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THE IDEA OF FEUDALISM:
FROM THE PHILOSOPHES TO KARL MARX
S.N. Mukherjee
The title of this conference - 'Feudalism: a comparative study in social and political structures of pre-industrial societies', emphasises the inter-disciplinary approach of our Association. We wish to break down artificial barriers and constraints put upon us by the very organisation of our universities. There are here historians, political scientists, anthropologists, linguists, literary critics and philosophers. '
It is not the aim of this conference to arrive at a precise definition of the term feudalism. In my time I h!ive organised many inter-disciplinary seminars and conferences and five collections of research papers have been published by me around such concepts as 'nationalism' or 'elite' which were not defined too tightly. The result was that we had many interesting papers but not necessarily tightly organised books. None of these concepts should be too closely defined, else we might miss out on some good papers which would not come close to our definition. On the other hand if we define the term too loosely we get lost. The problem of broad categories is that they become catch-all phrases often used by the uninformed to hide their ignorance. Clearly, we need some feasible but workable definition of feudalism. Years ago Owen Lattimore warned us about this: "Too loose a classification yokes the noun 'feudalism' with so many adjectives, 'nomadic', 'bureaucratic', 'centralised', 'patriarchal', etc. - that feudalism itself is in danger of being drained of meaning. Too tight a classification on the other hand tends to restrict 'feudalism' eventually to some one region or period." I Let us first examine some of these frustrating efforts to arrive at a workable definition. A conference that was held nearly 35 years ago at Princeton recognised that "feudalism is an abstraction derived from some
26 Feudalism
of the facts of early European history" and that the concept described a general category of institution rather than one specific form of government. The aim of that conference was not to produce a new definition of feudalism but to see if the study of feudalism would throw light on the question of uniformities in history. Nonetheless Rushton Coulburn, the editor of the volume which came out of this conference, provided a list of characteristics which he thought would be a "provisional description" to help to study "the question of uniformities in history". According to Coulburn "feudalism is primarily a method of government, not an economic or a social system, though it obviously modifies and is modified by the social and economic environment. It is a method of government in which the essential relation is not that between ruler and subject, nor state and citizen, but between lord and vassal." Nobody can fail to admire the gallant effort of the editor (particularly in the last part of the book where he tries to weave together diverse threads into one single pattern) but the results of the special studies on China, India, etc. were negative. Consider Derk Bodde's paper on China. Having given us an interesting account of various types of Chinese political structures, Bodde concludes that the period of disunity in Chinese history was not a 'feudal' period as defined by Coulburn.3 Daniel Thorner reaches much the same conclusion about Rajasthan in India. 4 We must however note that Japan is an exception to this rule. Coulburn's definition is applicable to the Japanese situation. John Hall however, had suggested that a study of feudalism could be carried out entirely in Japanese idioms and within the confines of Japanese historical experience.5 What is clear is that every definition of feudalism has limited application. In 1968 Cheyette produced another collection of essays on medieval Europe, Lordship and Commtmity in Medieval Europe. The editor was aware of the political problems that were attached to the use of the concept 'feudalism'. I think that Cheyette also recognised the ideological overtones of the concept: "Feudalism is really a 'concept-theory'; when a historian defines it, he may bring into play directly or by implication a theory about what were the essential elements in the structure of medieval society, a theory about the causes of medieval social structure, a theory about the stages of European or universal social development, a general theory of historical causation, or several or all of these." It is rather unfortunate that Cheyette, having touched on this interesting theme moved away from it and concentrated on empirical studies. He agreed with Coulburn and Strayer's definition that 'feudalism' is primarily a method of government and he suggested that 'models' or ideal-typical constructs should be used only as "bench marks, as imaginative patterns to help empirical research uncover new relationships, new connections."
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in Britain had betrayed three nations, Abyssinia, Spain and Czechoslovakia, R.G. Collingwood wrote:
"I know now that the minute philosophers of my youth, for all their profession of a purely scientific detachment from practical affairs, were the propagandists of coming fascism."ll Hence, unlike Brown, I am willing to praise those who attempt in their researches on pre-industrial societies to use the concept of 'feudalism'.
