Gives a clear and concise account of the feudal system, from its origin and growth to its decay. Also covers the principles of feudal tenure, chivalry, the military life of the nobility, and the workings of the feudal government.

Annotation. Feudal Society discusses the economic and social conditions in which feudalism developed providing a deep understanding of the processes at work in medieval Europe.

Following a remarkable epoch of greater dispersion of wealth and opportunity, we are inexorably returning towards a more feudal era marked by greater concentration of wealth and property, reduced upward mobility, demographic stagnation, and increased dogmatism. If the last seventy years saw a massive expansion of the middle class, not only in America but in much of the developed world, today that class is declining and a new, more hierarchical society is emerging. The new class structure resembles that of Medieval times. At the apex of the new order are two classes—a reborn clerical elite, the clerisy, which dominates the upper part of the professional ranks, universities, media and culture, and a new aristocracy led by tech oligarchs with unprecedented wealth and growing control of information. These two classes correspond to the old French First and Second Estates. Below these two classes lies what was once called the Third Estate. This includes the yeomanry, which is made up largely of small businesspeople, minor property owners, skilled workers and private-sector oriented professionals. Ascendant for much of modern history, this class is in decline while those below them, the new Serfs, grow in numbers—a vast, expanding property-less population. The trends are mounting, but we can still reverse them—if people understand what is actually occurring and have the capability to oppose them.

"Uses a feudal model to analyze contemporary American society, comparing its essential characteristics to those of medieval European societies"--Provided by publisher.

According to Alexis de Tocqueville’s influential work on the Old Regime and the French Revolution, royal centralisation had so weakened the feudal power of the nobles that their remaining privileges became glaringly intolerable to commoners. This book challenges the theory by showing that when Louis XVI convened assemblies of landowners in the late 1770s and 1780s to discuss policies needed to resolve the budgetary crisis, he faced widespread opposition from lords and office holders. These elites regarded the assemblies as a challenge to their hereditary power over commoners. The king’s government comprised seigneurial jurisdictions and venal offices. Lordships and offices upheld inequality on behalf of the nobility and bred the discontent motivating the people to make the French Revolution.

Legends have been written about it, films have been made, but what really happened during the Middle Ages? Learn about feudalism, popes, leaders, and wars in this informative book.

This major work is the most radical reinterpretation of the subject for fifty years. Hicks argues that Bastard Feudalism was far more complex - and positive in its effects - than previous accounts have suggested. A major contribution to historical debate which revolutionises our view of late medieval society.