The feudal state: education and development

Feudalism arose at the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages. To this system of relations, society could come in two ways. In the first case, the feudal state appeared on the site of the decaying slave state. This is how medieval Europe developed . The second way was the way of transition to feudalism from the primitive community, when the tribal nobility, leaders or elders became the big owners of the most important resources - livestock and land. Similarly aristocracy and enslaved peasantry were born.

Formation of feudalism

At the turn of antiquity and the Middle Ages, the leaders and tribal commanders became kings, the councils of elders transformed themselves into councils of proxies, militias were reformatted into permanent armies and squads. Although each nation had its own feudal state in its own way, on the whole this historical process proceeded in the same way. Spiritual and secular knowledge lost its ancient features, formed a large landholding.

At the same time, the rural community was disintegrating, and free peasants were losing their will. They became dependent on feudal lords or the state itself. Their key difference from slaves was that dependent peasants could have their own small farm and some personal tools.

The exploitation of peasants

Such a feudal fragmentation of the state, which was harmful to the integrity of the country, was based on the principle of feudal property. It also built relations between serfs and landowners - the dependence of the former on the latter.

The exploitation of one social class by another was carried out through the collection of compulsory feudal rent (there were three types of rent). The first type was corvee. With her, the peasant was obliged to work out the set number of working days a week. The second type is a natural loan. With him, the peasant was required to give part of his harvest to the feudal lord (and from the artisan - part of the produce). The third type was a money grant (or money rent). With her craftsmen and peasants paid seniors currency.

The feudal state was built not only on economic, but also on non-economic exploitation of the oppressed layers of the population. Often this compulsion resulted in open violence. Some of its forms were registered and fixed as legal methods of dealing with the law. It was thanks to the support of the state that the power of the feudal lords lasted several centuries, when the position of the other layers of society often remained simply catastrophic. The central government systematically oppressed and suppressed the masses, protecting private property and the socio-political superiority of the aristocracy.

Medieval political hierarchy

Why were the feudal states of Europe so resistant to the challenges of the times? One of the reasons is a strict hierarchy of political-social relations. If the peasants submitted to the landowners, then, in turn, they submitted to even more influential landowners. The crown of this characteristic for its time was the monarch.

The vassalage of some feudal lords from others allowed even a weakly centralized state to keep its borders. In addition, even if large landowners (dukes, counts, princes) were in conflict with each other, they could be rallied by a common threat. As such, there were usually external invasions and wars (invasions of nomads in Russia, foreign intervention in Western Europe). Thus, the feudal fragmentation of the state paradoxically and split the country, and helped them survive the various cataclysms.

As in society, and on the international arena, the nominal central authority was the vehicle for the interests of not the nation, namely, the ruling class. In any wars with neighbors, the kings could not do without the militia that came to them in the form of detachments of junior feudal lords. Often monarchs went to an external conflict only in order to satisfy the demands of their elite. In the war against the neighboring country, the feudal lords robbed and profited, leaving huge pockets in their pockets. Often, through armed conflict, the Dukes and Counts seized control of the trade in the region.

Taxes and Church

The gradual development of the feudal state always entailed the growth of the state apparatus. This mechanism was kept at the expense of fines from the population, large taxes, duties and taxes. All this money was taken from urban residents and artisans. Therefore, even if the citizen was not dependent on the feudal lord, he had to give up his own welfare in favor of those in power.

Another pillar, on which stood the feudal state, was the church. The power of religious figures in the Middle Ages was considered equal or even greater power of the monarch (king or emperor). In the arsenal of the church there were ideological, political and economic means of influencing the population. This organization not only defended the actual religious worldview, but remained on guard of the state of the period of feudal disunity.

The church was a unique link between different parts of a split medieval society. Regardless of whether the person was a peasant, a military man or a feudal lord, he was considered a Christian, and therefore he was subject to the pope (or the patriarch). That is why the church had the capabilities, inaccessible to any secular authority.

Religious hierarchs excommunicated the objectionable and could ban worship in the territory of the feudal lords with whom they had a conflict. Such measures were effective instruments of pressure on medieval European politics. The feudal fragmentation of the Old Russian state in this sense differed little from the order in the West. The members of the Orthodox Church often became mediators between the conflicting and fought specific princes.

The development of feudalism

The most widespread political system in the medieval society was the monarchy. Less frequent were the republics, which were typical for certain regions: Germany, Northern Russia and Northern Italy.

The early feudal state (V-IX centuries), as a rule, was a monarchy in which the ruling class of feudal lords was just beginning to form. He rallied around the royal authority. It was during this period that the first major medieval European states were formed, including the monarchy of the Franks.

