- (feudalism and feudal society) a type of agrarian society in which land ownership is conditioned by military or other service, in which there is a hierarchy of political power based on contractual rights and obligations, usually with a monarch at the head, and ... ... Big explanatory sociological dictionary

Developed feudal society in France in the XI-XIII centuries.- With the emergence and development of cities, which began to take shape as centers of crafts and trade as early as the 10th century, and from the end of the 11th century. began a struggle with their feudal lords, France, like other countries of Western Europe, entered a new period in its history ... ... The World History. Encyclopedia

SOCIETY- society, society (society, society wrong.), cf. 1. The totality of certain production relations, forming a special stage of development in the history of mankind. “... Marx put an end to the view of society as a mechanical unit ... ... Explanatory Dictionary of Ushakov

FEUDAL STATE- - one of the historical types of the exploitative state; the organization of the political domination of the economically dominant class of landowners, the feudal lords, in order to suppress and exploit the serfs. "In order to maintain their dominance... Soviet legal dictionary

FEUDAL LAW- historical type of law, corresponding to the economic and socio-political relations of feudal society. With all the variety of historical and cultural and civilizational variations of feudalism, the essence of the feudal system can be reduced to a special ... ... Law Encyclopedia

Society- in a broad sense, a large group of people united by some common goal with stable social boundaries. The term society can be applied to all mankind (human society), to the historical stage of development of all mankind ... ... human ecology

FEUDAL SOCIETY- see FEODALISM. Antinazi. Encyclopedia of Sociology, 2009 ... Encyclopedia of Sociology

SOCIETY- SOCIETY, a, cf. 1. A set of people united by historically conditioned social forms of joint life and activity. Feudal about. Capitalist about. 2. A circle of people united by a common position, origin, interests. ... ... Explanatory dictionary of Ozhegov

SOCIETY- 1) a set of historically established forms of joint activity and communication of people; 2) as a stage of human history (primitive, feudal or medieval, bourgeois, socialist, communist, slave or ancient ... ... Thematic philosophical dictionary

society- a; cf. 1. A set of people united by specific historical conditions of life common to them. Human about. Society history. Society development. The science of society. // Historically specific type of social system, defined socially ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

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Feudal society was divided into two main classes - feudal lords and peasants. "The serf society represented such a division of classes, when the vast majority - the serfs - were completely dependent on an insignificant minority - the landlords, who owned the land"1.

The feudal class was not a homogeneous whole. Small feudal lords paid tribute to large feudal lords, helped them in the war, but enjoyed their patronage. The patron was called seigneur, patronized - vassal. The seiers, in turn, were vassals of other, more powerful feudal lords.

As the ruling class, the feudal landowners stood at the head of the state. They constituted one estate - the nobility. The nobles occupied the honorary position of the first estate, enjoying broad political and economic privileges.

The clergy (church and monastery) were also the largest landowners. It owned vast lands with a numerous dependent and serf population and, along with the nobles, was the ruling class.

The broad base of the "feudal ladder" was the peasantry. The peasants were subordinate to the landlord and were under the supreme authority of the largest feudal lord - the king. The peasantry was a politically disenfranchised estate. Landowners could sell their serfs and widely used this right. The serf-owners subjected the peasants to corporal punishment. Lenin called serfdom "serfdom". The exploitation of serfs was almost as cruel as the exploitation of slaves in the ancient world. But still, a serf could work part of the time on his plot, could to a certain extent belong to himself.

The main class contradiction of feudal society was the contradiction between feudal lords and serfs.

1 V.P. Lenin, On the State, Works, vol. 29, p. 445.

The struggle of the exploited peasantry against the feudal landlords was waged throughout the entire epoch of feudalism and acquired particular acuteness at the last stage of its development, when feudal exploitation intensified to the extreme.

In cities freed from feudal dependence, power was in the hands of wealthy citizens - merchants, usurers, owners of urban land and large homeowners. The guild artisans, who made up the bulk of the urban population, often opposed the urban nobility, seeking their participation in the management of cities along with the urban aristocracy. Small artisans and apprentices fought against the guild masters and merchants who exploited them.

By the end of the feudal era, the urban population was already highly stratified. On one side are rich merchants and guild masters, on the other are vast layers of artisan apprentices and apprentices, the urban poor. The urban lower classes entered the struggle against the combined forces of the urban nobility and feudal lords. This struggle was combined in one stream with the struggle of the serfs against feudal exploitation.

The kings were considered to be the bearers of supreme power (in Russia, the grand dukes, and then the tsars). But outside the realms of the kings, the importance of royalty in the period of early feudalism was negligible. Often this power remained nominal. All of Europe was divided into many large and small states. Large feudal lords were complete masters in their possessions. They issued laws, monitored their execution, performed court and reprisal, maintained their own army, raided neighbors, and did not hesitate to rob on high roads. Many of them minted their own coins. The smaller feogs also enjoyed very wide rights in relation to people subject to them; they tried to equal the big seigneurs.

Over time, feudal relations formed an extremely tangled tangle of rights and obligations. Between the feudal lords there were endless disputes and strife. They were usually resolved by force of arms, through internecine wars.

More on the topic Classes and estates of feudal society. Feudal hierarchy.:

1. State power and class division of the feudal class in the Balkans in the XIII-XV centuries. (On the history of feudal social terminology and hierarchy) E. P. NAUMOV

I. The essence of the feudal system

78. The Essence of Western Feudalism

84. Feudal Society

The feudal ladder of lords and vassals rested below on the rest of the population. Feudalism sharply divided the country's population into gentlemen class and commoner class. The first was the nobility or the noble class, the class of well-born people (gentiles homines, from the French gentilhomme), from which the later nobility. It was first of all military estate, which should have protect the rest of the population. The higher clergy also belonged to the class of masters, who also possessed feuds and put up warriors from their lands (the real calling of the clergy was considered prayer). The rest of the mass, that is, farmers, artisans and merchants, was dependent on the feudal lords and owed their labor feed seniors and spiritual. Thus, feudal society was divided into three classes, of which one prayed, another fought, and the third worked.

