The feudalism describes a combination of military, social and legal customs that place were in medieval Europe between the ninth and fifteenth centuries. It is broadly defined as the way in which society was structured around the relationships derived from land tenure in exchange for a service or work. Although the etymology of the word is derived from the Latin feudum or feodum (feud), at that time the word used, neither feudalism nor the system it describes were conceived as a formal political system by people who lived in the Middle Ages.
Even today the term is a matter of debate, with some scholars limiting its use to describing arrangements among the nobility, some others extending its use to describe the social order of the Middle Ages, and another group of experts questioning its usefulness as concept. The feudalism, in its many forms, emerged as a result of decentralization of an empire, especially the Carolingian Dynasty (line of Frankish kings who ruled Western Europe between the eighth and tenth centuries), which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary for backup of the cavalry, by not assigning lands to these troops.
Thus, the soldiers began to ensure a hereditary system over the land and their power over the territory began to encompass the political, judicial and economic spheres. This acquired power considerably diminished the unitary power of these empires. Even when the infrastructure existed to maintain such unitary power (as was the case with European monarchies), it began to give way to this new structural power, known as feudalism, and eventually disappeared. Classic feudalism describes a set of reciprocal obligations, legal and military, between the warriors of the nobility, which revolve around three fundamental concepts: lords, vassals and fiefdom.
A lord was, broadly speaking, a nobleman who owned a land; the vassal was the person who was granted (by the lord) possession of the land and this was known as the fiefdom. In exchange for the use of the fiefdom and the protection of the lord, the vassal provided the lord with some kind of service. There were different types of feudal land tenure, they could be military or non-military services. The corresponding rights and obligations were mutually agreed between the lord and the vassal. The term "feudal society" encompasses not only the aristocratic warlike structure linked to vassalage, but also the peasants bound by the lordship and property of the church.
