American Freedom's Feudal Beginning
Contents
2014/09/09 User:Jeff
Feudalism was the characteristic institution of the Middle Ages. It started around the end of the 11th century about the time of the First Crusade. Though it was a time when freedom was enjoyed only by an elite few, when villeins (serfs) were bound to the land and subject to both the justice and injustice meted out at the whim of the local lord, it also had its bright side. Feudalism, as it developed in England, represented an improvement in the life of the peasant and planted the seeds of freedom that, after and evolution of 580 years, produced the United States.
In the dark time that preceded feudalism, poverty stricken villages were unable to protect themselves against marauders. Many villages, churches and monasteries were stripped of life and wealth by raiding bands. Feudalism solved that problem. Feudal society was an arrangement between Baron, knight, the Church, and the serf to bring protection, order, and rude justice to village life. It was far from liberty and equality, but it was a first step and was consistent with at least one of the basic reasons for a people to submit to government. The serf received a large measure of stability and safety. In exchange, the surplus product of serf labor was divided among Baron, knight, Bishop and Abbot, who were, relative to the serf, a leisure class. Wealth accumulated in their hands, which created a demand for luxuries. From this grew trade, arts, crafts, and a middle class of merchants and tradesmen and the cities that grew as the result.
It was neither fair nor just for the serf - but it was better than violent anarchy. Feudalism was a legal and fixed subordination of one class to others who dispensed with the product of the serf as they saw fit. It wasn't liberty, but without it, life was lawless and violent. With it, there were still abuses of power and "law" was both local and variable, but the arc of liberty had begun its upward trajectory.
The Vikings
Vikings were an interesting mix. They were a free people within their own society and they had a well developed moral code that revered loyalty and honesty - loyalty to king and clan and honesty in word and action. On the other hand, they were also murdering thieves. Adventuring and barbaric marauding was considered an honorable profession.
The Viking raids on England started in the late 8th century. The Vikings first plundered the churches and monasteries that lay near the coast. They were unprotected, they had wealth, and they were easy pickings for the Vikings, who then came to realize that there was no sea power to protect the British Islands. They were there for the taking. The Anglo-Saxons inhabitants were inland farmers - not sailors or warriors; whereas the fist Vikings, having been cooped up in their fiords which cut into chasms of high mountains with the sea as their only road to the world, were at home at sea. Seemingly unopposed, war and plunder became the chief industry of the Scandinavians. At first it was strictly for adventure and plunder, but it eventually turned to immigration and settling the land. The English fields were more fertile than the fields above the sandy beaches of the fiords back home. So they became farmers as well. But they were also and always traders. They built fortified towns and markets. They were an energetic mixture of farmer, sea-faring barbarian and pirate, and merchant trader ready to act as fit the circumstances or advantages of the moment, and they ranged, raided, and traded through Europe. They were knowledgeable and cosmopolitan compared to the Saxon peasantry they preyed upon in England.
An interesting aside is that the Danish and Norse Vikings, who raided on the east and southern coasts of England, established two Danelaws (territories ruled by Danish law) - a large one encompassing much of eastern England, and a smaller one in France that was named Normandy after them - from whence, 200 years later, William the Conqueror invaded and took control of England, setting England firmly on its path to the kind of freedom that spun off the United States.
The Rise of the English Warrior Class
It was for Alfred the Great of Wessex in southwest England to finally bring the Viking up short. And that was not accomplished by an army of farmers with shields and spears fighting large numbers of Vikings, experienced in combat, armed with battle axe, bow, sword and shield, wearing mail shirts. Alfred had to develop a professional warrior class that could match the Viking. This was a major advance toward feudalism. Defense came first. Law came close behind it. But feudalism, though a system of law and land tenure, depended on an aristocracy in arms. Later, the peasant armed with that most lethal weapon, the long bow, would deal a blow to the feudal system.
And another interesting thing happened. Alfred had contained the Danelaw - not eliminated it - which was populated by both Anglo-Saxons and former Danish Vikings who now occupied the land as farmers with their families. In the face of continued Viking raids, the Anglo-Saxons looked to Alfred as their champion and protector. But increasingly, even though they were not threatened, so did the former Vikings - particularly those who had accepted Christianity - now established on the land and seeing their interests more aligned with the English. Two generations hence, under the leadership of Alfred's descendants, the English were more sophisticated politically and militarily and completed the reconquest of the Danelaw and it was absorbed into Wessex.
It is also interesting to note that, in the Danelaw, there were no slaves and many freemen - which was not the case in Alfred's Wessex. (A peasant, though not a slave, was not necessarily free.)
Anglo-Danish Law
Prior to the coming of the Danes, there was little law. Though earlier English history likely had law, such as was brought by the Romans and clergy, at the time of the Viking invasion, life in the villages was probably ruled by custom. Alfred, in addition to developing a military capability, set up a system of administration that worked through shires and shire officials. These developed into shire courts, but there were no professional lawyers. Law in the shires was heavily dependent on local custom. Law common to all England - the Common Law - was yet to be developed by the Plantagenet Kings - still a 150 years in the future. The Danes had set up boroughs in the Danelaw. When Alfred's son Edward and daughter Ethelfleda conquered the Danelaw, they set up shires primarily based on the Danish borough centers - many of which were cities. These then also developed into merchant centers.