Mutual relations between suzerains and vassals were determined many customs and rituals. The establishment of a vassal relationship was accompanied by the following ritual: the vassal knelt before the overlord and put his hands in his hands; this was tantamount to declaring oneself a “man” (homo) of the seigneur, hence the name of the oath Hommagium(or homage). At the same time, the lord kissed his vassal and gave him some gift that symbolized the feud (a ring, a glove, etc.). After that, the vassal sealed his allegiance with an oath of allegiance (foi). Feudal law developed a whole code of mutual "duties of the lord and vassal. For example, the vassal had to help the lord in the war for at least forty days a year, redeem him from captivity, appear in the curia to give advice at least three times a year, etc.

85. Military life of the feudal era

Western feudal lords were in general class of privileged warriors. One of the reasons for the development of their power over the population of certain areas was that they protected it from all sorts of attacks and invasions. For the sake of this, the population itself helped them build fortified castles where, if necessary, one could hide. However, these same castles allowed the lords, in addition, to defend their independence from the state and strengthen their power over the surrounding residents. Having become sovereigns, the feudal lords became wage wars among themselves attack each other and plunder the possessions of their enemies. In occasions of private wars (fedam) there was no shortage; even the feudal relations themselves often gave rise to them when, for example, one party violated a vassal treaty. Feudal strife was a real scourge for the civilian population. However, the church came to his aid, which, after unsuccessful attempts to establish a common peace, limited itself to the establishment Truce of God(treuga Dei), which consisted in the prohibition to attack opponents and fight in general on the days of the week dedicated to the memory of the suffering, death and resurrection of the Savior.

Castle of Carcassonne, France

The feudal militia consisted mainly of cavalry, and the very name rider, or knight(German Ritter, i.e. Reiter) began to denote lower ranks of the feudal nobility. But the knighthood received another meaning. Knights have become over time honorary military class, entry into which was made through a special rite dedications and belonging to which imposed a duty obey certain moral requirements. Sons of knights (Damoiseau, i.e. gentlemen, barchuks) were brought up at the courts of their future seigneurs as privileged servants (pages) and squires, until they received knighthood in compliance with a rather complex ritual, which had a religious character. The initiate gave at the same time vows of knighthood to defend the church, widows and orphans, in general, all the innocently oppressed, to always tell the truth, to keep the given word, to avoid unclean methods of enrichment, etc. Life has even developed a number of special customs knightly honor and courtesy even towards opponents. Especially developed in chivalry was polite treatment of ladies, that is, ladies (dame - from Latin domina), which even turned into a special lady cult. Further, each knight had the right to coat of arms, as its emblem and decal. However, knights who fully corresponded to their ideal met more in the then poetry, than in reality. The knights spent their time in wars, hunting and in exemplary battles, called tournaments. Their mental culture was very weak, and their attitude towards the subject was far from being the fulfillment of a vow to protect the weak and oppressed.

Knight Tournament. 14th century miniature

86. Rural population of the feudal lordship

Establishment of senior power equalized the position of all the class rural population of the seigneury. The peasantry of the feudal era was formed in the West from the descendants of both slaves and columns as far back as Roman times, and from landless or landless free barbarian era. From the very beginning, slaves and columns did not enjoy civil freedom, but free enslaved themselves by way of a comment. The lord, who was both a sovereign, and a landowner, and a master of unfree people, equalized everyone under his authority. The rural population of individual lords became serfs. villany, as they were now called, were in a better position than the slaves, but still their position was difficult. The lords farmed only a small part of their lands, but most of them consisted of small peasant farms. Villans paid from their plots dues and served corvée, i.e., they worked on the land of the lord, and although the amount of dues or work was for the most part determined custom, nevertheless, often the lords demanded one or the other at their discretion. On the other hand, the peasants who lived in the same village formed from themselves rural communities, jointly owned various lands and even ran their own internal affairs.

87. Feudal tenure and peasant duties

A feature of western feudal landownership was that everyone"kept" the earth from someone higher. Free property disappeared and was replaced conditional property. The former free owners converted their lands (the so-called allods) in benefices, placing themselves under the care of powerful people, and large landowners also distributed benefices to small people. For his feud, each had to carry out a certain service. The peasants also kept the land under the same conditions, but only they did not serve, but paid or worked. They paid their dues for the most part not in money, but in kind(bread, livestock, etc.). The corvee consisted not only of field work for the lord, but also of work on the construction or repair of castles, etc. While the holder of the land performed his duties, the land remained with him and passed on by inheritance from father to son. Thus, if the peasant was attached to the land, then the earth was attached to it. The rights of the lord in relation to the peasant were not limited to their one connection on the ground. The lord was also a sovereign in his possession, and in relation to some classes of the rural population, his power even had the character of the power of a slave owner. As a sovereign, the seigneur could establish whatever taxes he liked and subordinate the peasants any order, in the genus, for example, the obligation to grind grain without fail at a lordly mill and bake bread in a lordly oven (banality) or at night disturb the frogs with their croaking and disturb the sleep of the inhabitants of the castle. As a sovereign, the seigneur used various duties, fines, etc. In the worst situation were those peasants who were, as it were, in a slave position (serfs). The lord was for them not only a landowner-sovereign, but also a master. Such peasants in France were called menmortables(deathhanders), since their "hand was dead" to pass on the inheritance to children. They could not marry without the consent of their masters, and when a serf of one lord married a serf of another, the children from such a marriage were divided equally between both masters.

88. Feudal power in cities

Western cities also entered the general feudal system. In general, urban life fell into decay in the era of the barbarian kingdoms, and rural life took precedence over urban life. Feudal lords lived in castles among their estates with their retinues and servants. Constant unrest and wars have caused a terrible trade blow. The industry also fell especially since the feudal owners had among their servants artisans who worked for themselves and for all their households. As a result, the population of cities decreased. With the fragmentation of the country into feudal possessions, the cities found themselves under the rule of individual counts, power was established in many cities bishops. The situation of the townspeople therefore worsened, for not infrequently the counts and bishops sought to reduce even the urban population to the level of villans.

