Feudalism is a myth?

[Spoonist]

I ran into this article the other day. Which simply states that the construct of "feudalism" never existed and that the premise for the term's use is not valid in an academic context. See quotes below.
Something which I found puzzling. So I wanted to test it out here in the history forum. How many have heard about this "controversy" before? What would the current status be? (The paper its based on is from '94.)

My personal opinion would be that the term itself has been in use now for so long that it will not go away. So if someone does not like its definition then it would be better to try to change the definition than to try to get rid of the term altogether.

"Clearly feudalism was a construct that was developed after the Middle Ages, Brown maintained, and the system it described bore little resemblance to actual medieval society. Its many differing, even contradictory definitions had so muddied the waters that it had lost any useful meaning. The construct was actually interfering with the proper examination of evidence concerning medieval law and society; scholars viewed land agreements and social relationships through the warped lens of the feudalism construct, and either disregarded or dismissed anything that didn't fit into their chosen version of the model."

"In fact, just about everything that historians thought they knew about the origins of both the feudalism construct and all feudal terms related to it was subject to reinterpretation."

"It's 14 years later and the holds still aren't unpacked. While there have been a few criticisms and dissenting opinions on specific aspects of Fiefs and Vassals, on the whole, most medievalists agree with Reynolds. She has succeeded very well in shaking loose the hold the feudalism construct had on the academic community."

"Her conclusion is that the ism is built on sand, that the documents interpreted by generations of medievalists as representing "feudal" forms of landholding and "feudal" relations of vassals and lords will do so only if forced, only if one reads them with the assumption that that is what they must do. Without that assumption, she argues, they can be read to say very different things; and indeed many texts can be read through the lens of conventional "feudalism" only by doing them violence. "

[Thanas]

Never heard about this controversy, but then again I am not a mediavist. The term is still used.

[Simon_Jester]

The original Brown article seems to be from 1974, not 1994. I didn't find a link, but to cite:

Brown, Elizabeth, 'The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe', American Historical Review, 79 (1974), pp. 1063–8.

[Spoonist]

Never heard about this controversy, but then again I am not a mediavist. The term is still used.

That is what I thought as well.

The original Brown article seems to be from 1974, not 1994. I didn't find a link, but to cite:

Brown, Elizabeth, 'The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe', American Historical Review, 79 (1974), pp. 1063–8.

Yes, but the article mentions two sources, the first being the one you mention the second being Susan Reynolds: Fiefs and Vassels (1994) that was then referenced in my last quote link which is two peer reviews.

[K. A. Pital]

The fact that there are so many similarities in basic social relations and socio-economic structure of feudal societies in vastly different nations, speaks more about the viability of feudalism than a dozen papers trying to say that it's a mere "construct". That's like saying you can only view evolution through the "violence" of natual selection or the like - sounds a little like creationist sensationalism.

The argument against the concept of feudalism automatically becomes an argument against the theory of social formations par se; but that theory is quite robust and requires more than a few disagreeing academics to shake it. The formational and civilizational approaches are two pillars of modern scientific history. Anyone trying to singlehandedly declare one or the other "a myth" is not doing a great service to his own credibility, me thinks.

I have not heard of any controversy like this; neither seen it in the education programs of Russia or Germany, for that matter (for what little I have studied).

Historians were already aware that the general perception of lawless noblemen and renegade knights holding sway over a fearful populace in their accumulation of personal power was yet another myth about medieval times.

Um... in which societies?

The land didn't necessarily belong to nobles to begin with

One should examine generalities and the prevailing socio-economic order in society; exceptions to it, if there are, serve to uphold the general observation if they are really exceptions rather than rule.

Some were bestowed as rewards for past service, or as payment for continued or future service

This was also well-known for quite a while; the theoretic work in Medieval history knew this for, let's see, 50 years maybe? How does this principally change, or disallow, the use of words "feud" and "feudalism"? I hardly can understand the argument which consists of half-assed feudalism apologism, sensationalism and mythbusting ire...

Too much "mythbusting" in this article stirred up my bullshit detector, I'll give you that.

[Thanas]

Heck, I know several of the most prominent medieval scholars alive today. And none to my knowledge have any problem using the word Feudalherrschaft or Feudalismus, which is german for feudalism.

[Imperial Overlord]

It's possible to overestimate the importance of feudalism in Medieval Europe, but to deny the widespread use and importance of feudal relationships in Medieval Europe is ludicrous. It sounds like the author of the article is exaggerating for effect.

[K. A. Pital]

It sounds like the author of the article is exaggerating for effect.

Yep, you could get it from the vibe of the article. "The F-word", "Tyrrany of construct". Sensationalist headliners.

[Coop D'etat]

I remember studying this and a few related essays for medieval history courses back in undergrad. I'll look up my old course notes and textbooks to check up on this but as I recall there was a strong reaction against using the term feudalism to discribe medieval political systmes in Medieval Studies at the time this essay was published. To the best of my knowledge the geist of the argument was that the term had a history of being used in a haphazard manner which obscured the very real differences between the systems found in the various regions of Catholic Europe which in turn varied according to time period. Feudalism, as a descriptor of conditions in medival europe was a also seen as a construct of the 19th century to retroactively lump together pre-Renaissance societies. The word feudalism, they argued, really only described what you would find at a certain time in northern France. Not being an expert in this area I can't give an opinion of how strong their position was and what the current opinion of the field is on this manner.

[K. A. Pital]

The word feudalism, they argued, really only described what you would find at a certain time in northern France.

What about Russia then? Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth? Or is their Medieval history limited to W.Europe?

[Thanas]

It sounds as if someone tried to narrow down a terminus technicus in order to make it fit better, making a narrow definition and then using also that. It is however quite easy to use a term in the more wider sense.

[PeZook]

It kind of sounds like somebody defining "democracy" in an overly narrow way and then arguing none of today's countries are actually democracies, and that the term is used incorrectly.

European feudalism varied a lot with the geographical location and the time period, that much is obvious even from a cursory glance. Cities and towns, for example, were mostly governed under completely different rules than the countryside, and neighboring kingdoms could have varying laws and customs governing relations of the nobility to the king, the way villages were established, etc.

[Samuel]

Yeah, all of todays democracys are actually republics, but we use democracy to refer to countries that have the democratic process- essentially free and fair elections. Of course this ignores the wide range of variation between different democratic states, but that is an issue of vagueness and not the terminology preventing you from giving more details. Sort of the same issue the author ignored.

[davegrs]

I've always defined feudalism as a contractual relationship implying rights and obligations on both sides of the relationship. The particulars vary by time and place. This is in contrast to Eastern absolutism where for example the Turkish Sultan has all the rights and no one else has any save what the Sultan grants them.