Describe the feudal economic system

As an economic system, feudalism is said to have characterised European societies from the 9 ^th to the 15^th centuries. Feudalism preceded the first mercantile and industrial capitalist economies in Europe.
The feudal system refers to a particular historical period in the development of society
and production relations characterised by 3 classes of people:
1) The rich land owners.
2) The government officials and church leaders ‘nobles’.
3) The landless peasants who depended on the land owners for land in return for
some form of payment.

What is common to feudal economies is vassalage i.e. some people are dependent on
others, they are vassals. These vassals are granted pieces of land by the land owners and
in return they offer military service to the land owner. In some cases, the vassals pay a third
to a fifth of their produce as rent for the use of land. The land granted to vassals is referred to as the FIEF. Several FIEFs comprised a manor or Estate. During the Roman empire some form of medieval feudalism existed based on the institution of PRECARIUM. Precarium
refers to a grant of land held by someone at the pleasure of the grantor.

In Europe, the feudal economic system developed from the collapse of the roman slave
owning society and the class system. Peasants worked or farmed on pieces of allocated
land owned by the wealthy class in return for labour provisions, military services etc. A
vassal’s productivity determined his/her survival i.e. he/she had to increase production to
meet both the household’s and the landlord’s requirements.

Elsewhere in Africa scholars e.g. Nadel (1942) observes that the Nupe Kingdom of
Northern Nigeria had a feudal economic system based on counties. Each county
comprised of a town with its dependent villages administered as fiefs through feudal
lords. The lords collected tribute from the vassals on a patron-client basis. Vassals could
freely offer loyalty to a lord for protection purposes.

Similarly Smith M.G. (1960) says that the Hausa kings allocated fiefs to vassals from
whom tribute was collected and taken to the kings. Macquet J. (1961) on the other hand
says that Rwanda had feudalism based on a loan of cattle. The poor Hutu people with no
cattle approached the Tutsi for sponsorship and protection. Thus, instead of receiving
land or a fief, a Hutu received cattle from the Tutsi and in return offered herding, military
or other forms of services to the Tutsi lord.

Lucy Mair (1962) outlines similar feudalistic economic relations in Rwanda, Ankole,
Buganda and Busoga communities. On the whole, the foregoing scholars seem to conclude that all the centralised states/kingdoms or monarchies in Africa were based on feudalism. However, from the 1960’s-1970’s historians (and especially French Marxist historians) began reassessing these conclusions. Various scholars including Coquery Vidrovitch and Meillasoux, C. have shown that Africa had its own unique economic system based on lineage/kinship and tributary modes of production. That this pre-capitalist economic system in Africa was different from that of Europe.

Goody (1963) asserts that while patterns of trade in Africa showed little disparity from
those of Europe , the M.O.P. in Africa differed from those of Europe especially as
pertains to land. He argues that land rights in Africa were less individualized than in
Europe.
WHY?
1) There was abundant land in Africa.
Population was sparse hence there was no critical shortage of land as in
Europe to necessitate individualization or privatization.
2) Agriculture in Africa was extensive and not intensive because soil fertility
necessitated shifting cultivation which worked against individualization of
land ownership.
3) Technological development to the extent comparable to Europe was absent.

Therefore, Goody concludes that there was no feudalism in pre-capitalist Africa except in
Ethiopia and Egypt where the plough was used. The plough, it was argued, led to the
1) Rise in productivity and accumulation of wealth.
2) Led to social differentiation, i.e. classes etc.

Anthropologists assert that the feudal economic system could only exist under a stratified
government system. At the top is a powerful ruling class independent of the entire
government machinery. The law safeguards and ensures the productivity of the vassals
and their subservience to their owners. The church offers a moral basis and justification
for the differences in the material conditions of life.

According to Karl Marx and indeed a host of other Neo Marxists, feudalism is one of the
stages of pre-capitalist economies. It is a natural economy that preceded and led to the
commodity (capitalist) economic system. Changes in the division of labour occurred
alongside different forms of property ownership relations.

After the collapse of the slave economic system in Europe by about 10 th C.A.D., military
chiefs had become the biggest land owners. Under them were masses of landless
peasants, ex-slaves who depended on these chiefs for land allocation. The military chiefs
often granted their estates to friends who became feudal lords. It is these feudal lords who
subdivided the land/estate into holdings (fiefs) to be rented to peasant cultivators. In
Western Europe these cultivators had to offer military service to the military chiefs and to
protect their estates from invasion etc.

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Titany answered the question on December 8, 2021 at 06:44