Feudalism

By the time of the Hundred Years' War (1337-1453), feudalism was the primary economic system in Europe.

Feudalism was a mode of production dominant in Europe between the 7th and 15th centuries and in various other regions in different time periods. The feudal mode of production is characterized by the dominance of agrarian production by the peasants whose surplus labour was exploited by feudal lords in the form of rents, labour duties, taxes and other payments. The feudal production relations constituted what Perry Anderson calls "an organic unity of economy and polity" in the form of parcellised sovereignties, meaning that the feudal lords as private owners enjoyed their own land and other means of production as well as their own armies, courts, and laws.

In England, however, starting from the 16th century, a process began to emerge which Marx examines in Capital volume one under the name of primitive accumulation. The exact reasons are still disputed among Marxist historians (see the Dobb-Sweezy debate and the Brenner debate), but eventually the feudal production relations in the English countryside gave way to capitalist production relations by the gradual expropriation of the peasants from land, which in turn transformed the English towns by the inflow of the expropriated peasants who were now the proletarians compelled to sell their labour power as a commodity on a large scale. This two-fold transformation of the production relations in the countryside and the towns gave rise to capitalism.

Historical development

Western Europe

Elements of feudalism existed in the coloni of the late Roman Empire, who worked the land of large landowners and had to pay parts of their harvest to them. Unlike slaves, the coloni had some of their own land. Slavery ended when Germanic, Celtic, and Slavic barbarians overthrew the Roman Empire. The conquering peoples had a declining communal society and frequently redistributed land, but their leaders had large private holdings. They divided the farmland of the Roman Empire into separate holdings and created an independent peasantry, but wealthier families gradually acquired power over the community. Military leaders of the conquering clans became kings and formed a new state to preserve the interests of the large landowners. They gave land to their supporters in exchange for military service and also gave large plots of land to the church.

From the sixth through tenth centuries, peasants became more reliant on lords and depended on their protection from wars and bandits.

Eastern Europe

Slavic tribes in Eastern Europe fought against the Romans starting in the third century. Eastern Slavs lived in village communes with publicly owned meadows, forests, and ponds but private farmland. Tribal elders seized and privatized the land, and the early patriarchal slave system developed into feudalism without a full slave period and after the full establishment of feudalism in Western Europe. The church was the largest feudal landowner, and the monarchy began appointing officials as feudal lords in the 15th century, allowing them to exploit the serfs in exchange for military service. Until 1581, peasants were allowed to move from one lord to another.

Marxist analysis

Class struggle

Two major classes existed in feudal society: the nobility and the serfs. Nobles became part of their class by birth, and were able to amass generational wealth by exploiting the surplus labour of the serfs. Nobles were granted land by the monarch and in exchange agreed to participate in their wars and obey their orders. The people that lived on this land would also become the lord's property.

In exchange for letting them use the lord's land, serfs would have to surrender part of their harvest or provide free labour to the lord. Unlike slaves, serfs owned some of their own land and tools and had some interest in working.