This does not however mean that we should not examine the etymological origins of the term. We must try to find out who used the term first, where it was used, in what context and with what audience in mind. This I believe can clear the confusion about the use of the term. What follows now is a short history of the origin and development of the idea of feudalism. Much of the story is already familiar. The historians who have been interested in the development of the idea of feudalism have only looked at it from one angle. Historians of Europe have taken it for granted that the 18th century debate on feudalism was exclusively concerned with Europe of the middle ages. On the other hand the historians of Asia, Africa and Pre-Columbian America have tended to reduce the idea of feudalism to a fixed meaning, an ideal type. They try to apply the model outside Europe. Both look at the development of. the idea of feudalism and feudal society as an exclusively European experience. I feel they are both wrong. I hope to establish that: (a) from the beginning there was a confusion: feudalism was both a form of government characterised by rule of the few and a socio-economic system; (b) Asia, particularly India and China, had always been an important part in the debate on the nature of feudalism; (c) the discussions on feudalism had always been a part of a larger political debate on the role of monarchy, aristocracy and democracy, and (d) the words 'feudal' and 'feudalism' were used not only as sociological categories but also as derogatory terms describing something old and obsolete. In other words, these terms were never without some emotive force. From the very beginning the term 'feudalism' (or more correctly, {eodalite in French) was used in association with such terms as 'fief' and 'vassalage'. It was first widely used by the feudists or lawyers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Then it was taken over by the historians and political theorists, first to describe a form of government and then to depict a stage of human civilisation or a stage of social development. It is in the age of Absolutism that European historians (particularly in France) started to inquire into the origins of 'feudalism' and political thinkers sought to define the character of the European state. It is important to remember that the terms
Idea of Feudalism 29
'despotism' and 'feudalism' appear in the political vocabulary about the same time. This was the direct result of the discontent amongst the nobility during the absolutist rule of Louis XIV )
European political thinkers had a long tradition of seeking to define the character of their own world by contrasting it with that of the 'Orient'. (This is nearly as old as Aristotle.) It is however, in the late seventeenth century that European political thinkers and historians entered into a fierce debate on the origins of feudalism and the nature of despotism. Modern historical inquiries and orientalism developed simultaneously. History, from the sixteenth century was a comparative science. To understand the origins and nature of feudalism, the role of monarchy and the nature of private property in Europe, one had to compare and contrast them with those of the Orient.13 Bodin, for instance suggested:
"The king of the Turks is called the grand seignoir, not because of the size of his realm, for that of the King of Spain is ten times larger, but because he is complete master of its persons and property.nl In contrast no European monarch was ever a complete master of his subjects and their property.
The debate on the origins and nature of feudalism and oriental despotism was part of a larger political controversy. In France, it was between the monarchists and the supporters of the nobility and later the Third Estate and the nobility; in England, in the second half of the eighteenth century, the controversy was between the supporters of parliaml'!ntary reform and their adversaries.
The word feoda1ite can be traced back to 1515,15 but it was
Boulainvilliers who first gave feudalism its historical meaning. He has had bad press for nearly three centuries, for his faith in astrology and for his praise for feudalism. Voltaire, however, recognised Boulainvilliers' importance. To Voltaire he was "most learned in history and most fitted to write that of France, had he not been too imbued with a theory" (trop systematique)) It was Boulainvilliers' theories which forced the historians of the Enlightenment to consider feudalism.
Boulainvilliers' aim was to prove that the true nobility was historically superior to the rest of the nation by its racial descent and traditional lifestyle. He also wanted to show that the crown's curtailment of the nobility's rights was a violation of an ancient Frankish constitution. In the preface to his Etat de la France, Boulainvilliers attacked the 'intendances', claiming that they were innovations, perilous to king and nation:
"Then I call to my aid the example of past centuries .... because it would be blindness to expel from the regime of a Monarchy, the methods by which it has been maintained throughout thirteen centuries, in order to substitute new ones which are no more to be recommended, to facilitate a despotic power more suitable to the spirit of Oriental
Idea of Feudalism 31
