The genesis of feudalism in Western Europe briefly. Kalinicheva G.I. Economic history. The Genesis of Feudalism in Western Europe

History knows two variants (types) of the genesis of feudalism. The first type appeared directly from the primitive communal system, bypassing the stage of slavery (England, Scandinavia, North-West Germany, Rus', Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic). The second type was formed on the basis of a synthesis of elements of feudalism, ripening in a slave-owning society, with feudal relations, formed in the conditions of the decay of primitive society. Moreover, in some cases, both elements were equally the basis of medieval society (Northern Gaul, a number of South Slavic peoples), while in others there was a clear predominance of ancient principles (Byzantium, Southern Gaul, Spain, Italy).

Revealing typical features of the feudal economy, it is necessary to remember the similarities between feudalism and primitive society, the peculiarities of feudalism in different countries, the evolution of feudal features at various stages of its development, the emergence of elements of the capitalist economy in the depths of feudalism. Nevertheless, it can be argued that the following features were characteristic of the economy of feudalism:

The monopoly of the feudal lords on landed property and, in a certain legal form, on the direct producer - the peasant. Land ownership was a privilege of people performing military (sometimes other state) service, and land ownership was conditioned by the performance of certain duties, which allows us to speak of the conditional nature of feudal land ownership;

The presence of an individual farm in the peasant, which is conducted on land belonging to the feudal lord and transferred to the peasant for temporary or hereditary use; thus, feudalism was based on a combination of the large landed property of the feudal lords and the small individual farming of the peasants;

Non-economic coercion of the peasants, which was a form of dependence of the direct producer on the feudal lord;

Presence of rental relations; the peasant paid rent to the feudal lord for the use of land, which was a way for the feudal lord to exercise his right to own land; rent was collected in kind (corvée or food dues) or in cash;

The landowners-feudal lords formed not only a privileged, but also a hierarchically organized class, which was characterized by the order of multi-stage subordination of less powerful feudal lords to more powerful ones: knights depended on barons, barons - on counts or dukes, etc. Consequently, feudal property had a class, conditional and hierarchical character and at the same time evolved over the centuries;

The domination of small-scale production in town and country and subsistence farming, in which the products of labor were produced directly to satisfy the needs of the producers and feudal lords themselves, and there was almost no need for a market;

The leading role in the economy belonged to the agricultural sector, with which the vast majority of the population was associated;

The primitive state of technology used in production.

The economic system ultimately determined the specifics of social and political relations in a feudal society, which were characterized by a class structure and, in particular, the lack of class rights of peasants who were in personal, land and (or) judicial dependence; the hierarchical organization of the feudal class; the corporate structure of society (knightly and monastic orders, merchant guilds and companies, workshops, guilds of doctors, lawyers, fraternities, brotherhoods); monarchical (usually) form of government; political fragmentation at a certain stage of development; the dominance of a religious type of consciousness.

The feudal economy of Western Europe went through three stages in its development. The first (5th-9th centuries) is the era of the genesis and development of feudalism, the gradual formation of large feudal land ownership and the loss of personal freedom by the communal peasants, the establishment of vassal-fief relations. This period was characterized by fragmentation and internecine wars.

The second stage (X-XV centuries) is the flourishing of feudalism in the countries of Western Europe, marked by economic growth, the revival of cities and their transformation into centers of crafts and trade, the development of commodity production and commodity-money relations, technical progress, and the formation of centralized states.

The third stage (the end of the 15th-17th centuries) is the disintegration of the feudal economy, the expansion of commodity-money relations, the destruction of the personal dependence of the peasants, the beginning of the process of initial accumulation of capital and the emergence of manufacturing production, the formation of the colonial system, the aggravation of social contradictions that developed into bourgeois revolutions.

Thus, feudalism in Europe was the dominant system for more than a thousand years. During the period of feudalism in Europe, agricultural production changed radically, many cities appeared, progress was observed in the development of crafts and trade, and prerequisites were created for the development of a market economy. Consequently, feudalism, in comparison with slavery and primitiveness, created more favorable conditions for the development of production. The fact that the peasant had his own farm, a certain economic independence created some scope for increasing labor productivity, a material interest in the results of labor, which contributed to the development of productive forces.

The rise of the feudal economy in Western Europe is traditionally considered on the example of the Kingdom of the Franks, which arose in Northern Gaul in 486. The main information about the economy of the Franks in the era of early feudalism is contained in the textbook "Sallic Truth". From this document it follows that the Franks were farmers and sowed crops (millet, barley, legumes), planted orchards and vineyards, sowed flax. When cultivating the land, a plow with an iron share was used, and bulls, horses and donkeys were used as draft power. A two-field crop rotation has become widespread. The Franks bred pigs, poultry, were engaged in hunting, fishing, and beekeeping.

The right to dispose of the land belonged to the community - the brand, which was the main economic unit of society. Each family was given a plot of arable land. The communal lands were in the indivisible use of the peasants, there was a system of open fields. In the private possession of the community members were houses, household plots, livestock, tools. The economy of the Franks was natural.

At the turn of the 5th-6th centuries, the process of property and social stratification of the community began. An important prerequisite for the development of feudal relations was the dualism of the community (a combination of communal land ownership with private peasant farming). Gradually, land allotments began to pass into private ownership. Such allotments are called allod. The owners of allods increased them by joining the allotments of impoverished peasants, royal grants, and seizing communal lands. Often, these same allotments were returned to the peasants in the form of a precaria (the right to use land provided by the landowner, subject to the performance of various duties). Thus, free community members became feudally dependent peasants.

The appearance of the allod deepened property inequality, which contributed to the formation of large feudal property. The process of feudalization intensified noticeably in the middle of the 8th century, especially under Charlemagne. The kings distributed lands in the form of benefices. A beneficiation is a form of land ownership of a feudal lord, determined by obligations (payments and military service) and a term (usually for life). When distributing beneficiaries, both formerly dependents and free people, who inhabited these lands, which from the subjects of the king turned into peasants dependent on private individuals. The king, granting beneficiaries and demanding military service for him, transferred to the beneficiary the income of the inhabitants of the territory, which, in subsistence farming, was the only way to reward service.

In the 9th century, benefices turned into fiefs (fiefs), which were a conditional grant to a vassal, which was inherited. The main condition for owning a feud was military service. With the transformation of the benefice into a feud, the dependence of the peasants became permanent. The final act of feudalization was the law that every free franc must find a seigneur ("Mersen Capitulary" 847). There were three types of dependence of the peasant on the seigneur - personal, land and judicial. A person who depended on the same lord in three respects was considered a serf.

In the ninth century most of the peasants in the Carolingian estate were columns, not yet completely dependent on the feudal lord. They could not freely move to another estate. Peasants who did not have allotments were called provendaries and were in the position of courtyard people. Close to them in position were slaves - serfs. They were completely dependent on the feudal lord, they could be bought and sold. In the estates there were also litas, who occupied an intermediate position between columns and serfs. However, gradually the differences between different categories of peasants were smoothed out, and they all became completely dependent on the feudal lords.

The fief system is a developed form of feudal land tenure, on the basis of which vassalage, a feudal hierarchy in the ruling class, is formed. Each large landowner was considered a vassal of the king, and each feudal lord could have vassals by ceding to one or another person part of his land with its population as a fief. Each feudal lord became a lord for a lower feudal lord, if he received lands from him on the rights of holding, and a vassal of a higher feudal lord, whose lands he himself acted as the holder of the lands. The same hierarchy developed among the spiritual feudal lords. The transfer of a fief from a lord to a vassal was called an investiture. The feudal hierarchy provided relative stability in society.

A large feudal lord, transferring the feud to a vassal, transferred to him the feudal rent from the population of the feud, which thus became dependent on the new lord and retained dependence on the superior. The establishment of vassalage took on the character of distributing feudal rent among various strata of feudal lords and made the peasants dependent on many lords, and dependence on each of them required the performance of certain duties. The size and nature of duties, sometimes carried out over the centuries, became customs and were perceived by peasants and feudal lords as legitimate. The following phenomenon characteristic of feudalism is curious. Certain relations between people, in this case between the feudal lord and the holder of the land, turned into a legal quality of the holding itself. For the allotment of a serf, duties were fixed, which remained even if the land passed to a personally free person. On the contrary, a serf could have a free holding.

Gradually, judicial, administrative, fiscal and military functions were concentrated in the hands of large feudal lords, which received legal registration in the form of immunity. Immunity is the right to independent and uncontrolled activity within the limits of one's possessions, a privilege that protects the lord and his lands (feud) from the interference of the king and his representatives.

What was the economy of the Franks at the end of feudalization? Cities as centers of crafts and trade did not yet exist. Trade was just getting started. In fact, there was only one industry - Agriculture, as well as various crafts (hunting, fishing, etc.). The economy was natural. The feud did not economically need the rest of the world, so economic ties with territories outside it were rarely carried out. Craftsmen also worked inside the feud, but the craft was not separated from agriculture and did not produce products for sale outside the feud: handicraft labor was subordinated to agricultural labor. The economy of the kingdom consisted of identical in character and structure, economically unrelated feudal estates. The life of peasants and feudal lords differed little.

The foregoing gives grounds to assert that during the centuries that have passed since the fall of Rome, there has been a regression in the economy and culture: the cities have disappeared, and with them the developed craft, science and art; commodity production was replaced by natural production. At the same time, the new feudal relations objectively created opportunities for economic progress in the future, since the peasant was much more interested in the development of production than the slave.

