Medieval European and Japanese Feudalism
...fed, and trained from childhood in war). In Europe, Feudalism arose following the collapse of the Roman Empire from the early Frankish kingdoms of the 8th century. Previous to this time, grants by kings of land to others had been in full ownership. By the latter half of the 8th century, however, the kings began to keep the ownership to themselves and to grant land only in fief, which allowed a wide lattitude in use and exploitation, but still designated the king as the actual owner of the land. In addition, the basic tenets of remote administration through autocratic authority over the lands being delegated by a central power had been inherited as an idea from the Romans in the 6th century (and earlier), and slowly this became an accepted notion of governance amoung the barbaric Franks by the late 8th century. Though the heyday of Rome's glory and power was long since passed, the legacy of the Equestrians, Patricians and Plebians of Rome remained - and formed a basis to legitemize the system in Europe as it slowly developed. Thus, the notion of granting public functions and legal authority in the name of the king along with the fief had evolved, and as each of the Frankish kings began to adopt this system, lesser lords beneath them began to emulate it. This decentralization of authority allowed the Franks to control vast areas of land that they otherwise could not have using simple despotism and sole authority resting only with the king, and thus helped bring about vast successes a few centuries later once the feudal system became widely accepted. Feudalism developed dramatically during the 9th century, as the notion of hereditary fiefs came into being. Early on, each king gave the fief to the heir simply because it was an easy way to keep a strong family in their service. As time passed, the idea of simply designating hereditary fiefs evolved, where the designated heir automatically inherits the lands. Long and intricate rules developed to determine the heir, but generally speaking the heir to a fief was determined via lines of patrilineal descent. Feudalism was spread by Frankish conquests into Germany, Spain, and Northern Italy. In 1066, the Normans brought Feudalism to England, and a few years later it was brought to Southern Italy and Sicily similarly. From England, feudalism was spread to Scotland and Ireland, and as the early Crusaders conquered various territories in the Near East and organized them as feudal fiefs, the idea of Feudalism was spread eastwards. Castles were built in verious strategic locations all throughout the entire middle ages, with early castles being little more than wooden forts. As European stoneworking technology developed, these castles gradually developed to elaborate stone constructions capable of withstanding massive assault. One of the greatest sticking points to the feudal system in Europe was the position of townsfolk. Craftsmen and artisans were necessary to the maintenance of the feudal system, yet they had no direct ties to the land. In Europe, the three basic castes were that of knight, peasant, and clergy - many medieval writings spoke of the three pillars of their society and compared them in allegorical fashion to the Trinity. Townsfolk and craftsmen, however, did not fit into this system. As time passed, they came to form a fourth pillar of feudal society - outside many considerations of feudal loyalty, the towsfolk only owed loyalty to the lord who owned the lands their village sat upon, and were free to come and go as they chose. As time passed and cities grew in knowledge and sophistication, the townsfolk helped lead European society to the rennaisance. In Japan, Feudalism developed following the breakdown of the system of public land domain in the 8th century. Various private landholdings had come into being, with the earliest being organized into shoen (estates) being held by vaious buke (warriors). As the buke slowly grew in numbers and importance over the centuries, eventually evolving into the samurai caste, the term daimyo (large private-land holder, or loosely 'king') came to be used as a term came for those samurai who began exercising territorial control (and later proprietary rights) over the various shoen into whi...