Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society"; Why do nobles have this vocation?

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Devolution from warriors to parasitic class

In feudal society there was very meager choice of occupation:

a) You could be a peasant (and likely serf) working the land. Very hard job, requiring lots of work and full time dedication. Of course, nobility did not want to do that.

b) You could belong to clergy, which included all kind of scholars. Members of nobility sometimes did become clergy, and although nominally they should have led monastic life, some of them lived in luxury. See for example Black nobility and Papal nobility

c) You could be town(city) dweller, and this included various merchants, artisans, money lenders, craftsmen etc ... Now, while some of town dwellers like merchants and money lenders (bankers) became very rich trough their trade, they were still below nobility in feudal order. Of course, this would change, because after all money is form of power. But, at first, it would be somehow degrading for a nobleman to engage in banking or trade with various goods.

In theory, nobleman should be completely loyal warrior, ready to go to war in any time for his lord. For his fealty he would be rewarded with a fief, it would serve for his sustenance and his duty would be to dispense justice of his lord on this land.

In practice, vassal's loyalty depended on many factors, switching sides to keep or increase possessions became common. Nobility became less and less engaged in warfare, they were gradually replaced by class professional soldiers (mercenaries) who worked for money. Of course, these two groups (mercenaries and nobility) often overlapped, but it was no longer required from nobleman to don his armor in case of war.

In latter phases of feudalism nobility became self-serving class of parasites , engaging itself in various entertaining endeavors, with little benefit for whole of society. As such, they were gradually replaced as ruling class in various countries. More industrious of them finally used their wealth as capital in various enterprises, so idea of non-working nobleman no longer applied.

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Details differed from place to place and era to era, but very generally speaking in a feudal system the vassal received a fief from the overlord in exchange for fealty, including the duty to provide a military unit to the overlord. If the vassal did not train his unit properly, he would be failing in his duty to the overlord. And (again generally speaking) the vassal would be expected to lead his unit by himself. Bloch speaks mostly of continental Europe, a few centuries before and after the millenium, when this feudal system was fully developed.

Basically it was a two-sided contract. The vassal would get land or other income-generating rights from the overlord, take part of the income for administrative costs, another part to provide services to the overlord, and finally a part for himself and his family. They did not use the term contract as we do today, with personal loyalty thrown into the mix, but it was usually spelled out somewhere what the overlord could expect from the vassal. So-and-so many lances of troops, for so-and-so many days.

Society would find different ways to reinforce this expected role. It would be either a loss of face or a loss of legal standing to engage in trade, while both warfare and land management were considered to be consistent with noble dignity.

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