even necessary". The ensuing debate that lasted till the end of the century reproduced either the 'Germanic theory' of Boulainvilliers or the 'Roman thesis' of Dubos or· various combinations of both. In Diderot's Encyclopedie, the author of the article on 'Fief' used Boulainvilliers; according to M. le Chevalier de Jaucourt, the fiefs were held from the nation, not from the king. Fiefs led to the extinction of the ancient government and the formation of feudal government: "What a difference between the Goths and the Tartars! The latter, overthrowing the Greek empire, established despotism and servitude in the conquered countries; the Goths, conquering the Roman empire, founded everywhere monarchy and liberty.n On the other hand, many supporters of the Third Estate used Dubos and the monarchists' arguments against the nobility. Men like Emmanuel Sieyes, who wrote a famous pamphlet, Qu'est-ce que le Tiers Etat?, who helped to 'abolish' feudalism by decrees on 11 August 1789, and who called the nobility 'the plenipotentiaries of feudalism' were influenced by Dubos.26 The monarchists and the supporters of the Third Estate both attacked the nobility and feudalism; feudal society was depicted in the most unflattering terms, 'feudal' was the equivalent of 'gothic', and implied 'darkness' and 'anarchy'. The arguments against feudalism were charged with emotion. Carcassonne had already summarised for us this important debate on feudalism and the constitution in eighteenth-century France.27 And there were others who have followed him.28 We need not repeat the story here. It may be that Montesquieu incorporated his discussion on the origins of feudalism only after he had completed his De !'Esprit des Lois.29 But his discussion on the origins of feudalism was an integral part of his arguments on the three types of states, republic, monarchy and despotism, and Montesquieu's views on feudalism and despotism attracted fierce controversy. Montesquieu agreed with Boulainvilliers that feudalism resulted from the Germanic invasions of Europe. Germans had vassals but no landed fiefs. The fiefs were their horses, meals, etc. Montesquieu thought that Boulainvilliers was attacking the Third Estate, while Dubos the nobility; a balance was necessary. He claimed that not all Gauls were enslaved by the Frankish conquest, but servitude spread later due to feudal laws and wars. Montesquieu, however, thought that feudalism was a unique development, it occur·red once and only in Europe. Being an aristocrat he sympathised with Boulainvilliers, but he did not idealise feudal society. To Montesquieu the most essential characteristic of feudalism was the dismembering of public power, parcelling out of sovereignty to small and still smaller local authorities, and hence fragmentation of government. This he thought was a recipe for anarchy. He praised the monarchy for
32 Feudalism
restoring order. However, the monarch must be kept within the law by intermediary bodies - nobility, clergy, bourgeoisie, else he can become a despot. Montesquieu played an important role in the development of the other concept, mentioned above - despotism. His feelings towards despotism can be traced in his early works, but it was in his Spirit of the Laws that despotism became a well organised concept. For Montesquieu despotism was wholly bad. The three types of states that he recognised, republic, monarchy and despotism, each followed a particular principle which activated them. The principle of the republic was virtue, that of monarchy was honour, and that of despotism was fear. Under despotism the ruler managed the affairs of state not according to fixed and accepted laws but according to his caprice. The object of the state was the pleasure of the prince, who treats his subjects as his slaves and all land his personal property. The examples of despotism were invariably from Asia. This was, Montesquieu thought, due to the climatic condition in those parts of the world. In Asia men were indolent, speculative and had no desire to resist absolute rule. Asia was despotic, having never experienced feudalism. There was no fragmentation of government in Asia. Montesquieu was supported by others. In 1762 Boulanger published an essay as an 'introduction and key' to the Spirit of the Laws. Boulanger suggested that despotism in Asia was not only due to the climatic conditions in those countries but also due to religious faith: "Despotism ... has established itself through man's desire to model the government of the universe as it is reigned over by the Supreme Being; magnificent but fatal project." This view of oriental despotism and feudalism in Europe did not go unchallenged. Voltaire, a man of reason, who had firm faith in the importance of private property and admired Asian civilisations, could not agree that Asia was ruled by tyrannical despots and had never experienced private property. Like Helvetius, Voltaire thought the only difference betw.een governments was between the good and the bad. In his Philosophical Dictionary Voltaire satirised Montesquieu's views on the principles of states and despotism.33 He made more serious criticisms in his Fragments on India. 34 He did not disagree with Montesquieu's history but interpreted it differently - as amoral violence. Nor did Voltaire think that 'feudalism' was an 'event': "One cannot understand how the author of The Spirit of the Laws could say that feudalism is an event which happened once on this earth and which will perhaps never happen again. Feudalism is not an event, it is a very ancient form of government, which exists in three quarters of our hemisphere with different administrations. The Grand Moghul is like the German Emperor. The Soubadars are the Princes of the Empire."
