23peasants determined how much surplus they could extract from the producers and to what extent

20:29they could influence how they worked. The Economic Logic of Taxation

20:37The disintegration of the Western Roman Empire and its tax apparatus led the societies

20:41of these regions to shift from a state-run tax model to a feudal one in the economic sense,

20:47where the presence of some political entity did not disappear and landowners were able to

20:52retain their power. Peasants benefited most from this process,

20:57and in some places the peasant mode of production, described by Chris Wickham,

21:02was dominant between the 6th and 10th centuries. In the peasant mode of production,

21:07production did not involve accumulating resources and generating surpluses to give to someone else,

21:12but rather production was essentially for family consumption, and there were no incentives for

21:18specialization or economic differentiation. Peasant societies without a lord or state to

21:24take resources from them did not exactly correspond to the anarchic ideal;

21:29they were not completely egalitarian societies in terms of social roles, power, and wealth,

21:35either within the family unit or between neighbors. However, their informality meant that

21:41there were no clearly differentiated social classes or systematic exploitation, and

21:47However, following the logic of the gift economy, some neighbors distributed more of

21:53their surplus among their community members to gain prestige and influence or as a matter of

21:59community morale. This peasant economic logic contrasts with the tributary mode of production. The logic of the

22:06tributary mode of production consisted of exploiting those who produced, primarily peasants,

22:11so that a minority, the state or feudal ruling class, could live without working.

22:17Peasants produced to survive and delivered a portion of their fruits to the

22:22state or landowning elite through rents, taxes, tributes, and labor contributions.

22:28Compared to the capitalist mode of production, tributary elites did not

22:33intervene as directly in the organization of production. Nor

22:37was production market-oriented, and the role of trade was secondary and responded largely to

22:43the needs of the elite and the cities. The economic logic of taxation did not incentivize

22:49reinvestment by the non-producing class in pursuit of infinite growth.

22:53Rather, the objective was either to increase tax pressure, income, and labor benefits, or to obtain

22:59more land and dependent peasants to gain political and economic power and

23:04greater capacity for the consumption of luxury goods. In the European High Middle Ages,

23:10some areas dominated by feudal-type taxation logic coexisted with others by peasant logic.

23:16This is what Wickham called the leopard's spots, a differentiated landscape at the microregional level.

23:23Aristocratic areas, due to their intrinsic desire for more land and peasants, jeopardized

23:28the continuity of areas where self-managed peasant communities prevailed.

23:34Change could be internal, with prosperous local elites emerging, or external,

23:40with aristocrats using force or alliances with local notables, who

23:46could thus strengthen their influence or even broaden their horizons thanks to their new patron.

23:52By the 11th century, there were few free peasant communities left in the Iberian Peninsula, and the

23:57dominant production model was tributary, in its state form in al-Andalus and feudal in the

24:03Christian kingdoms and counties. The dynamics of elites more capable of extracting resources from the

24:10producing class meant that they had greater consumption capacity and encouraged economic specialization

24:16in sectors such as textiles, ceramics, and blacksmithing. These dynamics of economic development

24:23that we saw in al-Andalus occurred later in Christian societies.

24:28For their part, peasants had incentives to increase production and improve

24:33productivity, both because they were required to produce more than they consumed and because rents and

24:40taxes tended to stabilize over time. That is, the tributary state or feudal lords

24:47could not keep all the surplus, and thus some peasants could become richer, and

24:53internal differentiation between more and less prosperous peasants increased. Paradoxically,

24:59under the tax system, peasants gained greater access to products at the cost of less freedom.

25:07Historiographical Debate on Feudalism I have left this as the last section to discuss

25:13the historiographical debate that has taken place around feudalism in recent decades at the

25:19international and Spanish levels, because it can be a bit tedious, but it is relevant to identifying

25:25where an author stands when speaking or not about feudalism. The degree of acceptance and importance

25:31of feudalism in the historiography of European countries varies greatly.

25:36The differences in historiographies are closely linked to the grand national narratives and

25:42the tendency to present the history of a country as exceptional and very different from its neighbors.

