Feudalism and the “Pactist Concept” of Power

In our Western legal tradition, “feudalism” has a pejorative connotation,^[283] one in large measure justified because the disintegration of a powerful, central authority and its replacement by a multitude of personal agreements in the West generated a state of constant war and anarchy which, as we have seen, the Church sought to mitigate by imposing its moral authority.

However, given the historical hindsight which we enjoy today, it is clear that the disappearance in the feudal pact of the hierarchical relationship under which sub­jects were utterly subservient to their sovereigns, and its replacement by legal pacts between lord and vassal, also had the pivotal result that subjects came to occupy a common legal plane, vis-a-vis their superiors, who ultimately became primum inter pares (firsts among equals). Under feudal pacts, kings entered into contractual relationships of a bilateral and reciprocal nature with their subjects, through which both parties took on obligations and were granted rights (Mitteis 1975, 56). When one steps back and looks at the whole course of Western political history, it is clear that the ultimate political consequences of this development could not be more profound.

If the monarch, as a result of his anointing by the Church, ruled by the grace of God, on whose behalf he exercised his jurisdictional powers (iurisdictio), he was also personally linked to nobles with whom he had entered into feudal covenants, that is, through pacted relationships entailing reciprocal rights and obligations. This relationship implied that rulers who breached their obligations could be held accountable for doing so. The next step was the assertion that the king ought to seek his subjects’ approval when exercising power. As Anderson (2000, 151-152) points out, in the feudal era the monarch was a suzerain of his vassals, to whom he was bound by reciprocal ties of fealty; he was not a supreme sovereign set above his subjects, as he did not have direct political access to the population as a whole.

Rather, his jurisdiction over it was filtered through innumerable layers of subinfeudation. The consequence was that royal power always had to be asserted and extended against the spontaneous grain of the feudal polity as a whole, in a constant struggle to establish a “public” authority outside the compact web of private jurisdictions.

Along the same line, Marc Bloch (2005, 172) notes that vassal homage was a genuine bilateral contract in which lords who failed to fulfill their duties, lost their rights—a principle that was inevitably transferred to the political sphere, where the king’s leading subjects were, at the same time, his vassals. The idea of such a covenant binding upon rulers was, obviously, to have the most far-reaching and profound repercussions on Western politics and society.

As far as the history of public law is concerned, perhaps the most important aspect to underscore is how the feudal relationship affected political and legal concepts and institutions. As Poly and Bournazel (1991, 210) explain, the renais­sance of royal power in the twelfth century, far from opposing feudalization, completed the process by controlling it, bringing in as royal counselors petty knights who had trained for service, having rose from humble origins. These counselors surrounded the crown as the representatives of a new and autonomous social group: seigneurial officers.

The attempts by various kings to emulate the Roman emperors and replace the old Germanic collective social organization with a monarchical model, was stymied by the contractual nature of the feudal relationship established between sovereign and vassal, significantly curbing the former’s power. This is what came to be called “pactism,^[284]” as it implied that power emanates from an accord or pact reached between a king and his subjects, a principle that would be consolidated by the Commercial Revolution transforming European societies in the Late Middle Ages. As Kosto (2004, 2-3) observes, the general expansion of the European economy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, brought with it a restructuring of the social order, necessary to allow the ruling classes to transform prosperity into power.

We shall analyze the consequences of this principle in greater detail in the next chapter when we examine the key question of the internal limits placed on the medieval monarchs’ authority because, as Petit Dutaillis (Petit-Dutaillis 1995, 1-2) points out, feudalism was not merely a temporary expedient. Rather, for centuries it served as a powerful source of inspiration through its appeal to personal devotion, loyalty and the vassal’s spirit of sacrifice. The lords’ patronage laid deep and lasting foundations for this form of organization, which replaced a declining state with a “doctrine making the maintenance of civilization dependent on a respect for the mutual obligations which bind lord and vassal, and the observance of the traditional customs of the old and new laws made in the feudal court”.

TIMELINE

Early Middle Ages (Eighth-Eleventh Centuries)

Eighth Century

711 The Muslims invade the Iberian Peninsula. End of the Visigoth kingdom of Toledo.

722 Pelayo initiates the Reconquest in Asturias.

732 Battle of Poitiers. Charles Martel defeats the Muslims. The end of Islamic expansion in Europe.

751 Pepin the Short is recognized as the legitimate king of the Franks by Pope Zachary.

754 Creation of the Papal States.

756 Abderraman I founds the Umayyad Emirate of Cordoba.

771 After the death of his brother Carloman, Charlemagne becomes the sole king of the Franks.

778 The rearguard of Charlemagne’s army is annihilated at Roncesvalles.

791-842 Reign of Alfonse II of Asturias, restoring the principles of the Visigoth monarchy in Oviedo.

Ninth Century

800 Charlemagne is crowned Emperor by Pope Leo III.

801 The Franks take Barcelona from the Muslims.

814 Death of Charlemagne.

843 The Treaty of Verdun. Division of the Carolingian Empire.

877 The Capitulary of Quierzy establishes hereditary profits for vassals. Important precedent consolidating the process of feudalization.

898 Death of Wilfred the Hairy, the first autonomous Earl of Barcelona (since 873).

Tenth Century

905 Sancho I Garces (+925), the first king of Navarre, takes the throne.

911 The Treaty of Saint Clair-sur-Epte. The Normans settle in the western part of present-day France (Normandy).

914 Garcia I moves his capital to Leon. The Kingdom of Leon is formed. 923-970 Fernan Gonzalez unifies the County of Castile.