In 843 the Carolingian Empire broke up into three kingdoms. The collapse of a huge and powerful state testified to the completion of the process of feudalization Frankish society. By distributing land and establishing immunities, the Frankish kings essentially turned their state into a system of fiefdoms, each of which was economically self-sufficient and essentially "sovereign". The subsistence nature of the economy predetermined the onset of the stage of feudal fragmentation.

1. Genesis of feudalism in Western Europe. Economic development of the Frankish state

1.1. The Genesis of Feudalism in Western Europe

The period of feudalism is a great and milestone in history human society. The transition to feudalism did not occur immediately. Several centuries passed before the new, feudal mode of production proved its superiority over the old slave-owning production. In Western Europe, feudalism arose on the basis of the collapse of the Roman slave-owning society, on the one hand, and the decomposition of the tribal system among the conquering tribes, on the other; it was formed as a result of the interaction (synthesis) of these two processes.
Feudal society in its development went through three main stages, according to which the history of the Middle Ages is divided into such periods:

1. The early Middle Ages (V-X centuries) - the era of the establishment of the feudal mode of production, i.e., the creation of feudal land ownership and the gradual consolidation of free communal production by the feudal lords. characteristic features this period are low level the development of productive forces, the complete dominance of subsistence farming, the weak development of the social division of labor and, as a result, the absence of cities.
2. Developed feudalism (XI-XV centuries) - characterized by a general growth of productive forces, which led to the separation of crafts from agriculture. The consequence of this was the formation of feudal cities, the development of the internal market, a significant aggravation of the class struggle, which caused the strengthening of feudal states.
3. The late Middle Ages (end of the 15th-middle of the 17th centuries) - the era of the decomposition of feudal society, in the depths of which a new capitalist mode of production begins to take shape. Feudal production relations are characterized by private feudal ownership of land and the exploitation by feudal lords of peasants dependent on them. The purpose of feudal production is to obtain a surplus product in the form of feudal rent through the exploitation of the peasantry.

The main features of feudal production relations:

1. The dominance of natural economy. Commodity relations were very weak and began to play a more or less prominent role during the heyday and decay of feudalism.
2. The direct producer (peasant) was endowed with land and had some tools at his disposal. Thanks to this, a certain interest of the peasant in the results of his labor and in the improvement of tools and methods of agricultural production was achieved.
3. The feudal system is characterized by this or that degree and form of non-economic coercion.
4. Low, routine state of technology.

The feudal lords and the peasants dependent on them were the main classes of feudal society. Artisans, merchants and all urban population were also to some extent dependent on the feudal lords.

The economic domination of the feudal lords was based on their actual ownership of the land, although this land was given to them for military service and nominally belonged to the state in the person of the king or other supreme ruler. Large-scale landed property of the feudal lords was created in the period of early feudalism not only through grants from the king to his vassals, but also through direct seizures of peasant lands. As the feudal system grew stronger, individual feudal lords sometimes became economically more powerful than their kings. The conditional nature of their landed property was thus extinguished.

The peasants who were on the land turned into serfs or dependents in one form or another and were obliged to pay their master labor (corvée), natural ( quitrent) or cash rent.

Feudal relations of production created a relatively greater scope for the development of productive forces than slave-owning ones, because the serf, who had his own farm, gave the feudal lord only a part of his product of labor and, consequently, was interested in expanding production and improving the tools of labor. Therefore, already in the early period of the development of feudal society, after some regression associated with a period of devastating barbarian wars, the productive forces began to develop more intensively than in the slave-owning society during its greatest prosperity. Much more widely than in the period of the Roman Empire, the heavy plow began to be used, the water mill, the press for squeezing grape juice were improved, and the draft power of working cattle began to be used more widely.

The feudal system arose in different countries in different ways. In the countries of Southern Europe and France, it was a direct result of the synthesis of the colony and the decomposition of the tribal system of the conquering barbarians. In Germany, England, the Slavic states, it arose in the course of the decomposition of the primitive communal system: these countries did not go through the stage of a slave-owning society, because during the period of the formation of their classes and the state, slavery had already historically outlived itself.

European feudalism is the result of three variants (types) of the genesis of feudalism. The first type was born directly from the primitive communal system of the barbarians, bypassing the stage of a developed slave-owning society. In Europe, an example of such an option is England, Scandinavia, North-West Germany, as well as Rus', Poland, and the Czech Republic.

The second type was formed on the basis of a synthesis of elements of feudalism, ripening within a slave-owning society, with feudal relations, which were formed at the last stage of the development of the primitive communal system of the barbarians. Moreover, both those and other elements equally formed the basis of the future medieval society. This type of genesis of feudalism found its embodiment in Northern Gaul, among a number of South Slavic peoples.

The third type was born on the basis of a synthesis of elements of late antique society with feudal relations that formed in barbarian societies, with a clear predominance of ancient principles. This path was characteristic of Byzantium, Southern Gaul, and the countries of the Central Asian region.

Eastern feudalism, which developed on the basis of the "Asiatic mode of production", inherited all its characteristic features: the predominance of state feudal land ownership, the preservation of specific forms of communal organization of the peasantry; special forms of organization of the feudal estate and the realization by them of their monopoly, mainly through food rent; high degree of state centralization.

The feudal system in Western Europe went through several stages in its development.

5th–9th centuries - the era of the genesis and development of feudalism, the time of the gradual formation of large landed property, its monopolization by a minority of the population, the transformation of free farmers into dependent peasants, the establishment of vassal-fief relations.

X-XV centuries - the flourishing of feudalism in the countries of Western Europe, marked by an economic upsurge based on internal colonization - the development of new lands, an increase in the collection of crops, the development of animal husbandry; the revival of cities that have become centers of handicraft production and trade. The development of commodity production and commodity-money relations was accompanied by rent switching, the emergence of fairs, credit, and banks. At this time, technical innovations were introduced - a windmill, a blast furnace, artillery, printing, etc., centralized states were formed.

Late 15th–17th centuries - the time of decomposition, the crisis of the feudal system and the emergence of capitalism. Commodity-money relations expanded, the personal dependence of the peasants was destroyed, the process of initial accumulation of capital, the development of manufacturing production began, and, as a result, social contradictions escalated, developing into bourgeois revolutions.

Changes took place not only in economic but also in political life. In the early feudal period, the state was a large but fragile association (for example, the empire of Charlemagne). In the X-XII centuries. dominated by small political entities - principalities, duchies, counties, which had a significant political power over his subjects. Sometimes they were completely independent, sometimes they were nominally united under the rule of a weak king (the so-called period of feudal fragmentation). In the XIII-XV centuries. in many countries there was a process of centralization of the state, culminating in the formation of an estate monarchy. In these states, relatively strong royal power was combined with the existing class-representative assemblies. Only in Byzantium did a strong centralized state survive during the Middle Ages. Finally, in the XVI-XVII centuries. the feudal state assumed its last, most centralized form of absolute monarchy.

The formation of the feudal economic system in Western Europe is traditionally considered on the example of the Kingdom of the Franks, which arose in Northern Gaul in 486. Franks – one of the confederations of German tribes, along with the Anglo-Saxons, Lombards, Vandals, Ostrogoths, etc. In the IV-V centuries. The Germans conquered the Western Roman Empire and formed several so-called barbarian kingdoms. In the V-VII centuries. The Franks were ruled by the Merovingian dynasty, from the end of the 7th to the middle of the 9th century. - Carolingian dynasty.

Basic information about the economy of the Franks in the era of early feudalism is contained in the textbook "Sallic Truth". From this document it follows that the Franks were sedentary farmers, they sowed crops, used a two-field system, used a plow with an iron plowshare, a harrow, and bulls and horses as a draft force. The right to dispose of the land in the village belonged to the community - brand. The Franks cultivated the land individually, in large families. The communal lands were in the indivisible use of the peasants. The economy of the Franks was natural. The Franks had not yet formed classes, but property stratification was already noted.

One of the most important prerequisites for the development of feudal relations was the dualism of the Frankish community. Community dualism – it is a combination of communal land ownership with private peasant farming. Already from the V-VII centuries. it became land, territorial, neighborly, and the land more and more often turned into an allod. Allodium - freely alienable individual-family land property, i.e. private ownership of an allotment of communal land. The peasants appropriated the allotments received from the community into private ownership as soon as the opportunity arose for this. Clearing and harvesting of forest areas were used most often.

The appearance of the allod, deepening the property and social differentiation of the Franks, became a prerequisite for the formation of large feudal property.

The process of concentration of landed property, social stratification was facilitated by the intervention of state power. The state land fund, which consisted of the surviving estates of Roman slave owners, state lands, lands of rebels confiscated during numerous civil wars, was distributed by the royal government to close associates, combatants, and the church in the form of an allod. The state land fund was rapidly declining, so the principles of land salaries had to be changed.

In the 8th century in the Kingdom of the Franks were held important reforms. Under Charles Martel (715–741), as a result of the military reform, the peasants were removed from military service. The basis of the army was the knightly cavalry. The armament of a mounted knight was expensive. The cost of maintaining the troops and equipping the knights fell on the shoulders of the peasants. Military reform required changes in land grants. A beneficiary system was introduced. Benefice - a form of land ownership of the feudal lord, due to certain duties(payments and military service) and term(usually for life). Relationships vassalage: the vassal depended on the lord who granted benefices, took the last oath of allegiance and performance of service. The lord, while retaining the right of the supreme owner to the granted land, could take it away if the vassal violated the contract.

Military service became feudal monopoly. During the distribution of beneficiaries, previously free people who inhabited these lands often became subjects of vassals: they turned from subjects of the king into peasants dependent on private individuals.

