What Exactly Is Feudalism?

The concept of feudalism is probably a familiar one if you’ve encountered a medieval fantasy epic: Picture a stone castle overlooking fields of peasants tilling the soil while armored knights ride out at dawn. But what does the term actually mean, and how did feudalism work in practice?  Feudalism is a term used to describe how power, land, and obligation were organized in much of medieval Europe. At its core, it refers to a system in which land was the main source of wealth and political authority, and control of that land was tied to ...Read More