Kings in those centuries were weak and nominal figures. Their vassals (princes and dukes) were recognized as "juniors", but in fact enjoyed independence. The formation of the feudal state took place together with the formation of classical feudal strata: junior knights, middle barons and large graphs.

In X-XIII centuries for Europe were characterized by vassal-senorial monarchies. During this period, the feudal state and law led to the flourishing of medieval production in subsistence economy. Political disunity was finally formed. There was a key rule of feudal relations: "The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal." Each major landowner had obligations only to his immediate lord. If the feudal lord violated the rules of vassalage, at best he was fined, and at worst - war.

Centralization

In the XIV century, the all-European process of centralization of power began. The Old Russian feudal state in this period turned out to be dependent on the Golden Horde, but even so, the struggle for uniting the country around a single principality was boiling inside him. The main opponents in the fatal confrontation were Moscow and Tver.

At the same time, the first representative bodies appeared in Western countries (France, Germany, Spain): the General States, the Reichstag, the Cortes. The central state power gradually increased, and the monarchs concentrated in their hands all the new levers of social management. Kings and grand dukes relied on the urban population, as well as on the middle and small nobility.

The end of feudalism

Large landowners, as they could, resisted the strengthening of monarchs. The feudal state of Rus survived several bloody internecine wars before the Moscow princes managed to establish control over most of the country. Similar processes took place in Europe and even in other parts of the world (for example, in Japan, where there were also large landowners).

Feudal fragmentation is a thing of the past in the 16th-17th centuries, when absolute monarchies developed in Europe with complete concentration of power in the hands of kings. The rulers performed judicial, fiscal and legislative functions. In their hands were large professional armies and a significant bureaucratic machine with the help of which they controlled the situation in their countries. The caste-representative bodies lost their former significance. Some survivals of feudal relations in the form of serfdom were preserved in the village until the XIX century.

The Republic

In addition to monarchies, in the Middle Ages there were aristocratic republics. They were another peculiar form of the feudal state. In Russia, the trading republics were established in Novgorod and Pskov, in Italy - in Florence, Venice and some other cities.

The supreme power in them belonged to the collective city councils, which included representatives of the local nobility. The most important levers of management belonged to merchants, clergy, prosperous artisans and landlords. The Soviets controlled all city affairs: trade, military, diplomatic, and so on.

Princes and Veche

As a rule, the republics had a fairly modest territory. In Germany, they were mostly limited to lands that closely adjoined the city. At the same time each feudal republic had its own sovereignty, monetary system, court, tribunal, army. At the head of the troops (as in Pskov or Novgorod), the invited prince could stand.

In the Russian republics, there was also a veche - city council of free citizens, on which domestic economic (and sometimes foreign policy) issues were decided. They were medieval sprouts of democracy, although they did not abolish the supreme power of the aristocratic elite. Nevertheless, the existence of a multitude of interests of different strata of the population often led to the emergence of internal conflicts and civil strife.

Regional features of feudalism

Each major European country had its own feudal characteristics. The universally recognized system of vassal relations is France, which, in addition, was the center of the Frankish Empire in the 9th century. In England, classical medieval feudalism was "imported" by the Norman conquerors in the 11th century. Later, this political and economic system was formed in Germany. The Germans developed feudalism with the opposite process of monarchical integration, which gave rise to many conflicts (the opposite example was France, where feudalism was formed before the centralized monarchy).

Why did this happen? In Germany, the Hohenstaufen dynasty rules, which tried to build an empire with a rigid hierarchy, where each lower step would be subordinate to the upper one. However, the kings did not have their own stronghold - a solid base that would give them financial independence. King Frederick I tried to make such a monarchical domain of Northern Italy, but there he entered into conflict with the Pope. The wars between the central power and the feudal lords in Germany lasted two centuries. Finally, in the thirteenth century, the imperial title became elected, not hereditary, having lost the chance of supremacy over large landowners. Germany for a long time turned into a complex archipelago of independent principalities.

Unlike the northern neighbor, in Italy the formation of feudalism went at an accelerated pace since the early Middle Ages. In this country, as an heritage of antiquity, an independent city municipal government was preserved, which eventually became the basis of political fragmentation. If France, Germany and Spain after the collapse of the Roman Empire were massively populated by foreign barbarians, then in Italy the old traditions did not go away. Soon large cities became the centers of profitable Mediterranean trade.

The Church in Italy was the successor to the former senatorial aristocracy. Up to the eleventh century, bishops were often key administrators of cities in the Apennine peninsula. The exceptional influence of the church was shaken by the wealthy merchants. They created independent communes, hired external administrators and won the rural district. So around the most successful cities have their own domains, where the municipalities collected taxes and grain. As a result of the above-described processes in Italy, there were numerous aristocratic republics, splitting the country into many small pieces.