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Breaking the Cycle

Since Adam Smith introduced the term “feudal system” in the eighteenth century[1], historians have tried to define the complex net of personal ties in the Middle Ages. None can agree on the origins, boundaries, or politics involved with “feudalism,” but most find it hard to break the cycle and continue to use the term as a utility, with a disclaimer in their introductions. Historians write their books, teach their classes, and argue their versions of “feudalism,” knowingly forwarding the misnomer to their students and future historians, who in turn find it hard to break the cycle and pass on the information with their own disclaimers. The terms “feudalism,” “feudal system,” and “feudal society,” with their grand generality, should be expunged from scholarly works, much the same as the term “dark ages” has been replaced by terms that are more appropriate. Historians like Elizabeth Brown and Susan Reynolds have started to unlearn the learned, but it will take a concerted effort of medieval historians to take a stand and break the cycle.

The origin myths of ‘feudalism” are as varied as the authors who penned them. Feudalism has been used to describe everything from ancient Egypt to the twentieth century sharecroppers in the United States. I will be dealing specifically with the Middle Ages here. Historian Marc Bloch writes, “European feudalism should be seen as the outcome of the violent dissolution of older societies.”[2] Bloch’s focus is on Western Europe in the ninth century as the Carolingian empire was disintegrating. The origins, for him, were “born in an infinitely troubled epoch.”[3] Other historians like Lynn White, argue that the origins are far older than the Carolingian period, he traces it back to the end of the Merovingian period and places the beginnings of feudalism as the need arose with the introduction of the heavy mounted shock combat by Charles Martel. “Charles Martel’s genius who fully grasped the possibilities inherent in the stirrup and created in terms of it a new type of warfare supported by a novel structure of society which we call feudalism.”[4] The argument deepens as historians move from the Frankish empires to those of Rome and England. William Maitland[5] argues that the “feudal system” never reached England, where others claim “feudalism” had to be born of a centralized government that the Merovingians lacked.

Historian Carl Stephenson agrees with Bloch on the timing of the birth of “feudalism” at the disintegration of the Carolingians, but their agreement stops there. Where Bloch encompasses everyone from the nobility to the peasants and serfs in his “feudal society,” Stephenson narrows his definition to “feudalism proper,” the lord-vassal relationship. As the cycle continues, historians feed off each other’s definitions of “feudalism,” create their own parameters, and continue to teach the generality of the adjective. Bloch notes in his introduction that the word “feudalism” is ill chosen, and even offers a solid replacement with “ties of dependence,” but fails to leave the confines of generations past. F.L. Ganshof claims “feudalism is far too generic of an adjective so we must limit ourselves to essentials.”[6] He notes the problem, but like most other medieval historians, just changes the definition to appease his discomfort with the misnomer.

The cycle, seemingly so easy to break, has its supporters. The arguments for keeping “feudalism” an active part of academic teaching are “utility,
and “indispensability.”[7] Historian Charles Wood writes, “The feudal pyramid…makes for clear diagrams, and schoolboys have to begin somewhere.”[8]The problems with a generic model that is easy to grasp and understand are, mainly, everyone has a different image or idea of what feudalism means. Second, by teaching abstractions and generalities that do not accurately define the systems in place, it is easy to confuse and frustrate the students. Third, why teach something that at the higher levels of scholarship will have to be relearned the right way?

The definitions of “feudalism” start small and spiral outward. The basic units are the lord-vassal relationship, widened it includes politics, military, social, ecclesiastical, economic, legal, and manorial systems. The temporal and geographical scopes also spiral outward and can include thousands of years, multitudes of empires, and countless ties of dependence. The term “feudalism” was never even used in the Middle Ages, though they did use “feudal” to describe customary laws of property. In order to break the cycle it is important to understand then repudiate the giants of the industry (Bloch and Ganshof), acknowledging their contributions to the field, then, place them on the shelf next to Aristotle where “feudalism” is no longer the center of the Medieval universe.

Bloch argues that the ill chosen word “feudalism,” limited by the narrow interpretations of traditional historians, has failed to capture the important social aspects of medieval history and the ties of dependence therefore created. Bloch asserts that “feudalism” is not just a system of law, territorial rights, or a system of military protection for lords and vassals, but rather it is a kind of society, a living organism, that reaches all the way down to the peasants. He emphasizes the bonds of the people, the social impact, and the political evolution in response to the changes brought forth by failing centralized powers, invading hordes, bonds of kinship, and the changing role of the nobility.

