feudalism is a term that came into use in the 19th century to describe how society was structured during the high middle ages that's between 1000 and 1300 a.d earlier historians modeled a feudal system based on the exchange of land and services under this feudal system most land in the kingdom belonged to the king and some to the church the king parcelled out large estates to great lords known as tenants in chief in exchange for their military and political support these great lords then parceled out smaller portions of land to lesser lords on similar terms who did the same to local lords who did the same to peasants the system is often represented as a pyramid with the king at the top the feudal system had its own vocabulary a king or lord who gave land to a lesser lord became the latter's overlord the person receiving the land became the vassal of the person who granted it and the land itself was called a thief these relationships could even cross national borders after the norman conquest it was not uncommon for lords to hold lands in england and france owing allegiance to both kings even the king of england was a vassal of the king of france for the territories he had inherited there although this model reflects some fundamental truths about how medieval political culture worked historians now think it is too simplistic to explain what was really going on for one thing the pyramid implies that all ties of loyalty were vertical and that everyone was dependent on someone higher up in the pyramid in fact this wasn't always the case many feudal relationships were horizontal among equals for another the kinds of services given in return for land could be very varied for peasants this was labor service or rent while for landowners it was more like an alliance vassals were expected to support their overlords politically and militarily by the later middle ages though feudalism had largely disappeared from europe this was the result of a number of factors firstly medieval kings grew less reliant on their great lords to provide soldiers for their armies turning instead to professional page soldiers this process had already started in the 12th century and by around 1300 kings no longer expected to assemble armies based on obligations to provide military service this weakened the bonds of feudal political culture secondly the black death which arrived in england in 1348 significantly reduced the population available to work the land those who were lucky enough to survive the epidemic had increased bargaining power and could increasingly choose where they worked and demand higher wages this meant that the nobility gradually lost their control over the lower and middling ranks in society finally the growing economic importance of towns which typically sat outside the feudal system with their own charters and trade also contributed to the decline of feudalism gradually reducing the power of the nobility and leading to the growth of prosperous middling urban classes so to recap the great lords were less frequently expected to provide military service to the king the peasants were increasingly able to live and work where they wanted and money replaced manpower as the key agent of economic and political power whilst feudalism declined in england from the 14th century onwards it was not formally abolished until the 10 years abolition act of 1660. in other european countries the end of feudalism came much later france abolished feudalism after the 1789 revolution and russian peasants had to wait until 1861 to be made free amazingly the last remaining traces of feudalism in the british isles made it into the 21st century until finally abolished by the scottish parliament in june 2000 with the abolition of feudal tenure act which took effect in november 2004 [Music]