34 Feudalism
"they were reflecting on its essence and nature and endeavouring to fit it into a pattern of general ideas.n William Guthrie in his A General History of England distinguished between 'feudal tenure', introduced after the Germanic invasions and 'feudal law' which implied a system of duties and obligations. 41 William Blackstone also saw feudalism as a Germanic system for the domination of conquered _peoples. He however took a legalistic view that "crcwn ownership was the great fundamental maxim of all feudal tenure.n42 Adam Ferguson and David Hume generally agree with Guthrie and Blackstone. 43 The Scottish writers and reformers of the mid-eighteenth century saw the problems of their country, as Hobsbawm has pointed out, "as one of transition from feudalism to capitalism".44 Indeed, they probably formed the earliest and one of the rare examples of a middle class which saw its objectives and historic function in these precise terms: "For it would seem that the very term 'feudal system' and later 'feudalism', as a description of an entire socio-economic as well as legal and political order of society, were invented by Scottish intellectuals in the course of these discussions.n Adam Smith used the concept as early as 1763 in his Lectures on Justice. John Millar in 1790s worked out a theory of feudalism: an interconnection between the system of property, and the system of government and the struggle between commerce and feudalism. 46 It would seem that despite their professed dislike of the "seventeenth-century antiquarian" the English and Scottish historians of the eighteenth century were profoundly influenced by the jurists of the earlier century. These eighteenth-century historians and lawyers felt bound to their past by the law under which they lived; hence their study of history and their study of law depended on one another. The feudal system was a legal as well as an historical concept. It was also closely linked with the other concept, despotism, particularly in the works of Adam Ferguson and William Robertson. There was another radical tradition which looked at English history as a history of continued struggle on the part of the English people to free Anglo-Saxon institutions from "the Norman yoke". 48 Some of the radicals associated "the Norman yoke" with feudalism and the arguments in favour of parliamentary reform soon turned into a diatribe against the "feudal system". Sir William Jones, the orientalist and a radical Whig suggested: "there has been a continued war in the constitution of England between two jarring principles: the evil principle of the feudal system with his dark auxiliaries, ignorance and false philosophy; and the good principle of increasing commerce, with her liberal allies, true learning and sound reason.n There was nothing new in Jones' detecting two struggling forces
Idea of Feudalism 35
in history. But what was new was the notion that the two jarring principles were connected with two systems of property and government - feudal and commercial. Here he was presupposing some of Millar's ideas.50 The 'feudal system' which was only scotched by the Revolution (1688) must be killed:
"Ir' we find that this demon (the feudal system), was himself in process of time subdued, as he certainly was by the extension of commerce under Elizabeth, and the enlarged conceptions which extended commerce always produces, by the revival of learning which dispelled the darkness of Gothick ignorance and by the great transactions of the last century, when the true theory and genuine principles of freedom were unfolded and illustrated, we shall not hesitate to pronounce that by the spirit of our constitution all Englishmen having property of any kind or quantity are entitled to votes in chusing Parliamentary delegates.'• In England, as it was in France, the debate on the feudal system or feudalism was closely associated with the political debate for reforms. It is also interesting to note that it was Edmund Burke who first introduced the French word feodalite into the English language, which was later, in 1817, changed to feudalism. The term f€odalite was introduced in his famous Reflections on the French Revolution. 52
Asia, more particularly India, was also part of this debate. In 1773 Jones had agreed with Voltaire that "the ancient system of government which prevailed in India was perfectly feudal". In India he wanted to be a Justinian, a compiler of Indian traditional personal laws - Hindu and Muslim. Jones suggested that India has always experienced private property in land:
"Our nation, in the name of the King, has twenty-three million black subjects in these two provinces, but nine-tenths of their property are taken from them and it has even been publickly insisted that they have no landed property at all; if my Digest of Indian law should give stability to their property, real and personal, all security to their person, it will be the greatest benefit they ever received from us." He however believed that the idea of liberty as he preached in England should not be exported to India. "Gentoos" cannot be ruled by the maxims of the Athenians. Indians flourished in arts and literature but failed to produce a good system of government. Legal absolutism, which the Physiocrats professed, was supported by Jones. It would seem that there was some truth in the complaint that was made by Anquetil Duperron that the concept of despotism was devised by the Europeans to justify their oppressive rule in Asia. 55 It is already clear that the concept of feudalism was rather confused: it was a system of government (fragmentation of sovereignty), a socio-economic order and a term of abuse. It
Idea of Feudalism 37
N.B. I wish to thank Wendy J. Solomon and John 0. Ward for comments on the first draft of the paper. Sharon Davidson helped me to locate all French sources and she also translated the quotations from the original.
NOTES
- Owen Lattimore, 'Feudalism in History', Past and Present No. 12. Nov. 1957, p. 59.
- Rushton Coulburn (ed.) Feudalism in History, Princeton 1956, pp. 2-4.
- Derk Bodde, in Coulburn, op.cit., pp. 90-92.
- D. Thorner, in Coulburn, op.cit., p. 150.