Feudalism (French féodalité, from late Latin feodum, feudum - possession, estate, feud) - class antagonistic socio-economic formation, representing the middle link of a holistic dialectical process of changing socio-economic formations: the era of feudalism lies between the slave-owning system and capitalism. In the history of many peoples, feudalism was the first antagonistic class formation (that is, it directly followed the primitive communal system).

The economic system of feudalism, with all the variety of its forms in different countries and at different times, is characterized by the fact that the main means of production - land is in the monopoly property of the ruling class of feudal lords (sometimes almost completely merging with the state), and the economy is carried out by the forces and technical means of small producers - peasants, one way or another dependent on the owners of the land. Thus, the feudal mode of production is based on a combination of large-scale landed property of the feudal class and small individual farming of the direct producers—peasants, exploited with the help of non-economic coercion (the latter is as characteristic of feudalism as economic coercion is of capitalism).

Thus, the most important relations of the feudal mode of production are land relations. Land relations form the basic production relation of the feudal mode of production. Feudal land relations were characterized by the monopoly of large landowners - feudal lords on land.

Most of the land owned by the feudal lords consisted of many land plots that were in the use of the peasants, which gave them the opportunity to conduct their own individual farming on this land. The allotment nature of peasant land tenure is an important feature of land relations under the dominance of the feudal mode of production. Since the land was the property of the feudal lords, the peasant could be driven off the land at any time. However, feudalism had a tendency to attach the peasant to the land. Allotment land tenure of the peasants was in most cases hereditary. Thus, in a feudal society, the direct producer was not the owner of the land, but only its holder, he only used it, cultivated it.

On the lands of the feudal lords there were not only numerous villages and villages, but also a significant number of cities. Therefore, not only peasants, but also urban artisans fell into the sphere of exploitation of the feudal lords. Feudal property meant the complete domination of the feudal lord within a certain territory, including power over the people inhabiting this territory. Feudal land relations were inextricably linked with relations of personal dependence.

Relations of personal dependence permeate the entire socio-economic structure of feudalism. “... We find people here,” K. Marx pointed out, “who are all dependent - serfs and feudal lords, vassals and overlords, laymen and priests. Personal dependence here characterizes both the social relations of material production and the spheres of life based on it.

The relationship of personal dependence of the peasants on the feudal lords (landlords) acted as interclass, antagonistic relations, opposing the direct producers to the exploiting feudal lords.

Under feudalism, the nature of dependence relations was already different than under slavery. The dependent peasant was not wholly owned by the landowner; he could work part of the time on his plot of land, working for himself and his family. The peasant had in his property the means of production, agricultural and handicraft implements, working and productive livestock. The means of production were in their sole ownership and urban artisans. Both peasants and artisans had their own housing and outbuildings. Some means of production, such as wells, roads, and sometimes pastures for livestock, were in a number of cases in the use of the surviving rural community.

The method of connecting the direct producer with the means of production under feudalism is characterized by a certain duality. The direct producer - the peasant, on the one hand, having his own small farm, was interested in working in this economy, and, on the other hand, his work for the feudal lord was in the form of forced labor exploited for the exploiter. Non-economic coercion of the direct producer to work for the feudal lord had as its economic basis and condition the monopoly of the feudal lords on land and was a means of realizing feudal property in the production process.

Thanks to a different way than under slavery, the method of connecting the direct producer with the means of production under feudalism changed his attitude to work, a certain incentive to work appeared. Here the antagonism between the direct producer and the tools of labor, which took place under slavery, is overcome. Since the tools of labor belong under feudalism to the direct producer, he, despite his dependent oppressed position, took care of their preservation and improvement.

Non-economic coercion (which could vary from serfdom to simple class lack of rights) was a necessary condition for the appropriation of land rent by the feudal lord, and independent peasant farming was a necessary condition for its production.

The well-known economic independence of the peasant, which was established in the era of feudalism, opened up some scope for raising the productivity of peasant labor and developing the productive forces of society, and created more favorable conditions for the development of the individual. This, ultimately, determined the historical progressiveness of feudalism in comparison with the slave-owning and primitive communal system.

2.3. Forms of feudal production and feudal land rent. Feudal exploitation

Feudal production was conducted in two main forms: in the form corvée economy and in the form quitrent farm. For both forms of economy, the common thing was that: a) the direct producer was personally dependent on the feudal lord (landlord); b) the feudal lord was considered the owner of all the land on which agricultural production was carried out; c) the direct producer - the peasant - had a land plot in use, on which he ran his individual farm; d) all agricultural production was carried out by the labor and tools of labor (living and dead implements) of the peasants; e) the peasants expended surplus labor and created a surplus product for the landowner by way of non-economic coercion.

Corvee economy

Under the corvée economy, the entire land of the feudal estate was divided into two parts. One part is the lordly land, on which the production of agricultural products was carried out with the labor and inventory of the peasants, which were fully appropriated by the feudal landowner. On the lord's land, thus, the cost surplus labor peasants, production surplus product.

The other part of the land is peasant land, called allotment. On this land, the peasants farmed for themselves, created required product, i.e., a product necessary for the existence of the peasants themselves and their families, as well as for the restoration of the worn-out part of agricultural living and dead equipment.

When corvée surplus labor was given to the landowner in its natural form as a certain number of corvée days. The necessary and surplus labor of the producer exploited by the feudal lord were here separated from each other in space and time: necessary labor was spent on the peasant allotment field, surplus labor on the lord's field. Some days of the week the peasant worked in his field, and the other - in the master's field. Therefore, under corvée, the distinction between necessary and surplus labor was physically palpable.

Surplus labor was appropriated under corvée in the form labor rent.

Surplus labor under corvée differed little from slave labor. The product of all the labor expended on corvee was appropriated by the feudal landowner, the direct producer - the peasant - was not at all interested in the results of this labor, his coercion required large expenditures of labor for supervision. Therefore, the feudal landowners transferred their peasants to quitrent.

quitrent farm

In quitrent farming, almost all the land was transferred to the peasants as an allotment. All agricultural production was carried out in the farms of peasants who were on dues. One part of the product created in the economy in the form of quitrent was transferred by the peasant to the feudal landowner, and the other part remained with the peasant as a fund for the reproduction of his labor force and the maintenance of the existence of his family members, as well as a fund for the reproduction of peasant inventory, living and dead.

