歐洲封建制度
封建制度（Feudalism）起源於中世紀時歐洲的貴族戰士相应的法律地位及軍事責任，都是圍繞著三個中心：领主、封臣及采邑。
定义封建制度要求很多的条件，因为现阶段还没有一个被广泛认可的定义。对于一个刚开始了解封建制度的人来说，是需要一个实用的定义的。在这篇文章里所描述的定义是最古老与经典的定义，而且直到现在仍被许多历史学家所赞同。
然而，封建制度尚有其他的定義。 最迟自从二十世纪六十年代，许多研究中世纪的历史学家在封建制度中包括了更广泛的社会领域，加入了被束缚在庄园制的农民阶级，而被称为“封建社会”。还有一些人，自七十年代起，重新审视了之前的证据并得出结论——封建制度是一个不可行的术语而需要被从学术和教育讨论中去除。（参见Revolt against the term feudalism），或者至少在使用时需要加上严格的限制和警告。
在欧洲之外的地方，封建制度的概念一般仅仅用于类比（称为“半封建”），最常用于讨论在将军们统治下的日本，有时候也用于中世纪和贡德尔时期的埃塞俄比亚。然而，有些人把封建制度类比更广，把古埃及、帕提亚帝国、封建制的印度（Indian feudalism），甚至于十九世纪的美国（History of the Southern United States#Antebellum Era (1781-1860)）。[1]
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[编辑] 詞源
最早使用「封建制度」的字眼的是在17世紀（1614年），當時是用來表達迅速地消失或完全消失的意思。No writer in the period in which feudalism was supposed to have flourished ever used the word itself. It was a pejorative word used to describe any law or custom that was seen as unfair or out-dated. Most of these laws and customs were related in some way to the medieval institution of the fief (Latin: feodum, a word which first appears on a Frankish charter dated 884), and thus lumped together under this single term. "Feudalism" comes from the French féodalisme, a word coined during the French Revolution. The English novelist Tobias Smollett (1721-1771) made fun of the term in his novel Humphry Clinker (1771): "Every peculiarity of policy, custom and even temperament is traced to this [Feudal] origin.. I expect to see the use of trunk-hose and buttered ale ascribed to the influence of the feudal system."
[编辑] 特色
- 參看封建社會
封建制度有三大最基本的特徵：领主、封臣和采邑；封建制度的結構把使三大元素配合。领主是擁有土地的貴族，封臣是擁有领主所分封給他們土地的人，而這些分封出的土地就是采邑。封臣要為领主戰鬥，作為對领主给予采邑的回報。在领主、封臣和采邑之間的關係與責任構成了封建制度的基礎。
[编辑] 领主、封臣和采邑
在一個领主把土地（采邑）分封給某人之前，他得先令那人成為封臣。这需要一个正式的象征性的仪式，称为赞誉仪式（commendation ceremony），该仪式包含两个部分，忠顺誓言（act of homage）和效忠宣誓（oath of fealty）。在忠顺誓言中，封臣承诺听从领主的命令作战。“效忠（Fealty）”来自拉丁语“Fidelitas”，也就是忠诚；效忠宣誓因此成为一个保证，即封臣会忠于领主。一旦赞誉仪式完成，领主和封臣就建立了封建关系，拥有了双方承认的相互间的义务和责任。
领主对封臣的主要义务是给予一块采邑或是其收入；采邑是封臣建立封建关系的主要原因。此外，领主有时还需要承担别的义务。其中一个就是维护这块采邑。由于领主并没有割让这块土地而仅仅是租借，所以维护这块采邑仍然是领主的责任。而封臣拥有权力获得该采邑产出的收入。另一个领主需要承担的责任是他必须保护采邑和封臣不受伤害。
封臣的主要责任是向领主提供“援助”，也就是服兵役。封臣用采邑的产出来配备自己的武器装备，并响应领主的征召服兵役以保证领主的权益。这种军事上的安全机制是领主建立封建关系的主要原因。此外，封臣有时候还需要承担对领主的别的责任。其中一个就是向领主提出“忠告”。这样当一个领主面临大的抉择，比如是否进入战争，他会召集所有的封臣并召开一次参议会。封臣也可能被要求上缴采邑产出的一定部分给领主。封臣有时候也被要求在领主所有的磨坊和烤炉中磨碎谷物和烘烤面包并向领主缴税。
The land-holding relationships of feudalism revolved around the fief. Depending on the power of the granting lord, grants could range in size from a small farm to a much larger area of land. The size of fiefs was described in irregular terms quite different from modern area terms; see medieval land terms. The lord-vassal relationship was not restricted to members of the laity; bishops and abbots, for example, were also capable of acting as lords.