25:47In England, there was much debate about the implications of the Norman Conquest of 1066,

25:52often considered the true founding moment of the English state.

25:57In Spain, we focus a lot on the frontier, in Italy on the cities due to political fragmentation

26:02, while in France it is so accepted that the entire Ancien Régime can be included.

26:08In France, a distinction is usually made between feudalism, as a political and socioeconomic system that

26:13organizes the whole of society, and feudalism, which is the set of relationships of dependence

26:18between lords, that is, one is feudalism in its Blochian definition and the other in the

26:24institutionalist one. Marc Bloch distinguished two stages of feudalism in France. A first

26:30stage from the collapse of the Carolingian Empire until the middle of the 11th century characterized by

26:35the collapse of central power, a very local politics and fortifications.

26:40The second feudal era he dated between 1050 and 1250 and described it as a stage of

26:47economic, demographic and urban expansion in Europe, supported by the triennial rotation, the Norman plow and

26:53wind and watermills. These economic changes would have helped to reinforce the power of

26:58the feudal sovereigns, as well as to transform social relations. The warrior and

27:04landowning class became a hereditary nobility, and the demand for luxury goods increased,

27:09leading to the monetization of the economy, increased exploitation of peasants,

27:14and the development of a merchant and artisan class. In French historiography, feudalism is

27:19associated with a weakness and fragmentation of central power, since the nobles enjoyed

27:24political and jurisdictional power. However, this conception of feudalism

27:29comes from the history of France in the 10th and 11th centuries, and also from Germany in the late

27:34medieval period, but it is not applicable to regions with relatively

27:39strong governments such as Castile and León or England. Blochian feudalism's ideal type has led

27:45French historians, and even those from other countries, to consider that

27:51feudalism arose in northern France and was most perfect, that is, closest to the ideal.

27:57Therefore, when the French feudal paradigm was exported to other regions, people spoke of

28:02imperfect feudalisms or rejected the term feudalism altogether. Furthermore, some historians

28:08have embraced the view that feudal institutions were imported from France, rather

28:13than having emerged through internal dynamics. A

28:18debate arose in French historiography between supporters and opponents of the feudal revolution or mutation.

28:24The mutationist hypothesis is summarized as stating that until 1000 or 1050, the

28:29Carolingian political and social order remained in force, albeit on a more local scale. However, within a short period of

28:35time, public power, understood as synonymous with state power, was replaced by the private power of

28:41aristocrats who rose up violently against the sovereign and the peasants.

28:47The new social class of knights allegedly violently usurped the king's jurisdictional rights

28:51, including the functions of government and administration of

28:56justice. To rebuild his power, the feudal sovereign was forced to structure the

29:01governance of the territories over which he claimed authority through

29:05private relationships of vassalage and loyalty to lords who dominated rural areas with castles.

29:11In this hypothesis, the rural lordship becomes the fundamental driving force behind the establishment of a

29:16new order. This thesis is defended by George Duby, Jean-Pierre Poly, and Pierre Bonnassie and

29:22Thomas Bisson, the latter two of whom formulated it while investigating the Catalan counties. Among the

29:28anti-mutationists is Dominique Barthélemy, who believes that the changes were gradual,

29:32and that there was no explosion of violence or anarchy understood as chaos, and that the documentation

29:37only reflects terminological changes in processes that had developed

29:42gradually over the decades before. The mutationist thesis, as

29:47originally proposed, is exaggerated. In its most extreme version, it even considered

29:53the Carolingian state a continuation of the Roman one and claimed that slavery was

29:58the dominant mode of production until the year 1000. It required a great deal of imagination to

30:03consider that the early medieval states of Western Europe were continuators

30:07of a tributary state model like the Roman one. Many characteristics of feudal society

30:13were already present in a more or less mature form in early medieval societies. The distinction between

30:19public and private, or between a free peasant and a dependent one, had been blurring for centuries. There were

30:26already aristocrats presiding over trials, and the image of a peaceful Carolingian world

30:31faced with barons who were little short of violent and psychopathic does not correspond to reality, and has to do with

30:36biases in favor of centralized states. Aristocratic violence did not increase in the 11th century

30:42compared to previous centuries. Nor did the expropriation of land from free peasants or the subjection of

30:49peasants to a regime of serfdom increase at a dizzying pace.

