What+were+the+challenges+in+the+Feudal+System?

We found that some of the challenges were that feudalism was not always accurate. Feudalism was the dominant form of political organization in medieval Europe. Feudalism became at a time when central governments were weak in Europe, and kings used the system to try and control over their subjects and secure military strength throughout their lands. Medieval society was organized into a feudal tree or a pyramid. It was based on the level of command that each man had. First it was the king who was the highest and most important in command. The king gave fiefs or grants of land to his noblemen, they were called Barons and Bishops. In return for the land each noble promised to supply the King with soldiers in time for war. The idea of loyalty and service was important in feudal system. Anyone who had land had to take an oath to serve the person who gave it to them. Feudalism is a medieval European political system. The feudalism was around for hundreds of years. Finally it started to get old and weaken until it was over. In 1337 a war was created between England and France and lasted for more then a century, and was called “The hundred year war.” During the medieval ages, the European society was organized in a system called feudalism. Some challenges were that there was unequal treatment among the land.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LtbFQEXRBU This video had mostly pictures of the feudalism in Europe. It is a good video to look at.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SVHuTfiDTs This video has a lot of information of the feudalism. It also have some good pictures. I think it is a good video that has some interesting information by Sydney, Ben and Dylan

Feudal System
 Years ago in Medieval Society it was organized a little different than today, it was done in a feudal tree or a pyramid system. The most important people, those in higher command, were at the top and then it descended downwards with the ones with little command at the bottom. The King had the greatest authority so he was at the top and then those people that the King gave fiefs, pieces of land, to his nobleman were next. These people were commonly called Barons and Bishops. To receive this lands the Barons and Bishops had to supply the King with soldiers during war times. In this society loyalty and service was extremely important and to hold this land they had to swear an oath to serve the person who gave them the land.

At a special ceremony a Noble pledged himself to be a humble dependent or a servant of the King’s, also known as a vassel. They would kneel before the King and in an act of homage, a formal public acknowledgement of feudal allegiance, they would swear an oath of loyalty. This was hoped to bind the Noble to the King and no one else, if the oath was broken, that person would be considered a traitor The oath given was “ **Sire, I Become Your Man ** ”.  By: Scott   

Born Into you class
 A major challenge in the feudal system was being born into your place. During the times of the feudal system, you were not allowed to make your decision on how high up you were ranked. If you parents were serfs or peasants, you would be a serf or peasant when you grew up. This was because feudalism required that all serfs swore allegiance to their lords and that all lords swore allegiance to their king, no matter how hard you worked, you would still be forced to be what you were born into for life. The serfs had to work for the king so that they could get food, clothing and shelter for their families. They had to do hard, long work each day in order for them to keep the small piece of land that the king provided them to farm and grow crops on. This was a very difficult life for the serfs, which is why eventually they left to try and find other towns that did not support the feudal system so that they could live their lives as normal people as apposed to living life as a slave for the king. By: Cianna \

How the Feudal System Began
 ** During the middle ages, the population of Western Europe was going down because of all the fighting going on between other tribes such as the Huns, and Lombards. Europe was invaded from the North by the Vikings, from the East by the Magyars and from the South by the Moslems. In order to protect themselves, the people built walls to keep enemies and diseases away. This area was called a manor and it consisted of a manor house and land farmed by the serfs. The manor also had a political system that consisted of the king, lord, knights and serfs. This became known as the feudal system. s By: Cianna

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Feudalism
<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif;"> King gives big estates to friends and relatives. Estates are called fiefs. Fiefs include houses, livestock and barns peasants or serfs, and tools. The king swore to protect the vassals in the fields, or in the court. In return, the nobles that were granted the fief swore loyalty to the king. Nobles swore never to fight against their own king. If the king asked for knights to fight a war, advice, serfs, or money, the nobles gave him that. Whenever the king traveled, the nobles gave him a place to stay.

Each vassal is either a lord, or a tenant-in-chief with his own vassal. Each vassal is an overlord.

By: Matthew Cook

[|System of Feudal][|ism]

[|Good information on this subject]- __Challenges to the Feudal System__ There were three main parts to the feudal system. The manor, a large estate of land; the nobles, the owners of the manor; and, the serfs, the peasants, or poor farm workers. Beneath the feudal system an unwritten agreement was in action between the noble and the serf. The agreement was that the serf would work the land of the noble and in return the noble would shelter, food and protection. A downside to this agreement was that once a serf was in this agreement he, his family and his descendants were bound to the noble forever. Once a serf was in this agreement the noble could do whatever they pleased with them. The serfs were considered to be more than slaves however, the noble were still obliged to keep his part of their agreement, meaning that they each depended on each other for survival. Eventually new challenges started to grow. Over the span of two hundred years the nobles and the church began to lose an incredible amount of power and influence. As more years passed some people began to break away from the manor and the crusades and other wars brought many people in contact with others. As populations grew, the growth of the trade increased. This caused many serfs to flee their manors to go to these new growing towns in hope of starting a new life and being free of serfdom. By: Kyleigh, Jordan F

During this time one of the big challenges was that if any argument over land occurred it usually ended up turning into a battle. Also if peasants got into a brawl they would generally take it back to the noble they worked for and the two nobles would fight about it in court. By: Kyleigh Skillen (picture too)

There are challenges in the feudal system like; the peasant people had to work in the fields for the king, in order to keep their land. The peasants lived in huts made out of wood or straw with leaves and hay laid out for the flooring. For the nobles they would have to give whatever the king asked for. By: Jordan Figueroa

The Decline of the Feudal System

The Medieval feudal system work well with the people of Europe for many hundreds of years, but eventually the decline of the feudal system came as a result of many events that happened in the medieval era.

The Crusades and travel during this time opened new opportunities and options for trade in England. This caused new religions and ways of life to be found. With people learning new things about other places England changed from a land based economy to a money-based economy. With all of the travel, the Black Death had been brought into the picture and reduced England’s population by one third. This made finding people for labour a hard thing to do. After this occurred the Peasants Revolt came around and took more labour working individuals and families away from the Kings. As trading became more popular new towns developed and peasants moved away from the country life into these new towns and eventually were allowed to buy their freedom. Soon after that the Kings took back their lands and power making the noble weaker. As all of these events began to melt together a centralized government was finally constructed.

During the feudal systems decline rich nobles became more inclined to pay for trained soldiers and troops instead of fighting for themselves. The feudal system stated that the King was a level under the Pope and in all cases had to be able to say why he did what ever he did. Near the end of the Middle Ages King Henry VIII disagreed with the Pope and this led to England breaking out of the Catholic church of Rome and obviously the Pope. From this came the Church of England and the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This was the final “nail in the coffin” of the Medieval Feudal system in England.

By: Kyleigh Skillen

This link is a youtube video that talks a bit about feudalism, how it worked and how it affected different classes of people. (The video is fairly long but the information about feudalism is just near the start) The video is also good for many of the other topics.- Kyleigh Skillen