因此，有很多不同“级别”的统治权和封国。国王是一个领主，他租借采邑给贵族们，他们是国王的封臣。同时，贵族是他们的封臣，在他们的土地上劳作的农民，的领主。最后，皇帝是向国王们提供采邑的领主，而国王则是皇帝的封臣。This traditionally formed the basis of a 'universal monarchy' as an imperial alliance and a world order.
[编辑] 封建制度的例子
- Main article: Examples of feudalism
封建制度的例子對我們了解封建社會有很大幫助，因為隨著地點和時代的不同，封建制度有不同的實施方法。A high-level encompassing conceptual definition will not always provide the reader with the more practical understanding available from historical examples.
[编辑] History of the term "feudalism"
In order to better understand what the term feudalism means, it is helpful to see how it was defined and how it has been used since its seventeenth century creation.
[编辑] Invention of the concept of feudalism
The word feudalism was not a medieval term. It was invented by French and English lawyers in the 17th century to describe certain traditional obligations between members of the warrior aristocracy. The term first reached a popular and wide audience in Montesquieu's De L'Esprit des Lois (The Spirit of the Laws) in 1748. Since then it has been redefined and used by many different people in different ways.
The term feudalism has been used by different political philosophers and thinkers throughout history.
[编辑] Enlightenment thinkers on feudalism
In the 18th century, writers of the Enlightment wrote about feudalism in order to denigrate the antiquated system of the Ancien Régime, or French monarchy. This was the Age of Enlightenment when Reason was king and the Middle Ages was painted as the "Dark Ages". Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages" including Feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as a means of political gain.
[编辑] Karl Marx on feudalism
Quite similar to the French revolutionaries, Karl Marx also used the term feudalism for political ends. In the nineteenth century, Marx described feudalism as the economic situation coming before the inevitable rise of capitalism. For Marx, what defined feudalism was that the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy) rested on their control of the farmable lands, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom. “The hand-mill gives you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill society with the industrial capitalist.” (The Poverty of Philosophy (1847), chapter 2). Marx thus considered feudalism with a purely economic model. Marxian theorists have been discussing feudalism for the past 150 years - an extensive and well known debate over feudalism and capitalism occurred between the noted Marxian economist Paul Sweezy and his British colleague Maurice Dobb. See also mode of production.
[编辑] Historians on feudalism
The term feudalism is, among medieval historians, one of the most widely debated concepts. There exist many definitions of feudalism and indeed some have revolted against it, saying the term should not be used at all.
[编辑] Debating the origins of English feudalism
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century historians John Horace Round and Frederic William Maitland, who focused on medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions as to the character of English society prior to the start of Norman rule in 1066. Round argued for a Norman import of feudalism, while Maitland contended that the fundamentals were already in place in Britain. The debate continues to this day.
[编辑] Ganshof and the classic view of feudalism
A historian whose concept of feudalism remains highly influential in the 20th century is François-Louis Ganshof, who belongs to a pre-Second World War generation. Ganshof defines feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulated this concept in Feudalism (1944). His classic definition of feudalism is the most widely known today and also the easiest to understand: simply put, when a lord granted a fief to a vassal, the vassal provided military service in return.