The Danes brought law. It too had custom behind it (Anglo-Saxon and Danish customs had much in common having come from common stock), but it had more structure. What developed was a mixture of custom and Danish law. Danish towns in England usually had 12 "law men" that served as principle officers. They also employed committees of freemen to attend court - perhaps a forerunner of juries in England. Anglo-Danish law was guided by three influences. "Weregild" called for a payment of money for a wrong as a substitute for blood feud - even in the case of murder. Secondly, Church doctrine made sin of wrongdoing. Thirdly, treason to king or local lord and cowardly flight in the face of battle or danger was dishonorable and punishable.
What is not mentioned here are the cornerstones of modern freedom - property rights and rule of law. Property rights were surely embedded in custom. The freeman could own property, which was much of what it meant to be free, but such rights may have been conditional. He could also hunt game on his own land. Most likely, the non-free peasant, though not a slave, had no property rights nor right to hunt, though he could get away with it if done on unowned land. Rule of law - the priority of established law over the whim of individuals or groups - was yet to come. An interesting question - for which this author has no answer - is how one became free vs. villein, and all of what that meant.
Feudalism's Role
Before the rise of the state under the Plantagenet kings, feudalism was the only way to protect a helpless population. It was efficient. The farmer could work the land uninterrupted and war could be pursued. The farmer wanted to work his land without being called up to fight every month, and the thegn, knight, baron, and sometimes Bishop, were happy to do the fighting and forget the plough. They protected the manor and village from local and national trouble. For this division of labor, the serf gave up considerable freedom and all the surplus product of his labor, and sometimes his labor. Equality was a victim of feudalism as well as much of liberty. Feudal life was much harder on the villein than the warrior lord who lived in leisure by comparison. But it resulted in order, security, and more liberty than had previously existed for the peasant. And what is seldom mentioned in history books is that there was a large difference in the risk to life and limb that had to be absorbed by this so-called leisure class. The peasant lived in greater security. Nonetheless, as time went by, freedom ultimately proved to have more value than security.
Feudalism meant local rule. While the local lord owed allegiance to the king, the king lacked the means to control local society. The lord king could maintain control over the lords for purposes of national defense, but little else. For local purposes, they granted rights of justice and administration since they had not the mechanisms or institutions to contain them centrally. This arrangement was forced by the expansion of territory controlled by the English kings from the more manageable Wessex of Alfred's day to include most of England. England had not developed the means to rule such a territory at the local level.
Notes
Chapter IV of Book 1 of Trevelyan (an important chapter): Pg 48 of Trevelyan discusses the necessity of a wealthy class as a prerequisite of moving from primitive society to democratic equality. The same arguments can be presented at any stage. And this can be coupled with Gilder's arguments.
And pg 49: Maitland: " . . feudalism means civilization, the separation of employment, the division of labour, the possibility of national defence(sic), the possibility of art, science, literature and learned leisure; the cathedral, the scriptorium, the library are as truly the work of feudalism as the baronial castle."
And: Trevelyan: " . . covering the years between that (Saxon) conquest and the coming of the Vikings, we must attempt the difficult task of appreciating the change of religion oas the first great step forward of the English people on the path of civilized life."
Christianity brought "the beginning, among the barbarians, of a political and legal civilization based on the arts of reading and writing in the practicable Latin alphabet"
- and so on . . .
The comparison of Anglo-Saxon worship of Odin and Thor with Christianity is instructive - but not very encouraging. Ponder why there was a great conversion to Christianity with its teaching of humility and charity and submission. There was the promise of a known afterlife - how to attain heaven and avoid hell.
top of pg 62: At the Synod of Whitby in 664, Oswy King of Northumbria gave judgment in favour of the claims of Rome as the inheritor of Peter's commission - rather than to the men of Iona. "The early adhesion of all the English Kingdoms to the Roman system of religion gave a great impetus to the movement towards racial unity, kingly and feudal power, systematic administration, legislation and taxation, and territorial as against tribal politics." The English were already moving from tribalism faster than the Celts.
pg 62: "A greater centralization and unity of system and purpose in ecclesiastical affairs throughout all the English Kingdoms led the way towards political unity under a single King. The administration of the Church became the model for the administration of the State. . . And since the Churchmen, being the only learned men, were the chief advisers of the Crown and its first Secretariate, the new Roman ideas passed all the more easily from the sphere of the church into the sphere of the State. Kingship gained new allies - men as skilled to serve with brain and pen, as the thegns with muscle and sword. Kinship gained also a new sanctity and a higher claim on the loyalty of the subject, through hallowing by the Church and by clerical theories of sovereignty drawn from recollections of the Roman law."
- So, this is a marriage of two estates of power. Rivalries would ensue. But the Synod of Whitby was a declaration by a King of a favored religion. Before then, kings were not jealous of religious influence.