In many feudal estates, a mixed system was used: along with corvée, peasants had to deliver dues. It happened that corvée prevailed in some estates, while quitrent prevailed in others.

Under the quitrent system of economy, all the labor of the peasant - necessary and surplus - was spent on the farm of the peasant. Surplus labor was given not in its natural form, but in the form of a product. Therefore, here the difference between the necessary and the surplus was physically tangible. product: what the peasant gives in the form of quitrent to the feudal landowner is the surplus product. That part of the product that remains on his farm constitutes the necessary product.

Under the quitrent system, surplus labor is appropriated by the feudal lord in the form of a surplus product. This form of feudal rent is called product rent. “Food rent,” wrote K. Marx, “suggests a higher production culture for the direct producer, and therefore a higher stage of development of his labor and society in general; and it differs from the previous form in that surplus labor must no longer be carried out in its natural form, and therefore no longer under the direct supervision and compulsion of the landowner or his representative; on the contrary, the direct producer must carry it out under his own responsibility, urged on by the force of relations instead of direct coercion and by the decree of the law instead of the whip.

Over time, dues in kind began to be combined with dues in cash, or were completely replaced by money. And the peasant had to not only produce a surplus product, but also turn it into money.

If quitrent is established in money, then the surplus labor is appropriated by the feudal lord no longer in the form of labor and not in the form of a product, but in the form of money. Transition to cash rent occurred as a result of the further growth of the division of labor, which caused the development of exchange and the gradual spread of commodity-money relations in society.

Features of rent relations in the countries of the East

A certain peculiarity in the development of forms of feudal land rent and forms of dependence of direct producers on feudal lords existed in many countries of the East.

Since the feudal state acted as the main owner of land and irrigation facilities in the East, a large-scale master economy did not develop here for a long time.

The predominant form of feudal land rent in most countries of the East was not corvee, but rent in products, partly cash rent, which was collected from the peasants by state officials. Usually, the state allocated a significant part of the collected funds (in kind or in cash) to the feudal lords in the form of a kind of salary.

Natural form of feudal production

The feudal estates, within which the production process was carried out, were characterized by the isolation and isolation of economic life. The personal consumption of the feudal lords and peasants, as well as production consumption, were provided mainly due to what was created on each estate by the labor of direct producers.

Characteristic of feudalism was the combination of agriculture as the main branch of production with domestic crafts that played a secondary role. In that era, household crafts provided the lordly and peasant households with most of the necessary products of handicraft labor. Only individual products that could not be obtained locally for various reasons, for example, some metal products, jewelry, salt, etc., were usually delivered by visiting merchants. The consequence of this was that the economy of the feudal estate was characterized by a closed, self-contained character.

The products created by the labor of direct producers in the process of feudal production were mostly consumed within the feudal estate itself by feudal landowners and serfs in kind.

The surplus product took on a commodity form only with monetary rent, which already corresponded to the period of the disintegration of feudalism.

The necessary product, even under conditions of money rent, and even more so under conditions of labor rent and rent in products, in most cases remained in kind, did not become a commodity. And this was of great importance, since the necessary product was a very significant part of the product produced.

Various duties performed by serfs at all stages of the development of feudal society were also of a natural nature. Thus, the characteristic feature of feudal production was that it had a natural form.

2.4. Basic economic law of feudalism

The purpose of feudal production was to create a surplus product that was used for the direct consumption of the feudal lords, acting in a specific socio-economic form of feudal rent.

The essence of the basic economic law of feudalism was that the surplus product produced as a result of the forced labor of peasants personally dependent on the feudal lords was appropriated by the feudal lords in the form of feudal land rent to satisfy their needs.

2.5. The contradictions of feudalism

All stages of the development of feudal society, which passed through successive forms of feudal production and feudal exploitation, are characterized by numerous contradictions. The large property of the feudal lords is opposed to the small individual property of the direct producers personally dependent on the feudal lords, on which their petty dependent production was based; large-scale feudal economy - small peasant land tenure; non-economic coercion to work for the feudal lord of direct producers - the possibility of running their own economy on the basis of personal labor; the class of landowners and carriers of non-economic coercion - the feudal lords - to the class of peasants personally dependent on them.

The contradictions of feudalism were generated by duality, by the internally contradictory way of connecting the direct producer with the means of production.

2.6. Feudal reproduction

The determining factor was the reproduction that took place in the peasant economy. Peasant labor reproduced not only products used to satisfy the personal needs of the feudal lords (surplus product) and the producers themselves (essential product), but also the conditions for the subsequent continuation of the production process in the peasant economy.

The peasant had to perform household work that ensured the continuity of production: repairing tools, replacing worn-out tools with new ones, and creating stocks of seed grain. “... The product of a serf,” wrote K. Marx, “should be enough here to, in addition to his means of subsistence, compensate for the conditions of his work ...” .

The source of any increase in production is the surplus product.

Therefore, expanded reproduction could be carried out only if some part of the surplus product was directed from time to time to the expansion and improvement of production. This happened sporadically and mainly in those cases when, due to the presence of previously fixed duties, which were usually established for quite a long time, the feudal lord did not have time to appropriate all the results of the growth in labor productivity in the peasant economy.

2.7. feudal city

Feudal relations covered not only the village, but also the city. The cities were inhabited mainly by artisans and merchants. Artisans, who made up the majority of the urban population, were recruited mainly from among the former serfs who fled to the city from their landowner or were transferred to the city by the landowner himself.

Having freed themselves from serfdom in the countryside, the former serfs, who became urban artisans, again fell into the conditions of feudal oppression here. Using the right of the owners of the land on which the cities stood, the feudal lords established a system of personal dependence in the cities, forcing the townspeople to perform various kinds of duties.

Workshop system

In the cities, a specific feudal form of organization of crafts took shape in the form of so-called workshops. Workshops were associations of artisans of a certain branch of handicraft production living in a given city.