- John W. Hall, 'Japanese Feudalism - a Reassessment', in Hall and Marius B. Jansen (ed.) Studies in the International History of Early Modem Japan, New York and Toronto,
- Fredrich Cheyette (ed.) Lordship and Community in Medieval Europe, New York, 1968.
- Ibid.
- Dunham, Speculum 33 (1958) p. 304 as quoted in Cheyette, op.cit., p. 2.
- Elizabeth A.R. Brown, 'The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe', The American Historical Review. vol. 79, No.4, 1974, p. 1088.
- Marc Bloch, Feudal Society, (English trans. by L.A. Manyon) London 1965 p. xviii.
- R.G. Collingwood, An Autobiography, Oxford, 1938, p. 167.
- Koebener, R. 'Despot and Despotism: vicissitudes of a political term', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, Vol. XIV No. 53-4, pp. 275-300.
- Bryan S. Turner, Marx and the End of Orientalism, London 1978, pp. 6-8.
- Jean Bodin, Les Si:x: Livres de la Republique, as quoted in P. Anderson, Lineages of the Absolutist State, London 1974, p. 397.
- J.G.A. Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century, New York, 1967, p. 27.
- Voltaire, Oeuvres, Paris, 1883-5, Vol. XIV, p. 45.
- H. de Boulainvilliers, Etat de la France, London, 1727, Vol. I, p. XXII
- Ibid. p. 17.
- Ibid. Vol. III p. 37.
- Ibid. Vol. I p. 182.
- E. Carcassonne, Montesquieu et le probleme de la Constitution Fran<yaise au XVIII S(ecle, Paris, 1927, p. 42.
- Ibid. p. 189.
- J.K.C. Mackrell, The Attack on 'Feudalism' in the Eighteenth Century, London and Toronto 1973, pp. 25-6.
38 Feudalism
- Ibid. p. 27.
- Diderot, Encyclopedie, pp. 688-717.
- Mackrell, op.cit. pp. 6-7 and 43.
- E. Carcassonne, op.cit.
- Mackrell, op.cit. pp. 117-67.
- R. Shackleton, Montesquieu, a critical biography, Oxford 1961, p. 328.
- Montesquieu, De !'Esprit des Lois XXX, 1 and XXXI
- Ibid. XIV, 3,4,5 and 10.
- N.A. Boulanger, The Origin and Progress of Despotism in the Oriental and other Empires of Africa, Europe and America (Trans. J. Wilkes) Amsterdam, 1764, p. 13.
- Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary
- Idem, Fragments on India (Trans. F. Bedi), Lahore, 1937.
- Ibid. p. 8.
- S.N. Mukherjee, Sir William Jones: A Study in Eighteenth-Century British Attitudes to India, Cambridge, 1968, pp. 6, 15 and 46.
- Voltaire, op.cit. p.20.
- F. Venturi, 'Oriental Despotism', Journal of the History of Ideas 1963, Vol. XXIV pp. 136-38 cf. G. Weulersse, Le
Mouvement Physiocratique en France de 1756 a 1770, Paris,
1910, Vol. I, p. 137.
- F.W. Maitland, The Constitutional History of England (H.A.L. Fisher ed.) Cambridge 1908 p. 142.
- Pocock, op.cit., p. 102.
- William Guthrie, A General History of England, Edinburgh 17 44-51.
- William Blackstone, Commentaries on the KUS of England, Cambridge 1793, Section IV.
- A. Ferguson, An Essay on the History of Civil Society, London 1767 and David Hume, The History of England London 1762.
- E.J. Hobsbawm, 'Scottish Reformers of the Eighteenth Century and Capitalist Agriculture', in E.J. Hobsbawm et al (ed.) Peasants in History: Essays in honour of Daniel Thorner Calcutta, 1980, p. 5.
- Ibid.
- W.C. Lehman, 'John Millar, historical sociologist: some remarkable anticipation of modern sociology', British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 3 1950, pp. 30-46.
- A. Fergusson, op.cit., p. 185.
- C. Hill, 'Norman Yoke' in J. Saville (ed.) Democracy and the Labour Movement: Essays in Honour of Dona Torr, London 1954, p. 12.
- The Works of Sir William Jones (ed. John Shore, Baron Teigamouth) London, 1807 Vol. VIII pp. 506-7.
- S.N. Mukherjee, op.cit., pp. 62-64.
- The Works of Sir William Jones Vol. VIII p. 509.
- R. Boutruche, Seigneurie et FeOdalite, Paris, 1959, p. 101.
- The Works of Sir William Jones, Vol. XII, p. 389.