In the ninth century beneficiaries turned into fief, or fiefs, representing conditional grant to a vassal, which was inherited. Military service remained the main condition for owning a fief, although the latter was transferred to hereditary use. linen system – a developed form of feudal land tenure, on its basis a vassalage, a feudal hierarchy of the nobility was formed.

All the conditions that contributed to the formation of large landownership (feudal civil strife and wars against other tribes) led to the loss of freedom by the communal peasants.

Devastated by war or crop failure, the peasant, finding no protection either from the community or from the royal power, was forced to seek the patronage of local strong and rich people. Receiving a plot of land from them, he lost his freedom and turned into a dependent or serf. In turn, a large landowner provided his own economy with the working hands of people dependent on him, who paid for land and assistance with their work (corvée) and food (tire).

With the low level of development of the productive forces of that time, a lot of land and labor were required to provide a sufficient amount of agricultural products. The ruling class was not interested in seizing land from the peasants, but in a sufficient number of workers. The seizure of land by a feudal lord consisted in the fact that the allodist lost his ownership of this land and turned into a holder on the basis of feudal law, i.e. became obliged to pay rent for it and to bear duties established either by custom or by agreement. This change in the position of the allodist was the content of the concept of the supreme ownership of the feudal lord over certain lands.

The seizures of communal land and peasant allotments by feudal lords were acquired from the beginning of the 9th century. massive character. The feudal lords brought the peasants to ruin in every possible way, forcing them to either sell or transfer the land to a large landowner.

The most common form of establishing the dependency of the poor on the large landowner was the practice of transferring him to the category of so-called precariae. precarium - literally “transferred at the request”, conditional land holding, which a large land owner transferred either for temporary or for life holding to a landless or landless poor with the obligation of the latter to bear duties and dues in favor of the owner. There were three types of precariae: a) the holder received all the land from the owner; b) the peasant gave own land to a large landowner and received it back, but not as his own, but as ceded to him by the landowner for the obligation to bear corvée and dues, and at the same time receiving protection and necessary assistance in case of need; c) by giving the land, the holder received large quantity earth.

The precaria system assumed the dependence of individual peasants on the feudal lords, and the form and degree of dependence were established individually each time.

A peasant settlement could immediately become dependent if the village was part of the beneficiation. The king, granting beneficiaries and demanding military service for him, transferred to the beneficiary the income of the inhabitants of the territory, which, in subsistence farming, was the only way to reward service. Residents became people dependent on the beneficiary, if they had not previously become dependent. With the transformation of the beneficiation into a feud, the dependence of the inhabitants of the beneficiation strengthened, became permanent. Natural economy – simple reproduction of all business conditions; handicraft labor is combined and subordinated to agricultural labor; feudal rent is collected in kind; economic ties with territories outside the patrimony were rarely carried out.

The result of the growth of large landownership was the gradual concentration in the hands of large landowners of judicial, administrative, fiscal and military leadership functions. These functions receive their legal form in the form of so-called immunity. Immunity – this is a privilege that protects the lords and their lands from interference by the king and his representatives in the affairs of the feud.

Immunity was confirmed by an immunity letter. Immunity rights landowner included: judicial power over the subject population; exercising the functions of a sovereign in an immune territory; the right to collect all fiscal amounts (taxes, fines, etc.).

basis economic organization Frankish society in the VIII-IX centuries. became a feudal fiefdom - senoria, its dimensions varied. The land of the patrimony consisted of two parts: the land that was in the household of the feudal lord himself (domain), and peasant allotments (holdings). The land of the domain was, as a rule, no more than 1 / 3 of all peasant holdings. The composition of the domain included mainly not arable land, but forests, wastelands, swamps, etc. With a low level of productive forces, the necessary labor, or labor expended on reproduction work force direct producer and his family and other conditions of production, absorbed most of the peasant's labor time and surplus labor could not be large, and therefore, the scope of its application, i.e. lordly smell, could not be great.

The feudal lord could not receive income from his land except by transferring this land in small allotments into the hands of the peasants. The receipt of feudal rent depended on the well-being of the peasant economy and the peasant community. The consequence of this was the relative economic independence of both the individual peasant economy and the peasant community as a whole from the economy of the feudal patrimony. Moreover, the patrimony assumed the existence of a brand community, as an organization (corporation) of manufacturers. Production in the community formed the basis of production in the patrimony. The dominal lands lying interspersed with peasant allotments under two and three fields were included in the corresponding wedges of the village-community and were subject to forced crop rotation on an equal basis with peasants. The feudal lord did not interfere in the economic decisions of the community.

The production process was carried out with the help of individual tools of labor, the production itself remained small, regardless of the size of the estate. Progress in agriculture was expressed in an increase in the cultural area through land reclamation, clearing forests, which was processed by the same tools. Under the dominance of small, inefficient production, obtaining a surplus product from an economically independent owner is possible only with the help of non-economic coercion, and personal dependence is in this case a means of non-economic coercion.

In the Middle Ages, there were three types of submission peasant seigneur - personal, land And judicial. A serf in Western Europe was a person who depended on the same lord in three respects at once. By my roots personal addiction goes into ancient slavery. A slave planted on the ground remained a serf. He did not have the right to inherit the allotment, without paying the seigneur a special contribution, he paid a "universal tax", all other duties were not fixed and were collected at the will of the seigneur.

land dependence stemmed from the fact that the peasant allotment belonged to the seigneur. The allotment land was part of the patrimony, whereby the peasant had to bear various duties in proportion to the size of the allotment and in accordance with the customs, which were fixed by tradition and were accurately listed in the cadastres of the patrimony.

Judicial dependency of the peasant followed from the immunity rights of the lord. This dependence was expressed in the fact that the population had to be sued in the court of the immunist, and all judicial fines, as well as those duties that used to go to the king, were now paid in favor of the lord.

As a result of the development of vassalage, the structure of the ruling class of feudal society was hierarchical ladder. Each large landowner was considered a vassal of the king, and each feudal lord could have vassals by ceding to one or another person part of his land with its population as a fief. A large feudal lord, transferring a benefice or fief to a vassal, also transferred to him the feudal rent (or part of it) with the population of the feud, which thus became dependent on the new lord, without losing dependence on the superior.

The establishment of vassalage, on the one hand, acquired the character of distributing feudal rent among various strata of feudal lords, and on the other hand, made direct producers dependent on many seigneurs, and dependence on each of them was expressed in the obligation to pay a certain type of duties and payments. Since the economic conditions did not change for a long time, the feudal holder and his descendants carried the same duties in favor of the lord, sometimes for centuries. The very size and nature of duties became a custom. These duties were considered by both peasants and lords as legal, and deviation from them as a violation of custom. Such immutability gave rise to another phenomenon characteristic of feudalism: the transformation of certain relations between people, in this case the relationship between the lord and his holder, into the legal quality of the holding itself. For the allotment given to the serf, all the duties characteristic of the Servian holding were assigned. They were preserved when the land was transferred, for example, personally to a free person. Conversely, a serf could have a freehold. These relations became even more complicated with the development of commodity-money relations, when land and certain duties of feudal-dependent people became the object of sale and purchase.

In 843, the Carolingian Empire broke up into the West Frankish kingdom, the predecessor of France, the East Frankish, which laid the foundation for Germany, and Middle France, which included Italy and the regions along the Rhine and Rhone. The collapse of a huge and powerful state was evidence of the completion of the process of feudalization of Frankish society. Any country in Europe in the Middle Ages was a system of fiefdoms, each of which was essentially a "sovereign" state. Feudal fragmentation is the most important feature of the formed feudal system. Feudalization – this is the transformation of an allod into a hold; the disappearance of free community members and the appearance of their dependent or serf holders; the formation of feudal ownership of land and the emergence of a ruling class of feudal landowners-warriors.

Review questions

1. Name the economic and socio-political foundations for the formation of the feudal economic system.

2. What is allod, beneficiation, feud and what is the difference between them?

3. What forms of peasant dependence on the feudal lord existed in the Middle Ages?

4. Define subsistence farming.

5. What are the immune rights of the feudal lord and what role did they play in the history of feudalism?

The period of feudalism is a great and important milestone in the history of human society. The transition to feudalism did not occur immediately. Several centuries passed before the new, feudal mode of production proved its superiority over the old slave-owning production. In Western Europe, feudalism arose on the basis of the collapse of the Roman slave-owning society, on the one hand, and the decomposition of the tribal system among the conquering tribes, on the other; it was formed as a result of the interaction (synthesis) of these two processes.
Feudal society in its development went through three main stages, according to which the history of the Middle Ages is divided into such periods:
1. The early Middle Ages (V-X centuries) - the era of the establishment of the feudal mode of production, i.e., the creation of feudal land ownership and the gradual consolidation of free communal production by the feudal lords.