The full members of the workshops were the workshop masters - the owners of their own workshops. In the workshop of the guild master, besides himself, several apprentices and apprentices worked. A characteristic feature of medieval workshops is the strict regulation of the conditions of production and marketing (determining the quality of raw materials and finished products, the volume of production, the time and procedure for working in the workshop, etc.). This ensured the monopoly of the workshop in the production of a particular product and prevented competition between artisans.

Under the conditions of the guild system, apprentices and apprentices were exploited by guild foremen. Since the master himself worked in the workshop, his higher position in relation to apprentices and apprentices was based not only on private ownership of the means of production, but also on his professional skill. When teaching a student who came to him, the master did not pay him any remuneration, although the student brought a certain income with his work. Apprentices, who were already in essence skilled artisans, received from the master a certain payment for their work.

merchant guilds

The cities were the center of concentration of the merchant class, which carried out both domestic and international trade. Merchant capital played a very significant role under feudalism. Small commodity producers were by no means always able to sell their goods due to the fragmentation of production and the remoteness of sales markets. Merchants took on the role of an intermediary in the sale of their products. They appropriated a significant part of the product of direct manufacturers. Merchants sold luxury items, weapons, wines, spices, etc., to the feudal lords, which were purchased partly within the country, partly in foreign markets. The profit they received from the resale of goods at higher prices contained part of the feudal land rent.

The weakness of the central government of the feudal state, its inability to provide personal and property protection to wandering merchants, prompted the latter to unite for self-defense in the guild. The guilds fought the competition of outside merchants, streamlined measures and weights, and determined the level of selling prices.

As monetary wealth accumulated, the role of merchant capital changed. If at first the merchants were only occasional intermediaries in the exchange, then gradually the circle of producers selling their goods to this or that merchant became permanent. Merchants often combined trading operations with usurious ones, issuing loans to artisans and peasants and thereby subordinating them even more.

The accumulation of significant sums of money in the hands of the merchants turned them into a major economic force, which became the basis for the dominance of the merchants in the city government. At the same time, the merchants gradually became a force capable of resisting the feudal lords and striving to free themselves from feudal dependence.

Opposite between city and countryside

Under feudalism, the village politically dominated the city, because the cities were owned by the feudal lords. The townspeople were obliged to bear certain duties in favor of the feudal lord, the feudal lord was the supreme judge for the townspeople, he even had the right to sell the city, transfer it by inheritance, and mortgage it. However, the economic development of the city was far ahead of the economic development of the countryside.

The growth of handicraft production, the accumulation of great wealth in the hands of usurers and merchants created the prerequisites for the economic domination of the city over the countryside. “If in the Middle Ages,” K. Marx noted, “the countryside exploits the city politically everywhere where feudalism was not broken by the exceptional development of cities, as in Italy, then the city everywhere and without exception exploits the countryside economically with its monopoly prices, its tax system, its by the guild system, by its direct merchant deceit and its usury.

The power of the feudal lords hindered the development of crafts and trade. Therefore, the cities waged a fierce and constant struggle with the feudal lords for their liberation. They sought political independence, self-government, the right to mint coins, and exemption from duties. Due to the fact that significant amounts of money were concentrated in the hands of merchants, usurers and rich craftsmen, cities often managed to buy off the feudal lords, buying their independence for money. At the same time, cities often achieved their independence by force of arms.

2.8. Commodity-money relations under the feudal mode of production

As a result of the growth of productive forces and the deepening of the social division of labor under feudalism, commodity production and circulation of commodities developed to a certain extent. Commodity production in the era of the development of feudalism was subordinate to subsistence farming in nature and represented only a separate mode of the feudal economy. It served feudal production and played, especially in the early feudal period, an auxiliary role.

As a result of the expansion of trade between peasants and feudal lords, on the one hand, and urban artisans, on the other, internal markets are taking shape. With the help of trade, an economic link between agricultural and handicraft production is established and strengthened.

Merchant capital under feudalism was primarily an intermediary in the exchange of the surplus product appropriated by the feudal lords for luxury goods imported from other countries. Merchant capital also acted as an intermediary in the exchange of products between peasants and urban artisans. The commercial profit received by the merchants was formed as a result of non-equivalent exchange, i.e., the purchase of goods at prices below their value and their sale above their value. The source of commercial profit was ultimately the surplus product created by the direct producers (peasants and artisans), and in some cases also part of their necessary product.

The process of development of commodity production and circulation is intensified by the expansion of foreign trade. International trade was relatively developed already in the slave era. During the transition from slavery to feudalism, international trade died out somewhat. With the growth of production and the spread of commodity-money relations, it revives again.

The growth of domestic and foreign trade led to the development of money circulation, an increase in the amount of money in circulation, and the improvement of coinage. However, medieval trade, despite its significant development, was still limited. It existed under conditions of domination of natural production, feudal fragmentation, lack of roads, imperfect means of circulation, the absence of uniform measures of weight and length, a single monetary system, and frequent robbery attacks by feudal lords on merchants.

With the growth of commodity-money relations in feudal society, usury capital develops. Money loans were issued by usurers to feudal lords, as well as to artisans and peasants. The source of usurious interest, as well as the source of commercial profit, was the surplus product created by the peasants and artisans, as well as part of their necessary product.

With the growth of commodity-money relations, the feudal estate was more and more involved in the market turnover. Buying luxury goods and urban handicrafts, the feudal lords are increasingly in need of money. It becomes profitable for them to transfer peasants from corvée and quitrent in kind to quitrent in cash. In this regard, the peasant economy was drawn into the market turnover.

3. Decomposition of feudalism

3.1. Growth of commodity relations and decomposition of subsistence economy

The feudal organization of handicraft production in the form of a guild system, with its strict regulation of the volume and technology of production, with a guild monopoly, limited the possibilities for significant and consistent progress in production technology and an increase in the volume of marketable products. Feudal agriculture, with the fragmentation of allotment land use by small producers, and forced crop rotation within the framework of a community subordinate to the feudal lord, prevented an increase in labor productivity and the enlargement of the size of the economy. At the same time, a self-sufficient subsistence economy limited the capacity and possibilities of the domestic market and hindered the development of commodity exchange. Feudal relations of personal dependence prevented the influx of labor into the cities, without which commodity production could not expand further. Craftsmen and peasants were kept in the system of feudal production by the force of non-economic coercion. Even individuals who had accumulated significant monetary wealth (merchants, usurers, wealthy artisans) could not, in essence, organize large-scale production in a city or village, since there was not enough free labor. In this situation, the method of connecting the worker in production, the direct producer, with the means of production, inherent in feudalism, began to increasingly hinder the further development of the productive forces of society.

