Medieval culture during the Middle Ages in Europe was based on two systems, feudalism and manorialism. Both systems were dependent on land. Under the feudal system, different groups of people had different abilities. amounts of power and status in society. At the very top was the king or queen.
These royals owned all the land that needed help controlling and protecting their kingdom. In exchange for military help, they split up the land and gave it to the king. land and gave it to different people.
The land they gave away was called a fief. The person who got the land was called a vassal. There were different levels of vassals. At the top level there were nobles, lords, barons and counts, otherwise known as the aristocracy.
Another type of vassal who fought for the lords was a knight. Once a vassal got land, he oversaw the people who worked on that land. So the same person could be both a servant and a lord.
The lowest people in the feudal system were serfs and peasants. Some of them were farmers and others were bakers and blacksmiths. In a special ceremony called the Feudal Contract, the vassal promised to be loyal to the lord or person with more power. In exchange, the lord promised to protect the people who lived on his land and keep them safe.
In medieval times a manor was a legally owned, large parcel of land on an agricultural estate. Manorialism was both a political and economic system. Land ownership was granted by the king or lord.
Only the wealthy aristocracy could own a manor and that defined their political power within the kingdom. The landowner was given a title of lord of the manor, a noble title that allowed the landowner to attend the royal court of the king. Nobles also had the right to collect taxes from the peasants and serfs who worked the land.
The most common way for the workers to pay their taxes and debts were through their labor and trade of the food and products they produced. Some manors had plots of land specifically for peasants. There were villages where the workers and their families lived. Some manors granted monks and their religious order the right to build monasteries where they could write, study and pray.
So, what is the difference between feudalism and manorialism? Feudalism was a political and legal system that created an alliance between the lord and his vassals. The vassal was granted land in exchange for military service and loyalty.
Manorialism was an agricultural system that created a farming economy in which peasants were granted land in exchange for their labor and the food and products they produced.