fief. In the 13th century, a tax called the “fifth penny,” or quint, often was assessed
whenever fiefs were alienated to nonnobles.
Restrictions on the marriage of feudal tenants, whether they were widows, minor heirs,
or adults, were imposed primarily by kings on their great vassals. Louis VII apparently
was the first to object to the proposed marriages, and consequent political alliances, of his
vassals inimical to royal interests; his successors remained alert to their vassals’ marriage
plans, but, unlike English kings, they did not force disparaging marriages on their feudal
tenants. The wardship of minors, which in England fell to the feudal lord, was exercised
in France by family members, usually the widow or eldest child.
Four aides were likewise exacted from feudal tenants but were not properly incidents,
as they developed from the obligation of “aid and counsel” to one’s lord. A lord could tax
his vassals for the knighting of his son, the marriage of his daughter, a crusade, and his
own ransom. Philip IV extended the collection of feudal aides to rearvassals and even
nonnobles, and in the 14th century these exactions served as the basis for national
taxation.
Theodore Evergates
[See also: ABRÈGEMENT DU FIEF; AIDES; FEUDAL AIDS; FEUDALISM]
Fourquin, Guy. Lordship and Feudalism in the Middle Ages, trans. Iris and A.L.Lytton Sells. New
York: Pica, 1976.
Ganshof, François L. Feudalism, trans. Philip Grierson. London: Longman, 1952.
Strayer, Joseph R. The Reign of Philip the Fair. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
FEUDALISM
. A term coined in the 17th century and widely used since the 19th, “feudalism” was
intended to describe the practices and institutions associated with the word “fief’
(feudum), When properly used in this technical sense, feudalism is best described in the
entry FIEF HOLDING. In French, the word féodalité, which is supposed to refer to
feudalism in this sense, has been used imprecisely, even though the French use another
word, féodalisme, to refer to feudalism in the Marxist sense described below.
Medieval historians have become increasingly disenchanted with the term because it
has lost much of its meaning as others have appropriated it to describe things having
nothing to do with fiefs. It has been used to refer to decentralized aristocratic regimes, to
any militaristic preindustrial society, to medieval conditions generally, and even to
anything one considers reactionary. The most important of these developments came with
the Marxist use of the term to define a stage in history that preceded capitalism.
Feudalism in the Marxist sense generally describes a system of agricultural production in
which large numbers of peasants work their own small plots as well as a larger demesne
farm owned by a lord. Non-Marxist medieval historians often associate this system with
the word “manorialism,” described in this volume under AGRICULTURE and especially
RURAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE. Many non-Marxists now use “feudalism” in something
like the Marxist sense. These include most social scientists and many historians of
postmedieval societies, but not non-Marxist medieval historians.
Medieval france: an encyclopedia 656