The development of production inevitably led to an aggravation of the contradictions inherent in feudalism: between the economy of the feudal lord and the individual economy of peasants and artisans, between physical and mental labor, between town and country, between the naturalness of production inherent in feudalism and its growing marketability.

An irreconcilable contradiction arose and became more and more aggravated between the new productive forces, which require enlarged forms of organization of labor and production in the form of cooperation of specialized producers and a new way of connecting labor force with the means of production, on the one hand, and the old production relations based on the personal dependence of producers. from landowners, feudal lords, on the other.

A conflict is brewing between the productive forces and production relations, and objective prerequisites are being created for a profound socio-economic revolution, for the replacement of feudal production relations by new production relations, for the transition to a new, more progressive mode of production. Thus, a social need arose for the elimination of feudal production relations, for their replacement by new relations that would correspond to the level and nature of the growing productive forces.

These new relationships were capitalist production relations, which assumed the replacement of non-economic coercion of direct producers to work on the basis of their personal dependence with economic coercion through a system of using producers in the production of hired labor.

3.2. Property and social stratification of commodity producers

With the deepening of the social division of labor and the expansion of the sphere of commodity-money relations, the property stratification of commodity producers and the social stratification of commodity producers are intensifying. In the conditions of the growth of market relations between commodity producers, a fierce competitive struggle unfolded, which led to an ever greater deepening and property stratification of them into the poor and the rich, both in the city and in the countryside.

The process of stratification of the peasantry in the countryside was significantly accelerated by the transition to cash rent. Thus, new conditions and factors for the development of social production lead to overcoming the limitations of the feudal era, to the disintegration of the guild system in the city, to the social differentiation of producers - peasants and artisans - both in the countryside and in the city.

Thus, conditions are objectively emerging for the emergence of a new method of connecting direct producers with the means of production. The increasingly significant use of wage labor in production meant that a new way of connecting producers with the means of production was emerging. Simple commodity production, based on the producers' own means of production and the producers' own labor, creates the conditions for the emergence of a new, capitalist form of commodity production, and grows more and more into this new form.

3.3. The emergence in the depths of feudalism of the capitalist form of commodity production. initial accumulation of capital

Capitalist commodity production, which arose in the depths of feudalism, differed from the former forms of commodity economy in the form of commodity production as large-scale production using the cooperation of wage labor of many producers.

The development of commercial (merchant) and usurious capital was one of the necessary historical conditions for the emergence and development of capitalism. Merchant capital in many cases rushed into industry, and the merchant then turned into a capitalist industrialist. Usurers, using the money they had accumulated, sometimes also became capitalist industrialists, or turned into capitalist bankers. But neither commercial nor usurious capital could in itself bring about a fundamental revolution in production relations. They only contributed to the creation of conditions for the emergence of capitalist forms of production.

Workshops based on the simple co-operation of hired labor and merchant manufactories were the first embryos of large-scale capitalist production. They arose in Europe in the XIV-XV centuries, first of all in the city-republics of Italy, and then in the Netherlands, England, France and other countries.

The establishment of the capitalist mode of production presupposes, firstly, the transformation of the mass of producers into proletarians, personally free and at the same time deprived of any means of production, and secondly, the concentration of money wealth and means of production in the hands of a minority. In the creation of these conditions lies the essence of the so-called primitive capital formation, which represented the prehistory and the immediate starting point for the formation of the capitalist mode of production.

Describing the essence of the initial accumulation of capital, K. Marx wrote: “The capitalist relation presupposes that the ownership of the conditions for the implementation of labor is separated from the workers ... Thus, the process that creates the capitalist relation cannot be anything other than the process of separating the worker from the ownership of the conditions labor, a process which transforms, on the one hand, the social means of production and means of subsistence into capital, and, on the other hand, the direct producers into wage-workers. Consequently, the so-called primitive accumulation is nothing but the historical process of the separation of the producer from the means of production.

3.4. The role of violence in the rise of capitalism

Bourgeois historians and economists portray the history of the rise of capitalism idyllically. They argue that the accumulation of wealth occurred in ancient times as a result of the "industriousness and frugality" of some, the "negligence and extravagance" of others. As a matter of fact, the relations of production of capitalism arose and then became dominant due to the objective laws of social development. But the primitive accumulation of capital was facilitated and accelerated by the use of direct, undisguised violence.

A classic example of this was those dramatic events that took place in the XVI-XVII centuries. in England, where capitalist production reached a significant development earlier than in other countries. Here, the bourgeois nobility forcibly drove the peasants, who by that time had been freed from serfdom, from the lands. Deprived of land, the peasants, having lost the opportunity to run their own economy, were forced to hire themselves to the capitalists. In parallel with this, the process of formation of capitalist farmers - agricultural capitalists - was going on in the countryside. Landlessness of agricultural producers, their expropriation is the basis of the entire process of primitive accumulation of capital. “... The history of this expropriation of them,” wrote K. Marx, “is inscribed in the annals of mankind with a flaming tongue of blood and fire.”

Thus, the new class - the emerging bourgeoisie - used on a large scale violent methods of forcing the proletarians to work in capitalist enterprises, violent methods of creating a new labor discipline to subjugate producers to capitalist wage slavery. State power with the help of legal legislation against the "homeless" and "tramps" forced disadvantaged people to go to work for capitalist enterprises.

Violence was also an important means of accelerating the process of concentration of wealth (money, means of production) in the hands of a few. A significant number of capitalist enterprises were created at the expense of accumulations, which were concentrated in the hands of merchants and usurers. But, as already noted, other methods of accumulating wealth with the use of violence also played a major role, as well as the system of colonial robbery of peoples, colonial trade, including the trade in slaves, trade wars, the system of state loans and taxes, and the patronizing customs policy of the state.

