The Dictionary of Human Geography

which a subordinate (vassal)heldrather than
owned landed property, the ‘fief’ (Latinfeo-
dum, feudum, hence feudalism) from a lord,
ultimately the sovereign, in return for military
service required by the sovereign. The sover-
eign’s vassals were tenants-in-chief, who
in turn ‘subinfeudated’ their estates to raise
their own military service. Thus a hierarchy
of feudal tenants came to hold estates of vari-
ous sizes, composed of territorial jurisdictions
called manors, in what Anderson (1974,
pp. 148–9) described as a complex ‘parcelliza-
tion’ of sovereignty.
Serfdomwas the legal subjection of peasant
tenants to lords through the latter’s manorial
jurisdictions, of which unfree tenants were
legally held to be part. Dependent peasant ten-
ants held land from their lord in return for vary-
ing combinations of services in kind, especially
labour services on the lord’s own land within the
manor (thedemesne) and money rents. The legal
dependence of peasant tenants enabled feudal
lords both to extract higher than market rents
from their tenants and also to impose a range
of other dues and exactions, including duties
on death and licenses to marry, to migrate or
to brew ale. Peasant tenants were fined at a
manorial court if these activities were under-
taken without appropriate licenses, and courts
also exercised a degree of moral regulation.
The level ofrentsand dues was set more by
lords’ income requirements than by market
forces, although lords gained from the latter as
population growth made land scarce relative
to labour. Seigneurial income requirements
progressively increased as lords competed for
political status through conspicuous con-
sumption. Moreover, since feudal lords could
raise income from intensified surplus-
extraction, they were comparatively indifferent
to innovations to raise agricultural productiv-
ity. These claims have important implications
for the explanatory value of the geography of
manorialism (estate size and fragmentation,
seigneurial character) and of the lord–tenant
struggle in accounting for geographical vari-
ations in population density, agricultural
systems and productivity, and standards of
living (Hilton, 1973; Hallam, 1989;
Campbell, 1990, 1991; Dyer, 1993). As lordly
extraction intensified, and medieval European
populations grew (for reasons as yet imper-
fectly understood), feudal society exhibited
certaincrisistendencies, because the surplus
removal process failed to generate any signifi-
cant feedback into the productive capacity of
agriculture through investment. A crisis of
social reproductionwas inevitable since:

(1) Production for the market and the stimu-

lus of competition only affected a very

narrow sector of the economy.

(2) Agricultural and industrial production

were based on thehouseholdunit, and

the profits of small peasant and small

artisan enterprises were taken by land-

owners and usurers.

(3) The social structure and the habits of the

landed nobility did not permit accumu-

lation for investment for the extension

for production (Hilton, 1985).

Hilton’s work remains an important demon-

stration that towns andtradewere integral

to feudal economies, not ‘non-feudal islands

in feudal seas’, exogenous factors that under-

mined feudal social relations (cf. pirenne

thesis). But recent studies have paid more

attention to the extent of commercialization

within medieval agrarian economies and

its impact on geographies of manorialism

(Power and Campbell, 1992; Campbell, 1995).

While debate continues on the importance

to medieval agrarian contraction of excessive

surplus-extraction (seebrenner thesis)and

ecological frailties (seepostan thesis), there

has been a general move towards more sophisti-

cated theorizations that broaden analysis of

feudal society beyond property relations.

Greater attention has been paid toaccumula-

tionand differentiation within the class of direct

producers (Poos, 1991;Razi andSmith,1996a).

Important developments in social technologies

changed the geographical structuring of

feudal society. Over time, status came to be

increasingly embodied inpropertyrather than

interpersonal relations. Notable geographical

components stemmed from this shift, including

new legal, fiscal and administrative technologies

to controltimeandspace(Bean, 1989; Biddick,

1990;Clanchy, 1993). Finally, certain social

continuities across the feudalism–capitalism

transition, especially in the functioning of geo-

demographic and cultural systems, have received

serious attention (Poos, 1991; McIntosh,

1998). pg/dg

Suggested reading

Brown (1974); Dodgshon (1987); Reynolds

(1994).

field system The fields and other agricul-

tural resource elements, such as wastes and

commons, of acommunityor communities

that may be regarded as functioning as an

agrarian and social system (Gray, 1915;

Dodgshon, 1980). In a more specific sense,

Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_F Final Proof page 250 31.3.2009 1:20pm

FIELD SYSTEM