The ties of dependence, claims Bloch, widen the traditional feudal system into a feudal society. This living organism stretches from the king all the way down to the peasant, and encompasses the bonds of people, the social mentality, and the political organization. While Bloch notes the word, “feudalism” is ill chosen and not at all an accurate word to describe life in the medieval period, he does expand the generalization to “feudal society” where he places emphasis on both words. Bloch’s thesis aims at distancing the social from the political, but his foundation, from the invasions that crippled the state, to the stronghold of the manorial system which feudalism takes its name, is grounded in politics. Bloch rightly incorporates all the people, not just the nobility, into his “feudal society” and that sets it apart from other works on feudalism. He could have stuck with “ties of dependence” and tailored them to each individual relationship they incorporated. Elizabeth Brown argues, “Understanding the workings of medieval society necessarily involves exploring the intricate complexities of life rather than elaborating definitions and formulas designed to minimize, simplify, and obscure these complexities.”[9]

Ganshof, on the other hand, argues that the adjective “feudalism” is far too generic and attempts to narrow the definition to strictly political and legal connotations. Ganshof asserts that “feudalism” existed only within the nobility. “If we limit ourselves to essentials,” writes Ganshof, “it will be found that the word [feudalism] is used by historians in two more or less distinct senses.”[10] The two essentials Ganshof mentions are the rise of the military elite as vassals, and the legal binding of fiefdom.

Ganshof traces the origins of “feudalism” to the Merovingian period where constant warfare and raiding led to the necessity of free men finding retainers for protection in the service of the King. These men of the king called “antrustiones,” received the protection of a triple wergeld, virtually untouchable. The antrustio, with his special mark of protection was a picked fighting man and whatever his origins, he was treated as if he belonged to a high social rank. As these men of the king grew in stature, they in turn acquired men in their service. Mostly slaves, and given the name of “vassus,” this relationship would change over the coming centuries. The commendation of one man giving himself to another in service became a legal contract for life unless one party did not fulfill his end of the deal. Along with the ceremony of commendation (later homage and fealty) was the benefice of land. Susan Reynolds argues, “The terms such as ‘fief’, ‘benefice’, and ‘vassal’, lacked any technical meaning until the late twelfth century when they were given legal definition by the Italian lawyers who produced the Liber Feodorum.”[11]

By the ninth century with lord-vassal relationships a standard of the feudal institution (according to Ganshof), hereditary rights entered the contracts of commendation. The personal relationship of the lord and vassal was renewed on the death of one or the other with the new lord or the son/heir of the vassal. The hereditary rights did however come with stipulations. The new party was required to swear homage and fealty, and accept the responsibilities of their position. If a vassal died and his eldest son inherited the fief (primogeniture) but could not fulfill his soldierly duties, the hereditary rights would pass to the next in line, or if a daughter, then to her husband, so long as he was able to assume the duties outlined in the contract. While Ganshof narrowed his vision of “feudalism” to a small field, he too could have easily abandoned the word and opted for a more precise definition.

Both Bloch and Ganshof display uneasiness with the term “feudalism,” like countless others in the field, but fail to take the next step of breaking the cycle and deinstitutionalizing the word. A concept that is so understood, yet equally misunderstood, is far too general to keep active, while hoping someone takes a stand and disowns “feudalism” forever. History is a search for truth, driven by the need to understand who we are and who we were. Wild fantasy scenarios like Marxism can keep the abstractions and isms, but in solid academics, understanding and explaining the past, we must break the cycle and define individual events as they were to individual people rather than perpetuate a known flaw generation after generation. Goodbye “feudalism,” I hardly knew you at all.

Select Bibliography

Bloch, Marc. Feudal Society. Translated by L.A. Manyon, with a forward by M.M. Postan. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961.

Brown, Elizabeth A.R. “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 1063-1088, at 1075-1076.

Cronne, H.A.” The Origins of Feudalism.” History, xxiv (1939).

Ganshof, F.L. Feudalism. Translated by Philip Grierson. Great Britain: Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd., 1952.

Reynolds, Susan. Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.

Smith, Adam, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith .London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., ed. Edwin Cannan, 1904.

