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Medieval Feudalism Essay

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As children, we grew up with a picture of the medieval European society to be a fairy tale, where everyone had wonderful lives. As it is also stated in the book about how Disney-interpretations ignores the level of oppression under feudalism. In the medieval times the social and economic system ran based on the European feudalism, which caused various problems for majority of the population. The Europeans feudalism consisted of 90 percent of their population being peasant, then 5 percent being knights, the other 5 percent being the nobles and royalty. This was the structure of the medieval feudalism and what might have led to the Europe to colonization.

The lower class were majority of the population that consisted of the peasants and serfs. In the …show more content…

Feudal lords got ⅔ of the production, and the serfs got ½; so, they were completely impoverished” (Cottin,29). This demonstrate how little the lower class got even though they were majority of the population and did all labor. The lords of the manors even had power to do what they wish, since they had the law at their feet. An example as stated, “The brutal system includes a law called “Rite de seigneur,” which mandated that the feudal lord could be the first to sleep with the bride of his serf on her wedding night” (Cottin,30). The nobles were very greedy and wanted more wealth for themselves so in Britain, they passed the Enclosure Acts. In which the nobles used it to get rid of the commoners and use it as a private property to produce more wealth. Which they did by using the land to raise sheep to get wools. As stated “Wool became the backbone and driving force of the medieval English economy between the late 13th century and the late 15th century, and at the time the trade was described as the jewel in the realm” (Cottin,31). This destroyed the Noblesse Oblige, which provide Serfs housing and food to eat, In exchange for their labor. Now nowhere to go, they became refugees in their own

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