30:54This process occurred gradually over several centuries. On the other hand, in British and American historiography,

31:00feudalism is a political, economic, and social system built

31:06on lordship, vassalage, and fiefdom in Western Europe between the 11th and 14th centuries.

31:13In the Anglo-American world, feudalism is primarily a system of military recruitment,

31:18related to the fragmentation of central political power, where land ownership

31:22is exchanged for military service, especially that of heavy cavalry.

31:27A British contribution to the feudal debate was made by Charles Plummer when he coined the term

31:33bastard feudalism to describe a client system where loyalty and military service were paid

31:38in cash rather than through land grants, something that was increasingly common in the Late Middle Ages.

31:44However, later historians have found this distinction artificial,

31:49because both forms of fiefdom granting coexisted during the Middle Ages.

31:54Much more important is to see why today "feudalism" is a forbidden word in most

31:59English-speaking academic circles. In 1974, Elizabeth Allen Brown argued that the term "feudalism" should be

32:06discarded and removed from academic publications and educational settings

32:11due to its lack of a consensus definition and its creation of a false impression of a common system.

32:16Brown criticized not only feudalism but all -isms as abstract constructs that

32:22distort reality by simplifying it. In 1994, Susan Reynolds elaborated on this in

32:28her book "Fiefs and Vassals." Reynolds analyzed documentary evidence from France, England,

32:33Italy, and Germany and concluded that even terms such as fief,

32:36vassal, and benefice lacked a common definition. This was because the Early Middle Ages were characterized

32:42by the predominance of custom over written law, and these legal customs were highly

32:48variable and mutable across time and place. Reynolds argued that in the 11th and 12th centuries,

32:54fiefs were less important than hereditary family estates and that

32:59horizontal relationships of association between equals were more important than hierarchical relationships

33:04of vassalage. He points out that the popular idea since the Early Modern period that vassalage and fiefs

33:10were central elements of medieval politics is incorrect and concludes that

33:15we should stop talking about feudalism. Numerous reasons have led to this

33:19questioning of feudalism and the centrality of war in medieval politics and society,

33:25including the fact that militarism has been glorified less since the

33:28Vietnam War and that universities have incorporated more women and hierarchies

33:33have become less rigid. A climate of rejection of general theoretical frameworks has taken hold in English-speaking academia

33:38. However, there are reasons to continue talking about

33:43feudalism. To begin with, the argument that it should be discarded because it can have

33:48many different meanings is very weak. People understand capitalism,

33:53the state, or freedom in different ways, and I don't see anyone saying that these are words

33:58that should stop being used. The concepts can be debated, but the important thing is to be

34:02clear about the definition being used and to explain it so that those who listen to you understand it.

34:08The rejection of feudalism denotes a rejection of ideal types, but it is impossible to understand

34:13reality without simplifying it into categories that allow us to make comparisons. Another

34:19argument against feudalism is that fiefdoms were not the only, nor, probably,

34:24the most important, way of articulating power. This is true, but etymological reasons cannot be

34:29used to reject a word, because languages evolve.

34:34Sometimes in unexpected ways, and no one has the right to impose a way of expressing oneself.

34:39The word "history" itself comes from the Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to know,"

34:44and from there to ancient Greek, meaning "knowledge acquired through research."