Stephenson, Carl. Medieval Feudalism. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1942.

White, Lynn Jr. Medieval Technology & Social Change. London: Oxford University Press, 1962.

William Maitland. The Constitutional History of England. London: Cambridge University Press, 1920. 143-161.

Wood, Charles T. The Quest for Eternity: Medieval Manners and Morals (New York: Doubleday Press, 1971), 177.

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[1] Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., ed. Edwin Cannan, 1904.) His coinage of the term revolved completely around relationships dealing with the economics and agricultural production at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The term “feudal system” inspired a retroactive definition being placed on Medieval times, and has been used by a wide range of notable public figures. From Alexander Hamilton, to Carl Marx, and every Medievalist since.

[2] Marc Bloch, Feudal Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), 443.

[3] Ibid., 3.

[4] Lynn white, Medieval Technology & Social Change (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 28.

[5] William Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (London: Cambridge University Press, 1920), 143-161.

[6] F.L. Ganshof, Feudalism (Great Britain: Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd., 1952), 15.

[7] Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 1067.

[8] Charles T.Wood, The Quest for Eternity: Medieval Manners and Morals (New York: Doubleday Press, 1971), 177.

[9] Elizabeth A.R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 79, No. 4 (Oct., 1974), pp. 1084.

[10] F.L. Ganshof, Feudalism (Great Britain: Lowe & Brydone Printers Ltd., 1952), 15.

[11] Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p475.

From Pawns to Players

From Pawns to Players

The middle ground is the place in between: in between cultures, peoples, and in between empires and the non-state world of villages…It is the area between the historical foreground of European invasion and occupation and the background of Indian defeat and retreat.

Richard White, The Middle Ground

Courtesy of http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/ax 1

The American myth tells the tale of the European “discovery” of a new world, where brave explorers ventured into unknown lands, conquered the “savage natives”, and settled fertile lands for their countries. Where rugged individuals trail-blazed a path west, set the rules, and shaped the “new world” with European motivations and policy. The American myth was rife with violence, manifest destiny, and exceptionalism. The American myth is dead.

From the ashes rose a “new Indian history”, where Indians are no longer just an obstacle for European heroes to overcome, they are equal characters in a new paradigm that gives them a voice: as the myth died, a history was born. Richard White’s The Middle Ground has influenced a new surge in American history writing where the meetings of cultures are forced to create a unique, in between culture, based on kinship, economics, religion, and “mis-understandings.” The middle ground thesis can-not be used as an overarching paradigm to describe all contact points between Europeans and Indians, but it can serve as a starting point for discourse where all sides have a voice and actively participate in the direction of this “new” new world.

The old paradigms created and supported by authors like Frederick Jackson Turner, Max Farrand, and Christopher Columbus biographer, Samuel Eliot Morrison, [1] have gradually been replaced over the last five decades. When the Civil Rights Movement encapsulated America in the 1950’s and 1960’s, parallels began to develop between contemporary situations and Indian relations. R. David Edmund notes, “Historians who opposed the conflict [the Viet Nam War] drew similarities between interpretations of modern American imperialism in South East Asia and earlier American expansion onto Indian lands in the West.”[2] The problem was how to access a fair and balanced history when all records were biased and written by Europeans. The answer was in anthropology and new interpretive methodology, but since anthropologist and historians could not agree, the cause seemed lost. By 1969, however, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, by F.C. Wallace[3] gave new hope to a frustrated academy. This watershed bridged the gap between the social sciences, and ushered in a “new Indian History” based on “Ethno-History.” Wallace superbly blended history with cultural anthropology that humanized the Indians and gave them agency. He explained how the Five Nations of the Iroquois played the French against the British to keep them off balance.

“This successful system of aggressive neutrality had originated at the beginning of the Eighteenth century…They made two treaties at Albany and Montreal. These treaties inaugurated a new era of Iroquois policy; peace towards the ‘far Indians’, political manipulation of nearby tribes, and armed neutrality between contending Europeans…It was a policy that required of the Iroquois as much duplicity in diplomatic dealings with the Europeans as the Europeans practiced toward them.”[4]

While there was no “middle ground thesis” to refer to in 1969, the created relationship where the cultures “melted at the edges and merged”[5] as defined by White was there. Likewise the general public was drawn into the discussion in 1970 by a book from Author and Historian Dee Brown.[6] Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee was told from an Indian perspective, highlighting the genocide, injustice, betrayal, and heartache of the American Indian. Though her history has been heavily criticized and no accommodation or “middle ground” exists in her book, she did contribute to the new Indian history by turning public support in favor of a new Indian perspective. Historians had little choice, with movies, novels, museum exhibits, and media coverage; they had to start asking different questions about early Indian-European history.

