Feudalism Peaked Around The 13th Century example essay topic

403 words
Feudalism is defined in the dictionary as A political and economic system of medieval Europe by which a landowner granted land to a vassal in exchange for homage and military service. Feudalism arose in Europe and began to mature near the 8th century. Feudalism peaked around the 13th century then started to slowly decline. Feudalism was caused by many factors such as the weakness and breakdown of governments. The lack of government order forced the local nobles to take on the responsibility of providing necessities such as security for the common people.

The decline of feudalism was greatly caused by the crusades. The deaths of numerous nobles made Kings increasingly powerful. Other reasons for the decline are due to the augmentation of commerce made independent of the manor less essential. Feudalism was not brought on by choice. During an extreme tax period, many freemen were forced to forfeit their land to rich landowners and had to continue to work on it as tenants.

They were to pay their rent in labor and harvest. Consequently, the majority of the land was owned by a small number of wealthy nobles. Secondly, the rapid growth of feudalism in Europe was because many of the rights were being passed down to the nobles. Since they were able to do these jobs well, they started to take over full government control in their own wards. Feudalism peaked around the 13th century, then slowly after the 13th century. This was caused from many contributing factors.

The Crusades greatly weakened the Feudal system. The deaths of many nobles resulted in giving the kings back an immense amount of their power. Perhaps one of the greater controlling factors toward the downfall of feudalism is the Black Death Plague of the 14th century. The particular plague greatly reduced the population consequently reducing the population of serfs, thereupon this empowered the surf who had survived the plague to get better provisions for their work on account of the scarcity of men.

In Conclusion feudalism was bound to breakdown from the very beginning. It was a system of government based on one ruler who controlled all. It was efficient for the little time it did last, though the majority of the people were miserable and had very little to look forward to.