The characteristic features of this period are the low level of development of productive forces, the complete dominance of natural economy, the weak development of the social division of labor and, as a result, the absence of cities.
2. Developed feudalism (XI-XV centuries) - characterized by a general growth of productive forces, which led to the separation of crafts from agriculture. The consequence of this was the formation of feudal cities, the development of the internal market, a significant aggravation of the class struggle, which caused the strengthening of feudal states.
3. The late Middle Ages (end of the 15th-middle of the 17th centuries) - the era of the decomposition of feudal society, in the depths of which a new capitalist mode of production begins to take shape. Feudal production relations are characterized by private feudal ownership of land and the exploitation by feudal lords of peasants dependent on them. The purpose of feudal production is to obtain a surplus product in the form of feudal rent through the exploitation of the peasantry.
The main features of feudal production relations:
1. The dominance of natural economy. Commodity relations were very weak and began to play a more or less prominent role during the heyday and decay of feudalism.
2. The direct producer (peasant) was endowed with land and had some tools at his disposal. Thanks to this, a certain interest of the peasant in the results of his labor and in the improvement of tools and methods of agricultural production was achieved.
3. The feudal system is characterized by this or that degree and form of non-economic coercion.
4. Low, routine state of technology.
The feudal lords and the peasants dependent on them were the main classes of feudal society. Craftsmen, merchants and the entire urban population were also more or less dependent on the feudal lords.
The economic domination of the feudal lords was based on their actual ownership of the land, although this land was given to them for military service and nominally belonged to the state in the person of the king or other supreme ruler. Large-scale landed property of the feudal lords was created in the period of early feudalism not only through grants from the king to his vassals, but also through direct seizures of peasant lands. As the feudal system grew stronger, individual feudal lords sometimes became economically more powerful than their kings. The conditional nature of their landed property was thus extinguished.
The peasants who were on the land turned into serfs or dependents in one form or another and were obliged to pay their master labor (corvée), natural ( quitrent) or cash rent.
Feudal relations of production created a relatively greater scope for the development of productive forces than slave-owning ones, because the serf, who had his own farm, gave the feudal lord only a part of his product of labor and, consequently, was interested in expanding production and improving the tools of labor. Therefore, already in the early period of the development of feudal society, after some regression associated with a period of devastating barbarian wars, the productive forces began to develop more intensively than in the slave-owning society during its greatest prosperity. Much more widely than in the period of the Roman Empire, the heavy plow began to be used, the water mill, the press for squeezing grape juice were improved, and the draft power of working cattle began to be used more widely.
The feudal system arose in different countries in different ways. In the countries of Southern Europe and France, it was a direct result of the synthesis of the colony and the decomposition of the tribal system of the conquering barbarians. In Germany, England, the Slavic states, it arose in the course of the decomposition of the primitive communal system: these countries did not go through the stage of a slave-owning society, because during the period of the formation of their classes and the state, slavery had already historically outlived itself.

Introduction

Conclusion

Introduction

Feudalism - a type of society based on the feudal mode of production. In the IV-V centuries in the advanced countries of Europe there is a transition to feudalism.

The Middle Ages is a centuries-old period of the birth, domination and decay of feudalism. In Europe, it lasted 12 centuries. The remains of the Middle Ages in some countries have not disappeared so far.

This topic is important for research, since it was feudalism that marked the progress in social development. The peasant, endowed with land, was interested in the growth of labor productivity, and this interest increased with the development of feudal relations and the weakening of personal and land dependence. The era of feudalism was marked by the flourishing of small commodity production in the cities, which became the center of freedom and centers of culture.

During the Middle Ages, ethnic communities and public entities. Tribes merged into nationalities, and modern nations began to form from them. Instead of primitive barbarian states and isolated seigneuries, large centralized states were formed on a national or international basis. Culture has risen incomparably.

The object of research is the feudal economy.

The subject of research is the formation, types and features of feudal systems.

Purpose: to analyze the formation and development of the feudal economy.

To achieve the goal, you need to solve the following tasks:

.To reveal the main types and features of feudal systems.

2.Analyze the genesis and development of the feudal economy in the Frankish state.

.To characterize the classical model of the feudal economy in France.

.To reveal features of feudalism in Russia, England.

To achieve the goal and solve problems, the following methods were used scientific knowledge: comparison of opinions of several authors on one issue; historical (historical-genetic) for a comprehensive study of the feudal economy; analysis of educational and scientific literature; generalization of the results of the analysis.

feudalism western europe russia

1. The birth of feudalism in Western Europe

1.1 Main types and features of feudal systems

The period that followed slavery was called feudalism. Feudal relations developed unevenly in various regions of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The process of the genesis of feudalism, unified in its essence, in each region the globe had its own local characteristics. But the main criterion for distinguishing the main types of feudalism is the intensity of maturation of feudal elements in the bowels of the previous stage of development and the formation of its basic institutions.

The rise of feudalism in Europe proceeded in two ways.

The first path consisted in the formation of feudal, socio-economic and political institutions on the basis of a synthesis of elements of late antique society with feudal relations that arose among the barbarian peoples. At the same time, synthesis means not just a gradual merging of two structures, but also interaction, interpenetration, transformation of elements of a slave-owning society and the communal-tribal system of barbarians. Byzantium, Gaul, the countries of the Mediterranean region passed this way.

The second way was based on the transformation of tribal relations. This is how most nations developed. Northern Europe, Scandinavia, Baltic, Slavic peoples.

In both cases, the genesis of the feudal system ended with the formation of two poles - landowners-feudal lords, headed by the supreme feudal lord (king, tsar, emperor, caliph, etc.) and dependent landowners attached to the land who paid rent.

The main wealth in pre-industrial societies was land. Therefore, all social relations, including economic ones, revolved around land relations. Under feudalism, the land was at the complete disposal of the feudal lords, who concentrated in their hands not only economic, but also political, military and religious functions.

During the period of early feudalism, the nature of production was natural, the low level of development of the productivity of forces is associated with the use of primitive tools, the absence of cities. With the development of cities, the improvement of tools, trade began to develop in the XI-XV centuries. commodity production began to predominate. By the end of the XV-XVII centuries. With the development of technology, scientific knowledge, great strides have been made in production. Massively manual labor was replaced by machine. production growth, geographical discoveries led to the expansion of trade relations.

The producer of basic material values was a farmer, a peasant. He was not the owner of the cultivated land, but only its holder on terms that were formalized legally or were the result of "customary law" - unwritten laws, traditions, customs, etc. On this land, the farmer independently ran a household: he had a house, livestock and tools, with the help of which he not only cultivated the plot of land at his disposal, but also the land of the feudal lord. Thus, the material basis of feudal society was the work of the farmer and his small farm.

At the beginning of the feudal period, the positive role of the feudal lords as the ruling class was that, being a class of warriors, they protected the economy of small producers from robberies by other feudal lords and foreigners, maintained order, which was a necessary condition for regular management.

The economic dependence of the farmer on the feudal lord was expressed in work and payments in favor of the owner of the land, i.e. in the form of rent. Three types of rent are known.

Labor rent is a form of economic dependence, in which the farmer worked for a certain time on the land of the feudal lord and performed some duties in his favor. Grocery rent - a part of the crop harvested by the farmer, which was given to the owner of the land for the use of the plot. Monetary rent - the money that the farmer gave to the feudal lord for the use of land.

Under feudalism, the owner of the land and the direct producer acted as mutually interested partners, although they were in an unequal position. Without the peasant, the land of the feudal lord would be dead capital. Self-management of the economy and the availability of their own tools of labor gave the peasant relative economic independence.

Only with the help of non-economic coercion, i.e. violence, the owner of the land could force the farmer to work for himself. Non-economic coercion is a means by which the feudal lord implemented rental relations. His degree in different periods and differed in different societies - from serfdom, a rigid form of personal dependence to class inferiority, i.e. restrictions on property and personal rights.

The characteristic features of feudal land ownership were its conditional character and hierarchical structure. The first form of land ownership in Western Europe was the allod - freely alienable individual-family private property on an allotment of communal land. It was replaced by benefices - a form of land ownership of the feudal lord, due to certain obligations (payments and military service) and a term (usually for life). Then it was replaced by a feud (or fief - from the German Lehn) - a conditional land grant to a vassal, which was inherited. The land was transferred to the vassal as a reward for military service and the fulfillment of certain obligations in favor of a superior lord. The feud was considered a privileged, "noble" possession. On this basis, a hierarchical structure was formed among landowners, connected by vassal-fief relations. It was formalized in the form of a personal contractual relationship. However, this type of relationship is typical for societies with dominance of private land ownership over state ownership.

A distinctive feature of feudal societies was their class organization. A person could exercise his rights only as a member of any estate: a peasant - the right to hold and own tools of labor - within the framework of a rural community; feudal lords - conditional (hereditary) property within the framework of vassal ties of their community - the feudal estate; artisan and merchant - the right to work and ownership of tools - within the framework of the workshop and guild.

Another important feature is the sectoral structure of the feudal economy. The basis of feudalism as a system was the agrarian economy (a combination of agriculture, cattle breeding and various crafts). From the XI-XV centuries. such industries as handicrafts (clothing, metallurgy, gunsmithing), and trade began to appear.

The corporatism of feudal society was reflected in social structure society. Each estate, i.e. feudal corporation, had a certain social, legal and legal status, secured its position and rights in the form of written charters. A man of feudal society exercised his legal, political and economic rights through class affiliation. The corporatism of property was characteristic feature feudal society.

Most researchers (G.B. Polyak, M.V. Konotopov, T.M. Timoshina) distinguish two main types of feudal systems: European and Eastern feudalism.

In the textbook M.V. Konotopova states that the most important feature of European feudalism was the gradual strengthening of the role of the state in public life. At all stages, it performed two functions - violence and maintaining order. The implementation of violence was connected with the interests of landowners. The state provided them with a monopoly on land, the status of nobility and "nobility", which were secured by special political and legal privileges. Through state institutions, taxes that came to the treasury from the taxable population were distributed in favor of the ruling class. As a guarantor of social peace and order, the monarch entered into a dialogue with various social forces. These functions were closely intertwined in the politics of the feudal states.

During the period of developed feudalism, the state outlined the features of a formulated and consistently pursued economic policy - state patronage of the handicraft industry and trade, which was dictated by the needs of the treasury, since they served major sources income.

