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From: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Feudalism
Message-ID: <964@mmintl.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 31-Dec-85 09:56:33 EST
Article-I.D.: mmintl.964
Posted: Tue Dec 31 09:56:33 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 4-Jan-86 00:51:29 EST
References: <883@mmintl.UUCP> <28200419@inmet.UUCP> <> <5438@cca.UUCP>
Reply-To: franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams)
Organization: Multimate International, E. Hartford, CT
Lines: 38

In article <5438@cca.UUCP> g-rh@cca.UUCP (Richard Harter) writes:
>In article <> franka@mmintl.UUCP (Frank Adams) writes:
>>In article <28200419@inmet.UUCP> janw@inmet.UUCP writes:
>>>No, this is not true of feudalism at all. Through the Middle Ages,
>>>the amount a serf or a vassal owed his liege was supposed  to  be
>>>*fixed* once and for all, from times immemorial. In practice, hu-
>>>man memory being short, it changed quite a lot, but it changed by
>>>*precedent*,  not through arbitrary imposition. ...
>>
>>This was the theory.  The practice was that the amount a serf owed his
>>liege was so large that the relationship (maximum harvest) - (your tax) <
>>(the minimum you need to live on) held.  The serf would (illegally) withhold
>>part of the harvest, to give his family enough to live on.  In general,
>>there was no effective way to withhold more than this amount, because the
>>serf could not sell the excess.
>>
>This was more or less the case in earlier feudal times when liege lords
>collected their due in kind. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries there
>was a major shift.  Towns had become more common and the cash market for
>agricultural products had revived.  There were mass freeings of serfs.
>The obligations in kind were replaced by cash obligations which were
>definite and fixed.  "Heavy as these obligations might be, he was no
>longer subject to the aribtrary will of his lord."  The replacement of
>obligations in kind by fixed cash rents had important consequences;
>over time prices rose steadily (particularly after the black death in
>the fourteenth century) to the profit of the peasants and the loss of
>the lords.
>
>Reference: A History of the Middle Ages, Sidney Painter, 1958, Knopf,
>pp 240-242.

I would describe these changes as the end of pure feudalism, and the
beginning of a mixed feudal/capitalist system, which evolved into the
modern capitalist system.  I would say the mass freeings of serfs are
a strong argument for this point of view.

Frank Adams                           ihpn4!philabs!pwa-b!mmintl!franka
Multimate International    52 Oakland Ave North    E. Hartford, CT 06108