[编辑] Marc Bloch and sociological views of feudalism
One of Ganshof's contemporaries, a French historian named Marc Bloch, is arguably the most influential medieval historian of the twentieth century. Bloch approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one. He developed his ideas in Feudal Society (1939). Bloch conceived of feudalism as a type of society that was not limited solely to the nobility. Like Ganshof, he recognized that there was a hierarchal relationship between lords and vassals, but saw as well a similar relationship obtaining between lords and peasants.
It is this radical notion that peasants were part of the feudal relationship that sets Bloch apart from his peers. While the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant performed physical labour in return for protection. Both are a form of feudal relationship. According to Bloch, other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms; all the aspects of life were centered on "lordship", and so we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly (and anti-courtly) literature, a feudal economy. (See Feudal society.)
[编辑] Revolt against the term feudalism
In 1974, U.S. historian Elizabeth A.R. Brown, in "The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe" (American Historical Review 79), rejected the label of feudalism as an anachronistic construct that imparts a false sense of uniformity to the concept. She noted the many different, contradictory definitions of feudalism in circulation and argued that, in the absence of any accepted definition, feudalism is a construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back "tyrannically" into the historical record. Supporters of Brown have gone so far as to suggest that the term should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval history entirely. In Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1994), Susan Reynolds expanded upon Brown's original thesis. Although some of her contemporaries questioned Reynolds' methodology, her thesis has received support from other historians. Note that Reynolds does not object to the Marxist use of 'feudalism'.
The term "feudal" has also been applied—often inappropriately or pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions and attitudes similar to those of medieval Europe are perceived to have prevailed. Ultimately, critics say, the many ways the term "feudalism" has been used has deprived it of specific meaning, leading many historians and political theorists to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society.
[编辑] History of feudalism
[编辑] Early forms of feudalism in Europe
Vassalage agreements similar to what would later develop into legalized medieval feudalism originated from the blending of ancient Roman and Germanic traditions. The Romans had a custom of patronage whereby a stronger patron would provide protection to a weaker client in exchange for gifts, political support and prestige. In the countryside of the later Empire, the reforms of Diocletian and his successors attempted to put certain jobs, notably farming, on a hereditary basis. As governmental authority declined and rural lawlessness (such as that of the Bagaudae) increased, these farmers were increasingly forced to rely upon the protection of the local landowner, and a nexus of interdependency was created: the landowners depended upon the peasants for labour, and the peasants upon the landowners for protection.
Ancient Germans had a custom of equality among warriors, an elected leader who kept the majority of the wealth (land) and who distributed it to members of the group in return for loyalty.
[编辑] Decline of feudalism
Feudalism had begun as a contract, the exchange of land tenure for military service. Over time, as lords could no longer provide new lands to their vassals, nor enforce their right to reassign lands which had become de facto hereditary property, feudalism became less tenable as a working relationship. By the thirteenth century, Europe's economy was involved in a transformation from a mostly agrarian system to one that was increasingly money-based and mixed. The Hundred Year's War instigated this gradual transformation as soldier's pay became amounts of gold instead of land. Therefore, it was much easier for a monarch to pay low-class citizens in mineral wealth, and many more were recruited and trained, putting more gold into circulation, thus undermining the land-based feudalism. Land ownership was still an important source of income, and still defined social status, but even wealthy nobles wanted more liquid assets, whether for luxury goods or to provide for wars. This corruption of the form is often referred to as "bastard feudalism". A noble vassal was expected to deal with most local issues and could not always expect help from a distant king. The nobles were independent and often unwilling to cooperate for a greater cause (military service). By the end of the Middle Ages, the kings were seeking a way to become independent of willful nobles, especially for military support. The kings first hired mercenaries and later created standing national armies.
Historian J. J. Bagley notes that the fourteenth century
- "marked the end of the true feudal age and began paving the way for strong monarchies, nation states, and national wars of the sixteenth century. Much fourteenth century feudalism had become artificial and self-conscious. Already men were finding it a little curious. It was acquiring an antiquarian interest and losing its usefulness. It was ceasing to belong to the real world of practical living."