Distinctive feature Western European feudalism was the legal registration of social, including economic, relations. Significant influence was exerted by the legal norms that developed in the Roman Empire. Various normative documents that appeared already in the period of the early Middle Ages not only fixed the formed relations, but also established the legal norms of emerging social relations. They showed a combination of the public, i.e. public and private law. In the era of mature feudalism, developed forms of legal registration of economic relations appeared in the form of royal (imperial) legislation: ordinances in France and England, privileges, patents and mandates in Germany, short stories in Byzantium. These laws were binding on all subjects.

The second type of feudalism is Eastern feudalism. This form developed on the basis of the "Asiatic mode of production" and inherited a high degree of state centralization, specific forms of communal organization of the peasantry, the predominance of state land ownership, and special forms of organization of the ruling class. The rulers and people involved in power lived off rent - a tax from the farmer-producer. Feudal lord in the Western European sense, i.e. a person separated from the state was not here.

In the East, the state opposed the private owner, seeing in its excessive strengthening a threat to its existence and the stability of the structure as a whole. Therefore, measures were taken aimed at a clear regulation of relations everywhere was unambiguous - the state is primary, and the private is secondary, moreover, it is mediated by the same state.

In accordance with this, an Eastern mentality was formed, similar to that which existed in the ancient Eastern despotisms. The desire for wealth was nipped in the bud, and the initiative, enterprise, and innovation behind it had no ground for manifestation.

In all non-European societies, the state represented the highest and unlimited power. His authority was supported by force and tradition. Ultimately, a strong state was necessary for the society itself, accustomed to conservative stability. A number of institutional factors contributed to the development of such behavior and psychology. The system of social corporations (family, clan, caste, workshop, etc.) adapted to the needs of the state. These norms and stability were no longer guarded by early forms religions, but developed religious systems.

Official Confucianism, medieval Hinduism, Islam and Buddhism in various modifications contributed to the strengthening of conservative stability. Religiously sanctioned ethical norms were the law for "medieval" Eastern society. The law itself was also religious in this society.

Summing up the above, we can single out the main features of feudal systems: the basis of the feudal economy was agriculture; all land is at the complete disposal of the feudal lord; the producer of basic material values was a farmer, a peasant; the material basis of feudal society is the labor of the farmer and his small farm; the nature of production was natural, but by the XI-XV centuries. commodity production began to predominate; sectoral structure of the feudal economy; land ownership is conditional and hierarchical; class organization of feudal societies.

1.2 Genesis and development of the feudal economy (on the example of the Frankish state)

The feudal system in Western Europe was formed over a long period of time and went through several stages in its development.

The early Middle Ages (V-X centuries, in some Asian countries II-XI centuries) - the period of the formation of feudal relations in a multi-structural economy, the formation of large landed property, its monopolization by a minority of the population, the transformation of free farmers into dependent peasants: the establishment of vassal-fief relations and classes of feudal society.

The classical (mature) Middle Ages (X-XV centuries, in some Asian countries until the XVI century) - the rise in labor productivity in agriculture and crafts, a significant increase in population, the emergence of cities as trade and craft centers. Europe is turning into one of the most economically and culturally advanced regions of the world.

Late Middle Ages (late XV-XVII centuries, in the East until late XVIII-XIX centuries) - the gradual decomposition of feudalism and the emergence of capitalist elements. This is the era of primitive accumulation of capital and the first bourgeois revolutions.

The foundations of the feudal economic system in Western Europe were laid in the kingdom of the Franks, created in Northern Gaul in 486. The Franks are one of the confederations of German tribes. In the 5th century The Germans conquered the Western Roman Empire and formed several so-called barbarian kingdoms.

Basic information about the economy of the Franks in the era of early feudalism is contained in the Sudebnik "Sallicheskaya Pravda". From this document it follows that the Franks were settled farmers. They sowed grain crops, used a two-field system, used a plow with an iron plowshare, a harrow, and bulls and horses as a draft force. The right to dispose of the land in the village belonged to the community - the brand. The Franks cultivated the land individually, in large families. The communal lands were in the indivisible use of the peasants. The economy of the Franks was natural. But the Franks were marked by property stratification.

One of the most important prerequisites for the development of feudal relations was the dualism of the Frankish community, the combination of communal land ownership with private peasant farming. Already from the V-VII centuries. it turned into a territorial, neighboring community, within which the land of an individual peasant family was assigned to private property. Such a land allotment was called allod. The appearance of the allod became a prerequisite for the formation of large feudal property.

In the 8th century important reforms were carried out in the Kingdom of the Franks . Under Charles Martel (715-741), as a result of the military reform, the peasants were removed from military service. The basis of the army was the knightly cavalry. The armament of a mounted knight was expensive. The cost of maintaining the troops and equipping the knights fell on the shoulders of the peasants. Military reform required changes in land grants. A beneficiary system was introduced. Relations of vassalage arose: the vassal depended on the lord who granted benefices, took the last oath of allegiance and performance of service. The lord, while retaining the right of the supreme owner to the granted land, could take it away if the vassal violated the contract.

Military service became the monopoly of the feudal lords. During the distribution of beneficiaries, previously free people who inhabited these lands often became subjects of vassals: they turned from subjects of the king into peasants dependent on private individuals.

In the ninth century beneficiaries turned into fief, or fiefs, . Military service remained the main condition for owning a fief, although the latter was transferred to hereditary use. linen system - a developed form of feudal land tenure, on its basis a vassalage, a feudal hierarchy of the nobility was formed.

All the conditions that contributed to the formation of large landownership (feudal civil strife and wars against other tribes) led to the loss of freedom by the communal peasants.

The most common form of establishing the dependency of the poor on the large landowner was the practice of transferring him to the category of so-called precariae. Precarium - literally "transferred at the request", a conditional land holding, which a large land owner transferred either for temporary or for life holding to a landless or poor landless person with the obligation of the latter to bear duties and dues in favor of the owner. There were three types of precariae: a) the holder received all the land from the owner; b) the peasant gave his own land to a large landowner and received it back, but not as his own, but as ceded to him by the landowner for the obligation to bear corvée and dues, and at the same time receiving protection and necessary assistance in case of need; c) by giving land, the holder received more land.

The precaria system assumed the dependence of individual peasants on the feudal lords, and the form and degree of dependence were established individually each time.

A peasant settlement could immediately become dependent if the village was part of the beneficiation. The king, granting beneficiaries and demanding military service for him, transferred to the beneficiary the income of the inhabitants of the territory, which, in subsistence farming, was the only way to reward service. Residents became people dependent on the beneficiary, if they had not previously become dependent. With the transformation of the beneficiation into a feud, the dependence of the inhabitants of the beneficiation strengthened, became permanent. Natural economy - simple reproduction of all business conditions; handicraft labor is combined and subordinated to agricultural labor; feudal rent is collected in kind; economic ties with territories outside the patrimony were rarely carried out.

The result of the growth of large landownership was the gradual concentration in the hands of large landowners of judicial, administrative, fiscal and military leadership functions. These functions receive their legal form in the form of so-called immunity. Immunity - this is a privilege that protects the lords and their lands from interference by the king and his representatives in the affairs of the feud.

Immunity was confirmed by an immunity letter. Immunity rights landowner included: judicial power over the subject population; exercising the functions of a sovereign in an immune territory; the right to collect all fiscal amounts (taxes, fines, etc.).

The basis of the economic organization of Frankish society in the VIII-IX centuries. became a feudal patrimony - senoria, its dimensions varied. The land of the patrimony consisted of two parts: the land that was in the economy of the feudal lord (domain), and peasant allotments (holdings). The land of the domain was, as a rule, no more than 1/3all peasant holdings. The composition of the domain was mainly not arable land, but forests, wastelands, swamps, etc. At a low level of productive forces, necessary labor, or labor expended on the reproduction of the labor force of the direct producer and his family and other production conditions, absorbed most of the labor time peasant and surplus labor could not be large, and consequently, the scope of its application, i.e. lordly smell, could not be great.

In the Middle Ages, there were three types of submission peasant seigneur - personal, land and judicial . A serf in Western Europe was a person who depended on the same lord in three respects at once . Rooted in personal addiction goes into ancient slavery. A slave planted on the ground remained a serf. He did not have the right to inherit the allotment, without paying the seigneur a special contribution, he paid a "head tax", all other duties were not fixed and were levied at the will of the seigneur.

land dependence stemmed from the fact that the peasant allotment belonged to the seigneur. The allotment land was part of the patrimony, whereby the peasant had to bear various duties in proportion to the size of the allotment and in accordance with the customs, which were fixed by tradition and were accurately listed in the cadastres of the patrimony.

Judicial dependency of the peasant followed from the immunity rights of the lord. This dependence was expressed in the fact that the population had to be sued in the court of the immunist, and all judicial fines, as well as those duties that used to go to the king, were now paid in favor of the lord.

As a result of the development of vassalage, the structure of the ruling class of feudal society was a hierarchical ladder. Each large landowner was considered a vassal of the king, and each feudal lord could have vassals by ceding to one or another person part of his land with its population as a fief. A large feudal lord, transferring a benefice or fief to a vassal, also transferred to him the feudal rent (or part of it) with the population of the feud, which thus became dependent on the new lord, without losing dependence on the superior.

In 843, the Carolingian Empire broke up into the West Frankish kingdom, the predecessor of France, the East Frankish kingdom, which laid the foundation for Germany, and Middle France, which included Italy and the regions along the Rhine and the Rhone. The collapse of a huge and powerful state was evidence of the completion of the process of feudalization of Frankish society. Any country in Europe in the Middle Ages was a system of fiefdoms, each of which was essentially a "sovereign" state. Feudal fragmentation is the most important feature of the formed feudal system. Feudalization - this is the transformation of an allod into a hold; the disappearance of free community members and the appearance of their dependent or serf holders; the formation of feudal ownership of land and the emergence of a ruling class of feudal landowning warriors.

