|
Propaganda over the last 500 years have constantly pointed out that it is better "today" then back in the bad old days of "Feudalism". The problem is that is only true that 10% of the population that made up (and still makes up) what is called the "Middle Class" in Europe, or what we Americans call the "Upper Middle Class" for we Americans throw in Working Class in with the Upper Middle Class when we use the term "Middle Class".
For the other 85-88% of the population (About 2 % are the super rich, i.e. Nobility of Old, now the Billionaires) except for the years since WWII, most were better off under Feudalism then afterward. When the Roman Empire in the West Fell in the 400s, it was replaced by a series of States that consistent of two Nations. The larger of the two called themselves "Romans" for centuries after the fall of the Empire. These included people in what is now France, Spain, as while as Italy (and other parts of Europe, such as Greece and Romania). Roman Law applied to them.
The other "Nation" was the Germanic tribe that moved into that part of the Former Empire. Their Traditional tribal law applied to them. Remains of this divide in law lasted till the Renaissance where Roman law prevailed in most of Europe (Becoming todays "Civil Law" used in most of the World today).
Thus in the "Dark ages" from about 450 AD till about 1000 AD, these two "nations" coexistent through out Europe. The Catholic Church was the one unifying institution and do to this fact both the Germanic Tribes and the Roman people looked to the Church to resolved any disputes between the two sets of Nations. The Church existed this power by mediating between the Romans and the Germans AND between the emerging post Roman Empire Germanic States.
Now one of the Characteristic of the Post Roman State of Europe during the Dark Ages was that as the Empire collapsed, the Roman ruling elite invited in the Germanic Tribes to control the Peasants. People tend to forget that except for the Vandals every invading tribe was defeated by the Romans in the 400s and then settled in areas where the Romans had massive peasant revolts. Yes, the invaders were NOT driven out by invited to stay provided they protected the Roman ruling elite claims to the wealth of the lands ruled by both nations. A problem arose in this situation that the Catholic Church had to constantly mediate. The problem was the Germanic Tribes had more in common with the Roman Peasant then the Roman Elite and sooner or later the Germanic tribe adopted some sort of land reform to help out the peasants. The Roman Elite hated these reforms and did, as these land reforms became more common in the 500s, something they had refused to do in the 400s, permit taxes to be raised on the Roman Elite to pay for troops needed by the Empire (By the 500s we are talking of the Eastern Empire only) to undo these land reforms. Thus in the 530s you had the Eastern Empire under Justinian invading first North Africa and Carthage and then Italy to undo the land reforms of the Vandals in what is now Tunisia and the Reforms the Goths had started in Italy at the same time. These wars were the bloodiest wars since the Punic Wars. The City of Rome itself fell five times to invading armies in the early 500s (Three times to Roman Forces from the Eastern Empire, twice to Gothic Forces fighting those Roman Forces). The Peasants backed the Goths, for their titles to their land was Gothic in origin (i.e. The Roman Empire did not recognize them).
On the other hand both the Goths and Romans were Catholic by this time (the 500s) and thus the Catholic Church was caught in the middle. Now this was NOT as bad as it sounds, for even the Goths recognized that they were ruling over Italy as agents of the Roman Empire. The dispute was NOT that Italy should be part of the Roman Empire (Both sides accepted that as fact) but how much rights should the Goths get for having ruled Italy since 450 AD (The last Roman Emperor in the West did not fall from office till 476, but after 450 the real ruler of Italy was the Head of the Gothic Troops in the Western Imperial Army, in 476 the Head decided it was better to be sub-servant to the Emperor in Constantinople, for he was to far away to cause any problems in Italy, then to be sub-servant to a Roman Emperor in Italy, even if you had him under lock and key, thus the fall of the Empire in 450 when the Goths took over Italy as head of the Imperial Army AND the Vandals took Carthage which destroyed the east-west trade routes).
In 570, after the end of the Italian Wars, Italy was invaded by the Lombards. The Eastern Empire was busy with a war with Persia AND an attack on Constantinople by the Avars, thus Italy was left open to an Lombard Invasion. Within a couple of Generations the Lombards were Catholic and into land reforms. While Technically the Catholic Church at that time period was under the authority of the Eastern Emperor and the Pope supported the claims of the Eastern Empire in Western Europe, his priest assisted the Lombards (and the Franks in what is now France) to divide up the land among the Lombards (In Italy), the Goths (In Spain) and the Franks (In France). Now the system adopted was a radical variation of the late Roman Empire land System. As in the late Roman Empire Land System you had lords that ruled the manors and "owned" them, as that term was understood at that time. The change was that "Owning" land was defined differently by the Germanic tribes then the Roman Elites. As time went on the Church come more and more to prefer the definition of the Germanic tribes over that of the Roman Elites and slowly the Germanic Tribe definition took hold.
Now, the resistance to this change was strong among the Roman Elites. Their definition is much likes today's definition, ownership is complete and total, you can exclude from your land anyone you want. The Germanic Tribe definition was different. Ownership was more like being made the commander of a Battalion in the Army, when such command not only included the command of the troops, but how those troops were treated in old age, how their family were looked after, and collecting the money to support such troops (Which after the fall of the Western Empire meant that commanding troops meant you had to own land to raise the food to feed and equip that army). The Roman Elite held on throughout the Rule of the Lombards and Charlemagne's empire of the 800s. The problem was at the end of the 800s two new invaders moved into Europe, the Magyars who moved into what is now Hungary and from that base attacked, by land, as far west as France AND the Vikings who attack via the Ocean and up all the major rivers of Europe. To end this, the Saxon Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire (founded in 900 AD) decided to adopt a policy from the Eastern Empire (which adopted in during the Persian Wars of the early 600s and the Arab conquest after the 630s). The "Owner" of any land had a duty to provide troops AND to protect the peasants on that land. If he failed to do so, the "Owner" lost his right to ownership and the Emperor could name someone as "Owner" who would defend the land and the peasants.