White’s treatment of the middle ground centers on the French-Canadian area of the Pays d’en haut (countries on top). He explains in a world where force alone could not dominate the region, new cultures were co-created to sustain an uneasy alliance in search of “accommodation and common meaning.”[7] White, through incredibly detailed research, shows that the “middle ground” had an unstable, but long existence (150+ years) in the Pays d’en haut. The middle ground was not a utopia, from whatever angle the story is told, violence will always be present. This shared world created specific kindred ties and alliances that were broken and reforged many times. Certain conceptions, or misconceptions, guided by ceremony and ritual brought both Algonquin and European peoples back to the middle ground. A unique system of “French Fathers” arose, later to be emulated by the Iroquois and English as a “covenant chain”, brought parties together for intercultural exchange. It was not until the Americans gained central power, White argues, that the middle ground was destroyed, the Americans claimed the land by right of conquest and that accommodation was replaced by assimilation.

In a body of growing scholarship that is exploring North American history, Juliana Barr’s book, Peace Came From a Woman,[8] adds a new dimension in the mix. Barr, also using an Indian centered point of view, claims that in the Texas Borderlands “Not even a ‘middle ground’ emerged, because this was not a world where a military and political standoff could lead to a ‘search for accommodation and common meaning’.”[9] In Texas, notes Barr, Indians gained absolute authority by dominant force. The old myth, still perpetuated in some circles, views contact and struggle in North America as a continuation of European history, Barr flips the story and claims it was an extension of Native American history, building on the White’s main theme beyond the middle ground, a theme of agency for a “people without history.”

Similar to Barr, Kathleen Du Val’s case study of the Arkansas Valley shows how groups established a “native ground” where the “Native Americans, not the Europeans, controlled the Arkansas Valley” before 1815.[10] Du Val, like Barr, breaks away from Whites “middle ground” thesis in theory, though in truth it appears to be a battle of semantics as there are multiple examples of “accommodation and search for common meaning” in both the Texas borderlands and in the Arkansas Valley. The second part of Barr’s book is all about the creation of bicultural communities, where the two groups (the Spanish and tribes of south-central Texas) came together to create new communities for intermarriage, trade, and alliances. Du Val notes similar circumstances, “In danger of becoming isolated, the Quapaws adapted to changing times. In order to retain their native ground, they cultivated three new allies- the Spanish, Spain’s British rivals, and their own erstwhile enemies the Chickasaws.”[11] Both Barr and Du Val show multiple examples of Indian dominance over their European “conquerors”, but also highlight examples of new relationships, where all parties involved had to adapt, regardless of military prowess.

Nancy Shoemaker, A Strange Likeness,[12] describes what White would call a middle ground, insofar as both Indians and Europeans came together for diplomatic negotiation, trade, and alliance for mutual interests, and “[sic] shared common bonds of first the intellectual equipment to construct knowledge, and a physical world where abstract systems of thought could be modeled.”[13] She, like White, also notes the volatile structure of the relationship but pins the blame on racial differences.[14] For Shoemaker the blending of cultures was easier than creating a stabilized relationship. Land was conceptualized on both sides as sovereign territory, though commerce and usufruct differed in their respective beliefs.[15] Both sides acknowledged leaders, but they had different roles for each; “Indians and Europeans used strategies that were alike in intent but different in form.”[16] Communication merged as hand signals, translators, and new ceremonies took place where both sides stipulated to misunderstandings to keep the peace, the kinship relationship in place. Where Shoemaker covers areas from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, the examples tie in common themes of all authors discussed here: contact, violence, accommodations, alliances, and eventually dissolution of relations, for any number of reasons.