In Russia, which began the transition from feudalism to capitalism later than many other European countries, the process of forcible separation of direct producers from the means of production developed intensively only in connection with the abolition of serfdom. The reform of 1861 was a grand robbery of the peasants. As a result of its implementation, the landowners seized two-thirds of the land, in their hands were the most convenient land for use. Determining the nature of the peasant reform of 1861, V. I. Lenin pointed out: “This is the first mass violence against the peasantry in the interests of emerging capitalism in agriculture. This is the landowner's "cleansing of the land" for capitalism.

Through robbery, the forcible ruin of the masses of small producers, and the cruelest enslavement of the colonial peoples, the creation of conditions for the domination of the capitalist mode of production was accelerated.

3.5. Class struggle in feudal society and bourgeois revolutions

The disintegration of feudalism was an inevitable process that unfolded due to the operation of the objective laws of economic development. This process was accelerated by the widespread use of violence as a means of primitive accumulation of capital.

The foundations of feudalism were increasingly shaken under the blows of the intensifying class struggle in feudal society, under the influence of mass actions by the peasants against their oppressors. In the XIV century. an uprising of English peasants under the leadership of Wat Tyler and an uprising of French peasants (Jacquerie) broke out. In the XV century. peasant wars broke out in the Czech Republic under the leadership of Jan Hus. 16th century was marked by a broad peasant movement in Germany under the leadership of Thomas Müntzer.

The feudal system of Russia was the cause of major peasant uprisings led by Bolotnikov (XV century), Stepan Razin (XVII century), Emelyan Pugachev (XVIII century), and others.

Peasant uprisings were harbingers of bourgeois revolutions. Peasants, as well as artisans, made up the bulk of the fighters during the bourgeois revolutions. But the bourgeoisie took advantage of the fruits of their struggle and victories, seizing state power in their hands. The first bourgeois revolutions took place in the Netherlands (sixteenth century) and England (seventeenth century). The French Revolution, which began in 1789, was of great importance for overthrowing the rule of the feudal lords and establishing the power of the bourgeoisie in Europe. Later, bourgeois revolutions took place in other countries as well.

Bourgeois revolutions completed the collapse of the feudal social system and accelerated the development of bourgeois relations.

3.6. "Second edition of serfdom"

A long feudal reaction, which took the legal form of the "second edition of serfdom", triumphed during the period of late feudalism in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The political expression of feudal reaction was the developed system of an undivided noble dictatorship (the political dominance of the magnate and gentry in the Commonwealth, the tsarist autocracy in Russia). In the countries of the "second edition of serfdom" feudalism assumed a stagnant character, only gradually giving way to the embryonic forms of capitalist relations. Their development under the cover of feudalism proceeded along the path of a painful restructuring of the landlord economy for the peasantry on the basis of bonded, semi-serf forms of wage labor, which personified the so-called Prussian path of development of capitalism in agriculture; In industry, the use of hired labor has long been combined with the use of forced labor. The stage of late feudalism continued in this region until the middle and even the second half of the 19th century, after which significant feudal vestiges remained (especially in agrarian relations, in the political superstructure).

4. Remnants of feudalism in capitalist and developing countries

Several centuries have passed since the fall of feudalism in many countries. However, its remnants and survivals persist in the modern capitalist world. Thus, in Italy, with a high level of capitalist development, large landed estates of the nobility still continue to exist. The system of share-cropping is widespread here, under which a part of the harvest is paid to the owner of the land in the form of ground rent. In essence, this is nothing but a remnant of feudal relations.

There are remnants and survivals of feudalism in a number of other European capitalist countries, for example, in Spain, Portugal and Greece.

There are remnants of feudalism in a number of developing countries. Significant remnants of feudalism in the form of large landownership and remnants of pre-capitalist forms of rent have survived in countries such as India, Pakistan, Turkey, Iran, some Arab countries, and other countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The backward economic structure of a number of developing countries is exploited by the monopolies of the imperialist states for the purpose of enriching themselves. The remnants and vestiges of feudal economic forms impede the progress of the peoples of the developing countries, hinder their struggle for genuine freedom, for national rebirth and economic independence.

The attempt to prove the eternity of capitalist relations leads bourgeois economists to the other extreme. They seek to identify capitalism with those forms of production that existed before it, to attribute capitalist essence to feudalism, to deprive it of its own socio-economic content. A number of bourgeois economists and historians confine themselves to a political and legal definition of feudalism, without revealing its socio-economic content, thereby turning one or another “secondary” feature of the feudal system (derived from the economic basis) into a defining one. Proceeding from the eternity of capitalism, they depict feudalism as a time of immaturity and underdevelopment of capitalist forms of economy, as a kind of "rudimentary capitalism".

Being on an idealistic position, bourgeois ideologists deny the class struggle in the period of feudalism, ignore the role of the masses as a decisive force in social progress, overestimate the importance of individual historical figures, and characterize the feudal state as an organ standing above society and supposedly ensuring "social peace". Propositions of this kind have nothing in common with a real analysis of the process of the rise, development, and death of the feudal mode of production.

2. The main features of European feudalism

The easiest way to start our characterization is by listing what was not in feudal society. There were no related clans as the basis of society. Family ties continued to play a significant role, but they were not the main ones. Feudal ties, in fact, arose precisely because blood ties weakened. The concept of state power was preserved, it was perceived as dominating many small powers, but at the same time the state was extremely weakened and could not perform its functions, in particular, the functions of protection. At the same time, it cannot be said that feudal society was sharply different from a society built on kinship ties, or from a society controlled by the state. It was formed precisely by such societies, and, naturally, retained their imprint. The relations of personal dependence characteristic of him were something like artificial family ties, and the squads at the initial stage were like kindred clans; the power of petty lords, who appeared in multitudes, was for the most part a semblance of royalty.