Now, as you can see the definition of "Ownership" has shifted complete by 900 AD. The complete ownership of Roman Law was forgotten. The new definition followed Germanic Law, i.e. the "Owner" was the "leader" of the peasants working the land NOT someone who just hired and fired them. Under this system peasants had rights, including the right to stay on the land provided they did all that was expected of them to the "Leader". The Church made sure this new system treated everyone fairly. To make sure everyone was on board this new system, both the Nobility (The "Leaders") and the Peasants had to attend the same mass (Thus both did something in common). Both parties would look to the priest as a mediator of any disputes (Given the Military nature of this system the Noble in charge of the land was also the Judge of any dispute so all the Church could do is mediate). Now, while this sounds rigid, remember this was a two way street during a time of huge demand for troops i.e. the Noble needed the peasants to supply him and his troops not only with food and other supplies but also troops. This was by far the biggest check on the Noble along with the right, claimed by the Church, that the Church never came under the jurisdiction of any Civil Court (This permitted the local priest a lot of power when it came mediation, all he has to say was any complaint about him had to be filed with the bishop NOT any Civil Court).
Now, there were problems with the above system. Most of those problems have been cited over the last 500 years by the Upper Middle Class as why Feudalism was bad (and this I will not repeat them here) but I am pointing out HOW the system in use during the hight of Feudalism came about. From about 800 AD Feudalism started a slow build (As I pointed out above going back to the 400s for some of its ancient roots) but took off after 900 in Germany (and thus why Germany had little impact from the Viking Invasions of the 900s) and as the 900s went on more and more of Europe adopted it (England had aspects of Feudalism as early as the time of Alfred the Great, but took full hold only after 1066 and the Conquest of England).
One of the reason I went through the above is to show that Feudalism, unlike Roman law, was based on a Military view of what a "Leader" does NOT a Business mans point of view (Which is more Roman law in Nature). As the "Owner" of the property you not only had right to the money from the estate you also had duties to the people who produced that money (the peasants). Under Feudalism, like military contracts today, neither party can get of of them anytime they want. Today's military Enlistment Contracts have set start and end dates (Stop loss in a separate category which I will NOT address here) but that was NOT true during Feudalism. Both sides viewed the system as permanent in nature i.e. the peasants had to do certain things the Noble wanted of him, but the Noble could NOT kick the peasant off the land, in fact could NOT even buy out the peasant UNLESS the peasant agreed (And such agreement had to be approved by the Church AND the Nobles superiors, if either objected no such agreement was legal).
Today, a person on the property of another falls into four categories, a trespasser, i.e. someone with no right on the property but on it anyway, an "Invitee" someone who is invited onto the property (For example people are "Invited" into stores by the store being open to customer coming into the store), a "Guest" which is someone who paid to be on the property OR someone who has some right to come onto the property independent of who owns the property. The last case in rare today for the Upper Middle Class hated it and did all it can to kill such rights over the last 500 or so years, but this was the biggest factor in Feudalism. Peasants on the land of Nobles were NOT Trespassers, invitees or Guests. Peasants had a legal right to be on the land INDEPENDENT of
who owned the land. In England this was called a "Copy-hold" as opposed to a "Freehold" but was a valid right to be on the land and the key to Feudalism. A peasant had the right to live on the land, if he paid whatever he had to by tradition to his "noble". Now most peasants under Feudalism were "Serfs" who were freemen to everyone BUT their master, just like a soldier is only responsible to his chain of Command and can disregard any older from any other chain of command as if he was not a soldier (i.e. a Soldier can not disobey a Police Officer for if the Soldier was NOT a Soldier, i.e. a Civilian, he would still have to obey the Police Officer).
I am writing this off the top of my head, which is NOT always a good thing but the point I am trying to make is that people had rights under Feudalism that did NOT exist under earlier Roman Law. With the reintroduction of Roman Law during the Renaissance these rights went into decline as more and more courts adopted the Roman view on Ownership and abandoned the view of ownership of land that was the heart of Feudalism. What we are looking forward to is NOT a return to Feudalism (That would give us to much rights) but the same expansion of Roman view of land ownership prevalent in the last Centuries of the Western Roman Empire (It seem to prevail till about 600 AD in the Eastern Empire, but then the Invasion of the Balkans by the Slavs in the 600s, the destructiveness of the last Roman-Persian War around 600 AD and the subsequent Arab conquest of the 600s forced the Eastern Empire to abandon the Roman concept of Land Ownership and to invent what we now call Feudalism (and that invention permitted the subsequent Byzantine Empire to not only survive but be a power in what in now the Middle East). The key to Feudalism was that peasants had rights even while the Nobility retained technical ownership of the land. The key to what we are facing is the late Roman Empire ownership system. The peasants have NO rights while the ruling elite have all the rights.
The Greek Part of the Eastern Empire retained the greatest amount of peasant owned property during the Roman Empire. The Western and Egyptian/Arab part of the Roman Empire had the least amount of peasant owned property (and this is the best explanation why the Greek Speaking part of the Roman Empire survived another 1000 years after the fall of the Empire in the West).
My point is we are NOT looking at Feudalism, that is to progressive a state of development. We are looking at the late Western Roman Empire, with the money elite controlling everything and even willing to bring in foreign mercenaries to maintain that money even if that means the fall of the whole country (i.e. the ruling elites prefer their money to anything else including they fellow countrymen).
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