While historians like Barr, Du Val, Shoemaker, and James Merrell[17] searched for case studies that would be different in nature to that of White’s “middle ground”, to secure their names in American Historiography; they found a middle ground of their own. In all examples here, the respective societies in contact did produce “something new”; new identities, new cultures, new interpretations of past events through new eyes (Indian perspective). They have each found agency in the Native American peoples. The actions, reactions, and effects may have been different in each case study, but the fact that each case study shows active participation on the part of Indians towards creating a “new” new world is important and should be further investigated, discussed, and embraced.

White’s middle ground thesis can-not be used as an overarching paradigm to describe all contact points between Europeans and Indians, but it can serve as a starting point for discourse where all sides have a voice and actively participate in the direction of this “new” new world. We, as historians, should explore and elaborate on this influential work, in hopes of discovering more unique patterns in North America. We should never again digress to a point where Indians are mere pawns in the making of nations; they were and are players on this ever-evolving continent. While White closed his middle ground with the rise of the American nation, perhaps more studies should involve contemporary Indian involvement; reservations, legal battles, fights for recognition, billion dollar casino incomes can be new case studies for some form of a middle ground.

The tale of Indian-European relations in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries should be dualistic. There should be balance between the players, total inclusion in the general history, and no longer just a footnote for the stoic Indian population. Native Americans, both pre-columbian and post-contact, should be set on a world stage, noting the similarities of the growth of European nations, as well as major American nations, like those of the Aztecs, the Maya, the Inca, the Mississippians at Cahokia, the Pueblo peoples, the Anasazi, etc… Indians as Columbus found them “stupid and made for slavery” is a myth of the past, the new Indian history is on the right path for discovering a new and inclusive history of native peoples. White has opened a flood-gate of possibilities surrounding the middle ground and should be explored by every serious Americanist.

Lee Davenport~

Bibliography

Barr, Juliana. Peace Came in the Form of a Woman: Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2007.

Brown, Dee. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1970.

Du Val, Kathleen. The Native Ground Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007.

Edmunds, David R. , “Native Americans New Voices: American Indian History, 1895-1995.”AHR, Vol.100, No.3 (June 1995).

Farrund, Max. “The Indian Boundary Line”, AHR, Vol. 10, No. 4 (July 1905).

Gutierrez, Ramon A. When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846. Stanford, Ca.:Stanford University Press, 1991.

Merrell, James. Into the American Woods: Negotiations on the Pennsylvania Frontier. New York: Norton &co., 1999.

Merrell, James. The Indians New World: Catawbas and their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal. New York: Norton &co.,1991.

Shoemaker, Nancy. A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Wallace, Anthony F.C. The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca. Chicago: Vintage books, 1972.

White, Richard. The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.

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[1] Frederick Jackson Turner, The Fronteir Thesis, closed the west in 1890; Max Farrund, The Indian Boundary Line, AHR, Vol. 10, No. 4 (July 1905), p.782-791.; Samuel Eliot Morrison, The Oxford History of The American People, (New York: Penguin Books, 1965.), The old paradigm was Indians were just objects, not players, there to respond to European actions, with no self awareness or initiative to act on their own.

[2] R. David Edmunds, “Native Americans New Voices: American Indian History, 1895-1995.”AHR, Vol.100, No.3 (June 1995),p. 717-740.

[3] Anthony F.C. Wallace, The Death and Rebirth of the Seneca, (Chicago: Vintage books, 1972).

[4] Wallace, 243.

[5] Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires, and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p.50.

[6] Dee Brown, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 1970)

[7] White, xxv.

[8] Juliana Barr, Peace Came From a Woman:Indians and Spaniards in the Texas Borderlands (Charolette: University of North Carolina Press, 2007).

[9] Barr, 7.

[10]Kathleen DuVal, The Native Ground (Philidelphia:University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007),P. 11.

[11] Du Val,P. 85.

[12] Nancy Shoemaker, A Strange Likeness: Becoming Red and White in Eighteenth-Century North America (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).

[13] Shoemaker, 4.

[14] Ibid, 141.

[15] Ibid, 15.

[16] Ibid, 39.

[17] James Merrell, Into the American Woods: Negotiations on the Pennsylvania Frontier (New York: Norton &co., 1999), and The Indians New World: Catawbas and their Neighbors from European Contact through the Era of Removal (New York: Norton &co.,1991) Merrell shows the close knit contact between Indians and Europeans, how they lived, worked, intermarried, traded, fought together, but also strived to remain separate peoples and keep their identities.