929 Abderraman III creates the Caliphate of Cordoba.

962 Otto I of Saxony founds the Holy Roman Empire.

987 Hugh Capet becomes the first king of France, in reaction to the Germanization of Charlemagne’s Empire.

Eleventh Century

1031 End of the Caliphate of Cordoba. Spread of the taifas.

1035 Death of Sancho III Garces of Navarre. He divides his dominions

among his sons. The oldest, Garcia, receives the Kingdom of Navarre. The second, Fernando, becomes Count of Castile. Another illegitimate son, Ramiro I, receives the Kingdom of Aragon.

1037 Bermudo III of Leon is defeated and killed at the Battle of Tamaron

by the Count of Castile, Ferdinand I, who becomes the King of Leon and the Count of Castile.

1054 The Eastern Schism. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Michael Cerularius, repudiates Pope Leo IX.

1063 Sancho Ramirez (+1094) takes the throne, the first king of Aragon

expressly receiving the title.

1065 After the death of his father, Ferdinand I, Sancho II, his eldest son, becomes the first King of Castile. His second son, Alfonse, becomes Alfonse VI of Leon.

1066 Battle of Hastings. The Anglo-Saxon Harold is defeated by the Norman William the Conqueror, who becomes the King of England.

1072 After the death of his brother, Sancho II, at the siege of Zamora, Alfonse VI becomes the King of Castile and Leon.

1073-1085 Papacy of Gregory VII (Gregorian Reform).

1085 Alfonse VI takes Toledo.

1088 Foundation of the University of Bologna, the first in Europe.

1090 The Almoravids move to occupy the Iberian Peninsula.

1093 Urban II endorses the First Crusade (1096-1099).

1099 Death of El Cid in Valencia (July 10).

(15th of July).

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Further Reading

Abdy, J. T. (2010). Feudalism: Its rise, progress and consequences: Lectures delivered at Gresham College (1890). Reprint. Charleston, SC: Nabu Press.

Airlie, S. (2012). Power and its problems in Carolingian Europe. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Variorum.

Aurell i Cardona, J. (2012). Authoring the past: History, autobiography, and politics in medieval Catalonia. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Besserman, L. (Ed.). (2006). Sacred and secular in medieval and early modern cultures: New essays. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan.

Casanovas, P. (2011). Catalan legal mind and the legal Catalan mind: A brief overview on legal and political principles. Journal of Catalan Intellectual History, I(2), 161-177.

Cheyerre, F. L. (2010). ‘Feudalism’: A memoir and an assessment. In B. S. Tuten & T. L. Bilado (Eds.), Feud, violence and practice: Essays in medieval studies in honour of Stephen D. White (pp. 119-134). Burlington, VT: Ashgate.

Coss, P. (2002). From feudalism to bastard feudalism. In N. Fryde, P. Monnet, & O. Oexle (Eds.), Die Gegenwart des Feudalismus = Presence du feodalisme et present de la feodalite = The presence of feudalism (pp. 79-108). Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.

Curta, F. (Ed.). (2010). Neglected barbarians: International congress on medieval studies. Turnhout: Brepols.

Duby, G. (1992). The early growth of the European economy: Warriors and peasants from the 7th to the 12th century (6th print). New York: Cornell University Press.

Earenfight, T. (Ed.). (2005). Queenship and political power in medieval and early modern Spain. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Evans, G. R. (2007). The church in the early Middle Ages. London: I.B. Tauris and Co.

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Fouracre, P., & Ganz, D. (Eds.). (2008). Frankland: The Franks and the world of the early Middle Ages: Essays in honour of Dame Jinty Nelson. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.

Freedman, P. (1994). Church, law and society in Catalonia, 900-1500. Aldershot, UK: Variorum. Garipzanov, I. H. (2008). Symbolic language of authority in the Carolingian world: (c. 751-877).

Leiden: Brill.

Guillemain, B. (1960). The early Middle Ages. London: Burns & Oates.

Head, T. (2006). Peace and power in France around the year 1000. Essays in Medieval Studies, 23, 1-17.

Hen, Y. (2007). Roman Barbarians: The Royal Court and culture in the early medieval West. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Herlihy, D. (Ed.). (1998). The history of feudalism. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books.

Jordan, W. C. (2003). Europe in the high Middle Ages. New York: The Viking Press.

Kagay, D. J. (2007). War, government, and society in the medieval crown of Aragon. Aldershot (Hampshire): Ashgate.

Lachaud, F., & Penman, M. (Dirs.) (2008). Making and breaking the rules: Succession in medieval Europe, c. 1000-c. 1600. Etablir et abolir les normes: la succession dans l'Europe medievale, vers 1000-vers 1600. Turnhout: Brepols.

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O'Callaghan, J. F. (2013). The ascendancy of Islam: 711-1031. In A history of medieval Spain (pp. 89-190). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

O'Callaghan, J. F. (2004). Reconquest. Holy war and crusade. In Reconquest and crusade in medieval Spain (pp. 1-22). Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Reynolds, S. (2012). Medieval law in the Middle Ages without feudalism: Essays in criticism and comparison on the medieval West (pp. 485-502). Farnham, UK: Ashgate Variorum.

Reynolds, S. (2012). Feudalism, law and nations: Essays in criticism and comparison on the medieval West. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Variorum.

Rollason, D. W. (2012). Early medieval Europe 300-1050: The birth of Western society. London: Routledge.

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