34:49Therefore, given its origin, history could refer to much more than knowledge of the past,

34:55but it evolved along a different path. As Chris Wickham points out, eliminating

35:01the terms feudalism and feudal from our vocabulary does not serve to eliminate the influence that the

35:06historiographical tradition of the past has on our knowledge. Instead of pretending that this tradition

35:10doesn't exist, it's better to interact with these legacies and try to refine theoretical models

35:16so that they more closely reflect the evidence. This is what needs to be said about the

35:20global historiographical debate, but now let's talk about Spanish historiography. Since the beginning

35:25of the 19th century, there has been controversy over the existence of feudalism here. Some liberals defended it,

35:32while others criticized them as Frenchified and attempting to apply

35:36a foreign form of political and social organization to the history of Spain. Alexandre

35:41Herculano and Claudio Sánchez Albornoz rejected the existence of feudalism in Portugal and Spain,

35:47except in Catalonia, due to its Carolingian origin. They distinguished between the feudal system, understood

35:52in its institutionalist view of relationships based on vassalage and fiefdom,

35:57and the manorial system, defined as the set of relationships of dependence of some individuals

36:03on others, whether through land or personal ties. However, since the 1970s,

36:08feudalism, in its Marxist and Blochian interpretations, gained popularity, integrating Spain

36:14into European historiography and abandoning the nationalist exceptionalism of Francoism.

36:20Carlos Laliena studied feudalism applied to the Kingdom of Aragon, Juan José Larrea brought

36:26the mutationist feudal paradigm popular in Catalonia to Navarre, while in Castile,

36:31León, and Galicia there is still considerable division between those who choose to speak

36:35of feudalism and those who do not. Among those who have made important contributions to the

36:40feudal debate for the kingdoms of León and Castile are Barbero y Vigil, Reyna Pastor, Carlos Estepa,

36:46Julio Valdeón, Amancio Isla, and José Ángel García de Cortázar, with a feudalism in

36:52social terms or in terms of mode of production that is far removed from mutationist postulates.

37:08In today's Verdict, I want to give a slap on the wrist to many modern historians,

37:12because because of them, I am increasingly forced to perform tasks more appropriate for a historian than

37:16a simple popularizer. After this episode, I better understand the accusation that historians aren't

37:21usually interested in theory. It's quite striking that, for example, none of the

37:26many history books I consulted on the Early Middle Ages included John Haldon's clear explanations

37:31of the dominant mode of production in pre-capitalist societies.

37:37In recent decades, academia, especially in the increasingly dominant Anglophone world,

37:42has consolidated a widespread disdain for grand explanatory frameworks

37:47and general theories, and thus knowledge has become increasingly disjointed. We've gone from

37:54one extreme to the other. It was also bad when, in the 19th century or the first half

38:00of the 20th century, grand theories were formulated based more on intuition than on empirical evidence, but

38:06now we're at the other, equally bad extreme. The hyperspecialization of researchers

38:12has improved our knowledge of specific topics or narrow areas,

38:16but it has become so narrow that theoretical frameworks are now lacking, and the ability

38:21to compare and relate phenomena is lost. You can't see the forest for the trees. This is even evident in the fact that

38:28synthesis works that bring together the latest historiographical advances are increasingly rare.

38:34The micro and the macro must be in constant dialogue to improve each other,

38:38or else we'll be missing a part of history. And with that, The Verdict ends.

38:44If you enjoyed the video, give it a like and subscribe if you're new to enjoy

38:47countless hours of free content about the history of Spain on the channel.

38:51YouTube or both podcasts. I produce the show alone, and it requires a lot of work,

38:57so if you appreciate my outreach, please consider making a donation or purchasing

39:00merchandise like T-shirts and sweatshirts on the show's website.

39:04You can also become a patron at patreon.com/lahistoriaespana and in return

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39:14In the next episode, we'll explore how the feudalization of the Iberian Peninsula occurred

39:18in general terms, with the particularities of each region and what feudal society was like.

39:25Thematic episodes like these are more dense and difficult to research than

39:29political history ones, and since I want to publish one video per week, I have to multitask

39:34between advancing the chronological series and the Memorias Hispánicas videos. Between that and the fact that I'm going on

39:39vacation for two weeks between the end of September and the beginning of October, don't be

39:43surprised if there's no new episode in September for patrons and October for everyone else. The

39:49important thing is that the next episode turns out well. After that, I hope to return to political history

39:54and resume a monthly publication schedule. So, be patient, and see you soon!