European feudalism is the result of the collapse of older societies. It will be incomprehensible without the upheavals caused by the invasion of the Germanic tribes, as a result of which there was a forcible combination of two societies located at different stages of development. The structures of one society as well as the other were destroyed, and the social habits and ways of thinking of ancient times reappeared on the surface. Feudalism finally took shape in the atmosphere of the last barbarian onslaughts. This society is characterized by a slowdown in social life, an almost complete atrophy of monetary exchange, which made it impossible for the functioning of paid bureaucracy, and a switch in consciousness to the sensory perception of the immediately close. As soon as all these characteristics began to change, the feudal society began to change, turning into something else.

Feudal society was a society of inequality rather than a society of hierarchy, a society of masters rather than aristocrats, serfs rather than slaves. If slavery continued to play a significant role in it, the form of proper feudal dependence as applied to the lower classes would not arise. As for society, in an atmosphere of general chaos, adventurers play the main role - people's memory is too short, their social position is too unstable for a clear caste ladder to arise and be maintained.

Meanwhile, the feudal regime assumed the subjugation of many poor people to a small number of powerful ones. Inheriting from the Roman world the rudimentary seigneuries in the form of villas, and from the German villages the institution of elders, this regime strengthened and extended the exploitation of man by man, firmly linking together the right to income from the land with the right to rule, as a result of which real seigneuries arose. To the benefit of the oligarchy of prelates and monks, who are obliged to seek the favor of the heavenly powers. And most importantly, to the benefit of the military oligarchy.

A brief comparative analysis will suffice for us in order to show that a distinctive feature of feudal societies was the almost complete combination of the class of gentlemen-seigneurs with the class of professional warriors, heavily armed knights on horseback. We have already managed to make sure: where armed peasants were used as troops, either there were no feudal institutions, like seniors, or both seniors and chivalry were in their infancy - this was the case in Scandinavia, this was the case in the Asturian-Leones kingdoms. An even more striking example of the same is the Byzantine state, since both its policies and its institutions were shaped more consciously. After the anti-aristocratic speeches of the 7th century, the Byzantine government, which had traditionally wielded administrative power since the time of the Roman Empire, in need of a reliable and permanent army, created a system of military tax allotments, their tenants had to supply soldiers to the state. Why not a feud? But unlike the West, it was owned by a modest peasant. From now on, the sovereign had to take care only of the safety of this "soldier's property", protecting both him and other poor people from the encroachments of the rich and powerful. Meanwhile, at the end of the 11th century, due to difficult economic conditions, the peasants, weighed down by debts, begin to lose their independence, and the state, weakened by internal strife, cannot protect them. As a result, the state loses not only taxpayers. It is deprived of its own troops and becomes dependent on the magnates, who alone can now recruit the required number of warriors from among the people dependent on them.

Another feature characteristic of feudal society was the close connection of the subordinate with his immediate master. And so, from bottom to top, from knot to knot, clinging to each other like links in a chain, the most powerless in society were connected with the most powerful. Even the land in this society seemed to be wealth because it made it possible to provide oneself with "people" for whom it served as a reward. “We want land,” the Norman lords say, refusing the jewels, weapons, horses that the duke gives them. And they explain, saying among themselves: “Then we will be able to support many knights, but the duke will not be able to” (341).

It was only necessary to determine the rights of the recipient of land as a reward for service, the term of its possession was made dependent on loyalty. The solution to this problem constitutes another original feature of Western feudalism, and perhaps even the most original. If the service people of the Slavic princes received lands from them as a gift, then the French vassals, after a certain period of uncertainty, began to receive them for life. The reason for this was the following: in the estate, vested with the high honor of serving the master as a weapon, dependence relations arose as a voluntary agreement between two living people. Personal relationships presupposed the existence of certain moral values. But mutual obligations very soon ceased to be personal: the problem of heredity arose, inevitable in a society where the family was still a significant factor; under the influence of economic necessity, the practice of "placement on the earth" arose, culminating in the fact that the service began to depend on the earth, and not at all on human fidelity; finally, homages began to multiply. At the same time, the devotion of the vassal continued in many cases to be a great force. However, this devotion did not become the social cement that would solder society from top to bottom, uniting all classes together, saving this society from the danger of fragmentation and disorder.

To be honest, there was something artificial in the fact that almost all ties in society took on the appearance of vassals. The dying statehood of the Carolingian Empire tried to survive with the help of an institution that arose because it was dying. The system of interdependence itself could serve as a cohesive state, an example of which is the Anglo-Norman monarchy. But in this case, the central power had to be strengthened - no, not by the force of the conquerors - but by new moral and material incentives. In the ninth century, the tendency towards fragmentation was too great.

On the map of Western civilization in the era of feudalism, we see several blank spots: the Scandinavian Peninsula, Frisia, Ireland. Perhaps the most important thing to say is that feudal Europe was never entirely feudal, that feudalism affected the countries in which we can observe it to varying degrees and existed in them at different times, none of the countries was completely feudalized. In none of the countries did the rural population fall entirely into personal, inherited dependence. Almost everywhere - more in one area, less in another - allods, large or small, have been preserved. The concept of the state never disappeared, and where the state retained at least some power, people continued to call themselves "free" in the old sense of the word, because they depended only on the head of the whole people and its representatives. Peasant warriors survived in Normandy, Danish England and Spain. Mutual oaths - the opposite of obedience oaths - survived in the "peace movements" and triumphed in urban communes. Of course, the imperfection of the incarnation is the lot of any human undertaking. In the European economy of the beginning of the 20th century, which was certainly developing under the sign of capitalism, nevertheless, there are institutions that remain outside this scheme.

Beginning to imagine a map of feudalism, we thickly shade the area between the Loire and the Rhine, then Burgundy on both banks of the Saone, in the 11th century this area was sharply pushed apart by the Norman conquests towards England and southern Italy; around this central core, the strokes become increasingly pale, barely touching Saxony, León and Castile - such is the zone of feudalism surrounded by whiteness. In the most clearly outlined zone, it is not difficult to guess the areas where the influence of the laws of the Carolingians was the strongest, where the Germanic and Romanesque elements were most closely intertwined, destroying each other, eventually destroying the social structure and giving the opportunity to develop the ancient grains: land seigniory and personal dependence.

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