The origin of the feudal economy took place in Western Europe in the kingdom of the Franks, created in Northern Gaul in 486, in several stages - the Early Middle Ages (V-X centuries), the Classical (mature) Middle Ages (X-XV centuries) and the Late Middle Ages (late XV-XVII centuries, in the East until the end of the XVIII-XIX centuries). The evolution of feudalism is considered on the example of Northern Gaul, since the historical document ancient Franks "Sallic truth", which contains information about the economy of the Franks of the period V-VII centuries. From the V-VII centuries. the Frankish community turned into a neighboring community, within which the land of a separate peasant family was assigned to private property. Such a land allotment was called allod. As a result of the military reform under Karl Mertel, the beneficiary system was introduced, and in the 11th century. beneficiaries turned into fief, or fiefs, representing a conditional award to a vassal, which was inherited . A system of vassal relations was formed. As a result of the development of vassalage, the structure of the ruling class of feudal society was a hierarchical ladder. In 843, the Carolingian Empire collapsed, which meant the end of the process of feudalization of Frankish society.

2. Features of feudalism in individual countries

2.1 The classical model of the feudal economy in France

It is recognized that feudal relations had the most complete, classical character in France. Feudal estate - seigneury in the IX-XII centuries. - personified the feudal subsistence economy. Expanded area under wheat crops. The land was cultivated with a heavy plow, the horse became the draft force. Viticulture and horticulture, the cultivation of industrial crops, have received further distribution. Mechanical processes were introduced in winemaking. From the end of the XII century. Mills were used more and more widely. Despite the distribution of fertilizers, the yield did not exceed sam-5 (that is, five times more than what was sown). For the French estate, a characteristic feature was the existence of banalities, when such means of production as mills, furnaces, and presses belonging to the feudal lord could be used by dependent peasants for a special fee (flour, grapes, etc.). A special fee was charged for the passage of cargo on the bridge, for the dust raised on the roads by cattle, etc.

Feudal estate - seigneury in the IX-XII centuries. - personified the feudal subsistence economy. Seigneurs, following the example of the king, surrounded themselves with a large retinue, consisting of service people of different categories: squires, mounted knights (chevaliers). Gradually, a stable vassal hierarchy ("ladder") developed in France. At the top of this "ladder" stood the king, who was the supreme lord of all the feudal lords. Below were the largest secular and spiritual feudal lords, directly dependent on the king. They included dukes, counts, archbishops, etc. Formally, they all obeyed the king, i.e. were his vassals, but in fact they had enormous powers: they could wage war, issue money, and exercise judicial functions within their possessions. They, in turn, also had their own vassals - large landowners who had the titles of barons, marquises. And although they were of a lower rank, they also enjoyed a certain administrative and political power in their estates.

Below the barons were small feudal knights. They, as a rule, did not have their own vassals, but only peasants who were not part of the feudal hierarchy. And if in the 9th-11th centuries the term "knight" meant simply a warrior who carried out military (usually equestrian) service with his lord, then in the 12th-13th centuries this term acquired a broader meaning and began to mean people of noble birth, unlike ordinary peasants.

Each feudal lord was a lord for a lower feudal lord, if he received land from him on the rights of holding, and a vassal of a higher feudal lord, whose land holder he himself acted. The same hierarchy developed among the spiritual feudal lords, where vassalage was determined by the rank of the occupied church position.

Within the vassal subordination, the rights and obligations of the subjects included in it were clearly delineated. The transfer of a fief from a lord to a vassal was called an investiture. This was accompanied by a solemn ceremony of entering into vassal dependence, or bringing homage (from the French homme - a person), during which the dependent feudal lord took an oath of allegiance ("foie") to his lord.

The vassal hierarchy in France turned into an exemplary system of government for the whole of Europe, embodying a peculiar form of political and military organization of the feudal state. During the Early Middle Ages, only the feudal hierarchy was able to ensure relative stability in society and the preservation of the signs of the state.

It is known that the political and administrative center of France was traditionally located in the north-east of the country. For a long period, the royal court did not have a fixed location and moved from one city to another. Later, the city of Lan became the capital, and only at the end of the 10th century the status of the capital of France was assigned to Paris.

In the X-XI centuries. in France (as well as throughout Western Europe) was built a large number of castles. This process is called "incastellamento" ("locking"). Large feudal lords built stone castles for themselves, which, if necessary, turned into fortresses, with thick, high walls, towers and a dungeon where one could hide from enemies. In addition, the castles were the political, judicial, military and administrative centers of the feudal estates. All this inevitably led to a weakening of the central government and increased fragmentation of the country.

By the end of the 11th century, the number of feudal lords increased markedly, among which were both large seigneurs (mainly descendants of the Carolingians) and small feudal lords, mostly from among the servants and vassals of the king. All of them needed to further strengthen the feudal monopoly on land. To this end, the royal government proclaimed the principle "there is no land without a lord." This meant that all power should belong to secular or ecclesiastical feudal lords and that there was no longer any place for free peasant farms in the country.

In the XI-XII centuries. in the French countryside, the system of majorata was established - the seigneury began to be inherited either entirely or two-thirds by her eldest son, which strengthened the monopoly of seigneurs on land.

France in the 11th century various categories of dependent peasantry were reduced to the main group of serfs - serfs, who belonged to the estate. By inheritance, as a dowry, as a gift, by will, the serfs, together with the estate, could be transferred to the new owner, although they had land allotments and ran their own economy. Their duties were varied and numerous, they were determined by land and serf (personal), as well as judicial dependence on the feudal lord. These included the payment of a general tax, marriage and inheritance duties, corvée and quitrent in kind. They paid judicial, market, bridge, road and other duties and fees.

With the establishment of the feudal system, the exploitation of the peasants intensified, new duties were added. The feudal lords seized communal lands, imposed a fee for their use. Banalities were used more and more widely.

In this historical period, the dominal economy (or the so-called master's plowing) played an important role, which was mainly supported by serfs. The serfs worked at the expense of the corvée in the master's fields with their tools and working cattle under the supervision of the senior managers.

In general, in the 13th century, notable successes were achieved in French agriculture: crop areas expanded, fertilizers began to be used, the three-field system spread everywhere, the number of crops grown increased, and new tools were introduced.

As early as the second half of the 12th century, France began to involve new lands (wastelands, deposits) in the economic circulation, and forests were cleared. Thus, internal colonization took place in the country.

During this period, in France, despite the political fragmentation of the country, crafts and trade began to develop. Craft workshops and workshops were formed. Economic specialization led to the strengthening of internal economic ties.

Under Louis IX, a unified monetary system of the country was approved. The development of cities and trade led to the destruction of the economic isolation of individual regions. This contributed to the formation of a political and economic alliance between the cities and the king, since the cities sought the protection of their liberties from the royal power, and the king needed money that could be obtained from wealthy citizens. On the other hand, the feudal lords (especially small and medium ones) were also interested in solid state power in order to legislate the impending changes in relations with the peasants (transition to the quitrent system).

By the end of the 15th century, the process of political unification of the country was basically completed. Under Louis IX, Burgundy, Provence and other territories were annexed to France. By this time there was a single French based on the Parisian dialect. In the second half of the XV century. the influence of class representation on the life of the country gradually began to decrease. The estates-general met on a case-by-case basis, and in 1484 they were convened for the last time. The nobility was for the most part military service from the state and almost ceased to engage in farming. A new form has entered the political arena state structure- absolute monarchy, which finally deprived all historical provinces of sovereignty. The royal power completely subjugated the economic, political and military spheres of the country's life.

The economy of France is considered to be the classic model of the feudal economy, since it was here that the basic principles of feudalism were fully implemented (1. There is no land without a lord and there are no lords without land.

The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal.), the implementation of which gave rise to a clear system of vassalage within the feudal hierarchy as well. In the XI-XII centuries. a system of primacy developed - the lordship began to be inherited either entirely or two-thirds by her eldest son, which strengthened the lords' monopoly on land.

By the 11th century various categories of dependent peasantry were reduced to the main group of serfs - serfs, who belonged to the estate. The serfs were in a terrible position. They were legally disenfranchised, could be executed or convicted, all sorts of duties were imposed on them. Banalities were used more and more widely.

2.2 Features of feudalism in Russia

A number of peoples passed immediately from primitive to feudalism. The Slavs also belonged to such peoples. Kievan Rus - this is how historians call the state of the ancient Slavs from the 9th to the 11th centuries, with the center in the city of Kyiv.

The formation process in Kievan Rus main classes of feudal society is poorly reflected in the sources. This is one of the reasons why the question of the nature and class basis of the ancient Russian state is debatable. The presence of various economic structures in the economy gives grounds to a number of specialists to assess the Old Russian state as an early class state, in which the feudal structure existed along with the slave-owning and patriarchal.

In Rus', patriarchal slavery also existed, but it did not become the predominant form of management, because the use of slaves was inefficient. In the XI century, along with the princely, boyar estates began to form. This happened in several ways:

the prince granted his combatants for a certain period of territory to collect tribute - food. Over time, these lands became the hereditary possessions of the boyars;

the prince rewarded combatants for serving with state land;

the prince could give his close associates part of his possessions.

