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About Me
- Josh Fradenburg
- As founder of Mindful Measures (a company dedicated to helping its clients build positive, constructive, and healthy Self-Talk) I truly enjoy helping others create a happy, healthy mindset. By harnessing the tools of NLP, LOA, Superlearning and more, we help liberate ourselves from the grips of those who would control us. I volunteer at Stanford University's Center for the Study of Poverty and Inequality, where we are heading up a Recession Task force. I am also on the board of directors for a publishing company, Alternate Way Press, LLC. I am an inventor, a composer, entrepeneur, student, transcendentalist, freemason, builder of mankind, and most importantly I am constantly striving to be the best husband and daddy that I can be.
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Deconstructing Feudalism
There are three essential traits of feudalism that are commonly recognized. The first is a series of authoritarian relationships between kings, barons (sometimes titled dukes or bishops) and the working caste. The second trait that is highly visible within feudalistic society is the lack of social mobility. The third trait that is typically thought of when discussing feudalism is the prevalence and severity of poverty among the lowest caste.
At the core of feudalism, is a series of power relationships in which the authority offers protection and rights to commerce in exchange for military assistance and revenue apportionment. A king would grant leasehold rights over a parcel of land to a duke in exchange for a portion of the revenues that the duke generated from his subjects living on the land. The duke was also required his military assets (weaponry and people) to the king. In return, the king offered military protection to his subjects, which he acquired through consolidation of his king-duke relationships. Then the duke replicated a parallel relationship with artisans and agrarian serfs; this time he would assume the authoritarian position. The artisans and serfs received protection from outside forces during sieges, and in turn offered their assistance as combatants during times of war. The dukes also allowed the working caste to perform their labors, in exchange for taxes. Hence, feudalism is a system based on an authority figure’s issuance of license to a subject to perform one’s livelihood in exchange for assuming a portion of the fruits of that labor.[i]
The justification for issuing the authority was often claimed as a divine right, ordained by God. This authority was either directly issued from the Roman Catholic Church through the bishops or indirectly ascribed through the “divine rights of kings.” The practical authority however stemmed from a military protection that was only made possible because of the consolidation of the subservient castes participation. In the case of the Roman Catholic Church, it wielded tremendous military might through its religious influence over multiple (often competing) European kingdoms.
Religion added a sense of apathy to the society for ones place within it. One of the definitive byproducts of feudalistic society is the lack of class mobility. Throughout the Middle Ages, one’s occupation was the same as one’s father. Hence, social class was fundamentally hereditary, the exception arising from the death of a king with either multiple heirs or with no legitimate heir at all. In the former case, the first-born son would assume the king’s throne, and the remaining sons’ positions would be congealed within the secondary level of society, namely duke or bishop. This would be an advancement for the son of primogeniture, but a slight regression for the superfluous heirs. In the latter case, there would be no clear heir in which to pass the kingship. Hence a duke might be able to assume the position of king through military power or persuasion. While dukes may hope to battle for the right to be king-in the case of lack of an heir-the artisans and serfs shared in no such opportunity. In fact, the lack of social mobility for the lower caste prompted Bernard Norling to state, “Not until the Industrial Age did it become possible for more than a minority of men to rise above poverty.”[ii]
As the Middle Ages progressed, there arose what we would recognize as a middle class from the artisan and merchant families. The ability for families to pass down skills and trade secrets to their sons, allowed for a gradual accumulation of skills and wealth that improved the standard of living for those who could afford it. This trend paralleled a rising growth of urbanization across Europe. While the volume of those living in poverty may have decreased, the impact that poverty had on Medieval European society was not diminished. This is stated clearly by Michel Mollat, “By the fourteenth or fifteenth century a poverty rate of 30-40 percent in a city might pose a greater problem than did an 80 percent poverty rate among tenth century peasants.”[iii]
Fifteenth century France witnessed poverty rates between eight to fifty percent depending on the area and year.[iv] We must not overlook what it meant to live in poverty. Throughout the Middle Ages, the lower caste lived in public or semipublic buildings, wood or reed huts, and caves. The idea that a peasant could improve their station in life was non-existent. Poverty was seen as something to be endured.[v] It is not surprising that such abysmal housing conditions led to rampant epidemics. Mollat notes that:
Associated with these dietary deficiencies are certain characteristic diseases common among the poorest of the poor: parasite infections, polyneuritis, dropsy, blindness, leprosy…and of course the plague.[vi]
Health was a major issue for the poor then, just as it is now. Although the upper echelons of Medieval Europe were not impregnable to the ravages of infectious disease, the brunt of the six major pandemics between 540 and 600 A.D. were bore by the lower caste of society.[vii]
From an outsider’s perspective, it is obvious that the lower one was on the social ladder, the poorer bargain they received. However the closer these relationships hit home, the harder they are to recognize. We can see that when deconstructed, the central traits of feudalistic society can be observed in societies throughout history. An in-depth analysis of all cultures is beyond the scope of this research; however it is important to view these feudalistic traits as they apply to American society.
[i] In the case of the lowest caste, artisans and serfs would manufacture wares or farm the land, respectively. In the case of the duke their livelihood would have served a more managerial function. Primarily they would administer the local economy, ensuring that revenues were brought in through taxing local production.
[ii] Norling, Timeless Problems in History, p. 141.
[iii] Mollat, The Poor in the Middle Ages: An Essay in Social History, p. 296.
[iv] Mollat, p. 233.
[v] Mollat, p. 18.
[vi] Mollat, p. 17.
[vii] Mollat, p. 17.
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