[编辑] Questioning feudalism
[编辑] Use and Definition of the Term
The following are historical examples that call into question the traditional use of the term feudalism.
Extant sources reveal that the early Carolingians had vassals, as did other leading men in the kingdom. This relationship did become more and more standardized over the next two centuries, but there were differences in function and practice in different locations. For example, in the German kingdoms that replaced the kingdom of Eastern Francia, as well as in some Slavic kingdoms, the feudal relationship was arguably more closely tied to the rise of Serfdom, a system that tied peasants to the land.
Moreover, the evolution of the Holy Roman Empire greatly affected the history of the feudal relationship in central Europe. If one follows long-accepted feudalism models, one might believe that there was a clear hierarchy from Emperor to lesser rulers, be they kings, dukes, princes, or margraves. These models are patently untrue: the Holy Roman Emperor was elected by a group of seven magnates, three of whom were princes of the church, who in theory could not swear allegiance to any secular lord.
The French kingdoms also seem to provide clear proof that the models are accurate, until we take into consideration the fact that, when Rollo of Normandy kneeled to pay homage to Charles the Simple in return for the Duchy of Normandy, accounts tell us that he knocked the king on his rump as he rose, demonstrating his view that the bond was only as strong as the lord—in this case, not strong at all. Clearly, it was possible for 'vassals' to openly disparage feudal relationships.
The autonomy with which the Normans ruled their duchy supports the view that, despite any legal "feudal" relationship, the Normans did as they pleased. In the case of their own leadership, however, the Normans utilized the feudal relationship to bind their followers to them. It was the influence of the Norman invaders which strengthened and to some extent institutionalized the feudal relationship in England after the Norman Conquest.
Since we do not use the medieval term vassalage how are we to use the term feudalism? Though it is sometimes used indiscriminately to encompass all reciprocal obligations of support and loyalty in the place of unconditional tenure of position, jurisdiction or land, the term is restricted by most historians to the exchange of specifically voluntary and personal undertakings, to the exclusion of involuntary obligations attached to tenure of "unfree" land: the latter are considered to be rather an aspect of Manorialism, an element of feudal society but not of feudalism proper.
[编辑] Cautions on use of term "feudalism"
"Feudalism" and related terms should be approached and used with considerable caution owing to the range of meanings associated with the term. A cautious historian like Fernand Braudel sets "feudalism" in quotes in applying it in wider social and economic contexts, such as "the seventeenth century, when much of America was being 'feudalized' as the great haciendas appeared" (The Perspective of the World, 1984, p. 403).
Medieval societies never described themselves as "feudal". Though used in popular parlance to represent all voluntary or customary bonds in medieval society, or a social order in which civil and military power is exercised under private contractual arrangements, the term is best considered appropriate only to the voluntary, personal undertakings binding lords and free men to protection in return for support which characterised the administrative and military order.
[编辑] Other feudal-like systems
Other feudal-like land tenure systems have existed, and continue to exist, in different parts of the world.
[编辑] 註解
- 註解1：
Philip Daileader (2001). "Feudalism". The High Middle Ages. The Teaching Company. ISBN 1-56585-827-1
[编辑] 外部連結
[编辑] 參考資料
- Marc Bloch, Feudal Society. Tr. L.A. Manyon. Two volumes. Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1961 ISBN 0-226-05979-0
- Francois-Lois Ganshof, Feudalism. Tr Philip Grierson. New York: Harper and Row, 1964.
- Jean-Pierre Poly and Eric Bournazel, The Feudal Transformation, 900-1200., Tr. Caroline Higgitt. New York and London: Holmes and Meier, 1991.
- Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994 ISBN 0-19-820648-8
- Normon E. Cantor. Inventing the Middle Ages: The Lives, Works, and Ideas of the Great Medievalists of the Twentieth century. Quill, 1991.
- Alain Guerreau, L'avenir d'un passé incertain. Paris: Le Seuil, 2001. (complete history of the meaning of the term).