From the 11th-13th centuries, a hierarchical structure of land ownership was established in feudal land ownership. At the head of the hierarchical ladder was the senior prince, who was the supreme owner in relation to the feudal lords. The heirs of the senior prince, who received full ownership of the land, became specific princes, and their possessions were called appanages. Under this system, the main privileged form of landownership was still the boyar estate as a large, independent economic unit. The patrimonial farms remained almost completely subsistence, all basic needs were met by products that were produced within the patrimony. The main form of economic dependence of peasants on landowners was quitrent in kind. ( product rent). Church land holdings were not inferior in size to the boyar estates. Churches and monasteries, as well as feudal lords, seized communal lands and attacked the rights of peasants. During the period of the dominance of the patrimonial economy, an increasingly prominent place began to be occupied by the estate, or conditional land tenure.

In the XIV century, the social division of labor intensified, the craft began to be more and more separated from agriculture, which led to a more active exchange between the urban and rural population, to the emergence of the Russian internal market. But the creation of the internal Russian market was hindered by feudal fragmentation, since in each principality a large number of travel and trade duties and taxes were established. The development of domestic trade inevitably led to more active monetary circulation. As in Old Russian state, during the period of feudal fragmentation of Rus', internal trade played a less prominent role than external. Already at the end of the 13th - beginning of the 14th centuries, foreign economic relations revived again.

At the beginning of the 15th century, the process of unification of Russian lands into a single state intensified, which ended mainly in the 16th century. The main reason for the strengthening of unification processes in Rus', in contrast to the West, was the strengthening and development of feudal relations, the further strengthening of patrimonial and local land tenure. The development of the Russian economy in the 15th-16th centuries is associated primarily with the gradual enslavement of the peasants who lived on the lands of the feudal lords.

The enslavement of peasants can be divided into 4 stages:

The first stage (the end of the 15th - the end of the 16th centuries) - part of the rural population lost their personal freedom and turned into serfs and serfs. The Sudebnik of 1497 streamlined the right of peasants to leave the land on which they lived and move to another landowner, confirming the right of the owner-owning peasants, after paying the elderly, to be able to leave on St. George's Day. However, in 1581, in the conditions of the extreme ruin of the country and the flight of the population, Ivan IV introduced reserved years, which prohibited the peasants from leaving the territories most affected by disasters.

The second stage (the end of the 16th century - 1649) - a decree was issued on the widespread enslavement of peasants in 1592. By a decree of 1597, fixed years were established (the term for detecting fugitive peasants, initially determined at five years). After a five-year period, the fleeing peasants were subject to enslavement in new places, which was in the interests of large landowners, large nobles. The final enslavement of the peasants was approved by the Council Code of 1649.

At the third stage (from the middle of the 17th century to the end of the 18th century) serfdom developed in an ascending line. For example, according to the law of 1675, the owner's peasants could already be sold without land. Largely under the influence of the socio-cultural split caused by the reforms of Peter the Great, the peasants began to lose the remnants of their rights and, in terms of their social and legal status, approached the slaves, they were treated like talking cattle.

At the fourth stage (the end of the 18th century - 1861), serf relations entered the stage of their decomposition. The state began to take measures that somewhat limited the arbitrariness of the landlords, moreover, serfdom, as a result of the spread of humane and liberal ideas, was condemned by the advanced part of the Russian nobility. As a result, for various reasons, it was canceled by the Manifesto of Alexander 11 in February 1861.

As in other feudal states, agriculture was the main branch of the feudal economy in Russia. For centuries, it was agricultural production that determined the level and degree of economic and socio-political development of the country.

The state of agricultural production, especially in the early stages, largely depended on natural and climatic factors, which were generally not favorable. Summer for the Russian peasant is a period of extreme exertion of forces, requiring the maximum concentration of labor efforts and their great intensity.

Throughout feudal history, the main branch of agriculture was grain farming, since the main share in the food structure was baked goods. The leading place was occupied by rye, wheat, barley. They were supplemented by oats, millet, buckwheat, peas and other agricultural crops.

From the middle of the XVIII century. dozens of new plant species were mastered; experts count 87 new cultures. The introduction of potatoes, sunflowers, and sugar beets was especially important.

The main form of arable farming in all areas inhabited Eastern Slavs, was a two-field. In the XIV - XV centuries. the transition to three-field land began, dividing the arable land into three parts (spring - winter - fallow). The widespread transition to a three-field crop rotation is the largest achievement of agriculture in Russia. Its introduction revolutionized agricultural technology and land use.

Other branches of agriculture were of an auxiliary nature. In the 17th century progress in animal husbandry. It was expressed in the allocation of areas where this industry became predominant, most adapted to the market (Arkhangelsk province, Yaroslavl, Vologda counties).

During the early and mature feudalism in Russia, the following forms of landed feudal property existed: "black" lands under the authority of the monarch; palace lands; lands of secular and spiritual feudal lords. In the same period, large landowners were monasteries, which from the second half of the XIV century. began to turn into independent feudal farms with large land holdings. In total there were 150 such monasteries.

Secular feudal lords have long and enviously looked at the vast land wealth of the church, dreaming of taking them into their hands. The Council Code of 1649 confirmed the government's policy of freezing the growth of the possessions of the clergy. However, during the 17th century the church increased the land fund somewhat.

According to the type of feudal landownership, patrimonial and local lands were distinguished. A patrimony was a land holding, an economic complex owned by the owner on the rights of full hereditary property. Local - inalienable land property, due to the service to the ruler. The formation of landownership falls on the end of the 15th century.

The Council Code of 1649 authorized the established practice of transferring the estate in whole or in part from the father to the children.

The decree of Peter I of March 23, 1714 marked the merger of the estate and patrimonial forms of land ownership, turning the landed property of the feudal lords into hereditary property.

IN Ancient Rus' In addition to agriculture, handicraft production was widely developed. As an independent industry, it began to take shape in the 7th-9th centuries. The craft centers were ancient Russian cities such as Kyiv, Novgorod, Polotsk, Smolensk, Suzdal, etc. Among them, the first place was occupied by Kyiv - a large craft and trade center.

The level of handicraft production in Ancient Rus' was quite high. Skillful blacksmiths, builders, potters, silver and goldsmiths, enamellers, icon painters, and other specialists worked mainly to order. Over time, artisans began to work for the market. By the XII century. Ustyuzhensky district stood out, where iron was produced, supplied to other areas.

Feudalism contributed to the development of the economy, industry and trade. The development of trade caused the appearance of money. The first money in Rus' was cattle and expensive furs.

At the beginning of the XVII century. the first manufactories were built. Most of them belonged to the treasury, the royal court and large boyars.

Palace manufactories served the needs royal court. State manufactories were created for the production of weapons (Cannon Yard, Armory) or for state needs (Money, Jewelery Yards).

In the XVII - XVIII centuries. the construction of construction and textile manufactories continued, progress was observed in railway construction and the development of communication lines, and a river shipping company arose. The first steamboat appeared on the Neva in 1815. By 1850, there were about 100 steamboats in Russia.

Russia's access to the Baltic Sea increased the volume and expanded the scope of Russian foreign trade. Great importance in foreign trade acquired the ports of St. Petersburg, Riga, Tallinn. A prominent place in Russian exports of the XVIII century. industrial goods occupied: linen fabrics, canvas, iron, ropes, mast wood, and at the beginning of the 19th century. corn. Russia imported cloth, dyes, luxury items. Trade continued to develop with the countries of the East - Persia, China, Turkey, Central Asia.

It can be said that the economic development of feudal Russia took place on the whole in line with those processes that were characteristic of other European countries. At the same time, it possessed a number of features and characteristics associated with external and internal political development, mentality, traditions, a vast territory, and a multi-ethnic population. The later entry of Russia into the era of industrial development predetermined its lagging behind the leading countries of Europe.

2.3 England's feudal economy

Feudal relations in England developed at a slower pace. By the 11th century here the military service class was still weak. Most of the peasants remained free landowners. However, the Norman Conquest in 1066 accelerated the process of feudalization. The seizure of land by the victors led to the growth of large-scale landownership and the enslavement of the peasants. And in the XII century. the predominant part of the peasants found themselves in the position of having lost their personal independence: they were called villans. Another common category of the dependent population was the cotters, who did not have a field plot and worked duties on the lands of the landlord (feudal lord). In contrast to France, in England a significant stratum of freeholder peasants remained, personally free, although dependent on the feudal lord in terms of land. Here the peasant community and communal order were more stable than in France.

Under William I and his successors, Danish raids and feudal civil strife ceased; a "royal peace" was established in the country, which made it possible to establish economic life more calmly. With the beginning of the Norman period in England, cities began to develop as centers of crafts and trade. Trade routes became so secure that, as chronicles of that time wrote, English roads it was possible to carry a bag of gold and not be afraid of attack and robbery.

Through port cities (Dover, Brighton, Portsmouth, etc.), trade relations were established with continental Europe (Italy, Germany, France, and especially Flanders), where wool, tin, lead, livestock, and later bread and skins were exported from England. Moreover, not only feudal lords, but also peasants participated in trade. In the XI-XIII centuries. fairs in Winchester, York, Boston, where both English merchants and merchants from other European countries came, became very famous. At the turn of the XI-XII centuries. London became the capital of England (since 1707 - the capital of Great Britain).

A feature of the English cities was that since almost all of them were on the lands of the royal domain, their lord was the king himself. Cities were required to pay the king a sum of money (firm) collected from all residents. Gradually, the townspeople managed to buy out some functions of self-government (in particular, judicial ones), as well as the right to create trade guilds. At the turn of the XI-XII centuries. there was a widespread association of urban artisans in workshops.

During this period, a clear system was created in the country government controlled. At the head of the counties were sheriffs who performed administrative, judicial, tax and other functions. At the beginning of the XIII century. a special royal body began to play an important role - the Treasury, which was in charge of collecting income and checking the financial activities of sheriffs in the counties.

