American Freedom's Feudal Beginning

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 feudalism was a time of little freedom for all but a very 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 villein and planted the seeds of freedom that, over a period of 580 years, were the ancestors of American freedom.

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