From the 13th century the manorial system began to flourish. The classical manor consisted of several parts. More than half of the land of the manor was occupied by the domain economy, the other part - by the allotments of villans and a number of allotments of freeholders. The lord acted as the owner of the manor.

The main thing in the manor was the close connection between the master and peasant farms. The peasants cultivated the master's land with their tools, using their own livestock.

It can be noted that the manor was a typical example of subsistence farming. Trade relations with other estates were rare and limited. The manor was dominated by corvee and quitrent in kind, on the basis of which stocks "for household use" were created. The peasants had no money, so they worked out the corvée and paid dues in food. But if the villan evaded the performance of duties, the feudal lord could demand payment of their monetary equivalent.

For various categories of villans, the nature of working off depended on the area of the allotment. So, there were villans - virgatarii, who had a full allotment - virgata. These peasants had to work on corvée two or three days a week. Villans - semi-virgatarii performed these duties at half the rate. Kotters were obliged to work on the corvee every day, using the master's working cattle and tools.

Field work was considered strictly obligatory for all categories of peasants; even villans could not avoid them. No causes were taken into account, even such as illness, bad weather or holidays. During haymaking or grain harvesting, the number of working days on the master's fields doubled for the peasants.

In the XIII century. increased significantly general level development of the economy, and especially agriculture. A three-field crop rotation (along with a system of open fields) was widely used, a heavy plow was used, which was set in motion with the help of oxen. Regional specialization of agricultural production became noticeable: grain crops were mainly grown in the south, east and center of the country, while livestock farming flourished in the north and west. A significant part of the production was exported to the market. An increase in demand for agricultural products led to an increase in prices for wool, bread, etc. A wealthy elite formed among the Villans, who sought to pay a ransom and become free.

These economic trends led to the fact that the XIII century. was marked by the rapid growth of English cities. By the end of the century, there were about 280 urban settlements in the country, and many of them became very rich.

The strengthening of economic ties inevitably led to the strengthening of the role of the state in all spheres of life. During this period, the state apparatus grew noticeably, which led to an increase in taxes and fees from both peasants and townspeople. Such steps have caused discontent among the population. The large landowners, who advocated the preservation of their immunities and isolation, were also dissatisfied. In relation to objectionable feudal lords, repressions were used, and their possessions were confiscated in favor of the king. All this led to social tension in the country, especially during the reign of John Landless. As a result, he was forced to compromise with the feudal nobility and sign the Magna Carta in 1215.

After the adoption of the Great Charter, the intensity of contradictions in society did not decrease, and as a result of the establishment of this document, they were never put into practice, and after the death of John the Landless, many of its provisions were completely canceled.

From the end of the XIII century. the English countryside was undergoing major changes caused by the crisis of the manorial system. At the beginning of the XIV century. in England, as in other Western European countries, a massive transition to rent in kind and cash (rent commutation) began. By the middle of the XIV century. monetary rent became predominant among all forms of duties. This was beneficial for strong peasant farms, who already had connections with the market and could receive personal freedom for ransom. The poor peasants hardly paid off the lords and remained dependent on them for a long time.

At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. most of the villans, having paid a ransom, were freed from corvée. Thus began the abolition of many elements of the personal dependence of the peasants.

At the beginning of the XV century. The English economy has entered a new era. Its main features include the collapse of the domain economy, the strengthening of the rights of peasants to land, and the strengthening of the value of monetary rent. Simultaneously with the destruction of the corvee system, the old large nobility was ruined, unable to adapt to new conditions. Many of the feudal lords hoped to receive assistance from the state, in connection with which there was a difficult struggle between the barons at court, and they also expected to enrich themselves through robbery in France against the backdrop of the Hundred Years War then taking place. But all this could not provide them with the former standard of living.

As the English economy changed, contradictions between the old and the "new" nobility grew in the country, which led to a civil war that went down in history as the War of the Scarlet and White Roses (1455-1485). It seemed that the war broke out because of the succession to the throne, but the true reasons lay much deeper.

At the height of the war, the York dynasty came to power. But the York dynasty was on the throne for long. As a result of the tragic events associated with the reign of Edward IV's brother, the cruel King Richard III, power passed to the Tudor dynasty, which relied entirely on the urban bourgeoisie and the "new nobility". At the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. in England all the conditions were ripe for the transition to market relations.

In the XII century. the predominant part of the peasants found themselves in the position of having lost their personal independence: they were called villans. Another common category of the dependent population was the cotters, who did not have a field plot and worked duties on the lands of the landlord (feudal lord). Unlike France, England retained a significant layer of peasants - freeholders, personally free, although dependent on the feudal lord in terms of land. Here the peasant community and communal order were more stable than in France. From the 13th century the manorial system began to flourish. The Manor was a typical example of subsistence farming. Trade relations with other estates were rare and limited. The manor was dominated by corvee and quitrent in kind, on the basis of which stocks "for household use" were created. At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. most of the villans, having paid a ransom, were freed from corvée. Thus began the abolition of many elements of the personal dependence of the peasants.

Conclusion

To achieve this goal, an analysis was made of the formation and development of the feudal economy.

Using research methods, the following tasks were solved:

the main types and features of feudal systems are revealed. The following main features of feudal systems can be distinguished: the basis of the feudal economy was agriculture; all land is at the complete disposal of the feudal lord; the producer of basic material values was a farmer, a peasant; the material basis of feudal society is the labor of the farmer and his small farm; the nature of production was natural, the level of productivity was low, but by the XI-XV centuries. commodity production began to predominate; sectoral structure of the feudal economy; land ownership is conditional and hierarchical; class organization of feudal societies.

By type, feudalism is divided into European, which does not deny private property, legal norms begin to play an important role during this period. In Eastern feudalism, the state is centralized, denies the private, seeing it as a threat to its existence and stability in general, adheres to traditions and does not welcome innovation.

An analysis of the genesis and development of the feudal economy in the Frankish state is made. The origin of the feudal economy took place in Western Europe in the kingdom of the Franks, created in Northern Gaul in 486, in several stages - the Early Middle Ages (V-X centuries), the Classical (mature) Middle Ages (X-XV centuries) and the Late Middle Ages (late XV-XVII centuries, in the East until the end of the XVIII-XIX centuries). The evolution of feudalism is considered on the example of Northern Gaul, since the historical document of the ancient Franks "Sallic Truth" has been preserved, which contains information about the economy of the Franks in the period of the 5th-7th centuries. From the V-VII centuries. the Frankish community turned into a neighboring community, within which the land of a separate peasant family was assigned to private property. Such a land allotment was called allod. As a result of the military reform under Karl Mertel, the beneficiary system was introduced, and in the 11th century. beneficiaries turned into fief, or fiefs, representing a conditional award to a vassal, which was inherited . A system of vassal relations was formed. In 843, the Carolingian Empire collapsed, which meant the end of the process of feudalization of Frankish society.

The characteristic of the classical model of the feudal economy in France is given. The economy of France is considered to be the classic model of the feudal economy, since it was here that the basic principles of feudalism were fully implemented (1. There is no land without a lord and there are no lords without land. 2. A vassal of my vassal is not my vassal.), The implementation of which gave rise to a clear system vassalage and within the feudal hierarchy.

The features of feudalism in Russia and England are revealed. The economic development of feudal Russia took place on the whole in line with those processes that were characteristic of other European countries. Features of feudalism in Russia:

Russian feudalism did not inherit slavery; it's inefficient.

The role of land ownership is great, the strong power of the state over the individual, as a result of which there was no clear system of vassalage within the feudal hierarchy.

The development of feudal landownership proceeded from the estate to the estate. The decree of Peter I of March 23, 1714 marked the merger of the estate and patrimonial forms of land ownership, turning the landed property of the feudal lords into hereditary property.

Long procces enslavement of peasants (XV-XVII centuries).5. Severe and varied forms of personal dependence of the peasants.

The main feature of feudalism in England consisted in a much greater centralization of government than in France. The reason for this was the conquest (1066) of the country by feudal lords gathered from all over France under the leadership of the dukes of Normandy, who occupied the English throne. Another feature concerned the technological base of the English estate. Thanks to the coastal ecology, sheep breeding flourished there and a large amount of raw wool was produced. Wool improved the life of English peasants (clothes, mattresses, etc.) and served as an important industrial raw material. In the XII century. the predominant part of the peasants found themselves in the position of having lost their personal independence: they were called villans. Another common category of the dependent population was the cotters, who did not have a field plot and worked duties on the lands of the landlord (feudal lord). Unlike France, England retained a significant layer of peasants - freeholders, personally free, although dependent on the feudal lord in terms of land. Here the peasant community and communal order were more stable than in France. From the 13th century the manorial system began to flourish. The Manor was a typical example of subsistence farming. Trade relations with other estates were rare and limited. The manor was dominated by corvee and quitrent in kind, on the basis of which stocks "for household use" were created. At the turn of the XIV-XV centuries. most of the villans, having paid a ransom, were freed from corvée. Thus began the abolition of many elements of the personal dependence of the peasants.

At the beginning of the XV century. The English economy has entered a new era. As a result of the growing contradictions between the "old" and "new" nobility, Civil War. At the turn of the XV-XVI centuries. in England, all the conditions for the transition to market relations were ripe.

In conclusion, it can be noted that each of the countries had its own characteristics of the development of feudalism, but the main industry in each of them was agriculture, the main wealth was land. All social relations, including economic ones, revolved around land relations.

List of sources used

1.Konotopov M.V. History of Economics [Text]: textbook for high school/ M.V. Konotopov, S.I. Smetanin. - M.: INFRA, 2000. - 367 p.

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