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105-594: Savoy emerged as the feudal County of Savoy ruled by the House of Savoy during the 11th to 14th centuries. The original territory, also known as "ducal Savoy" or "Savoy proper", is largely co-terminous with the modern French Savoie and Haute-Savoie départements , but the historical expansion of Savoyard territories, as the Duchy of Savoy (1416–1860) included parts of what is now western Italy and southwestern Switzerland . The current border between France and Italy

210-690: A fir , or upland, forest. The word is likely ultimately from Gaulish – sapin itself is a blend of Gaulish sappos (fir tree) and Latin pinus (pine tree). It is first recorded in Ammianus Marcellinus (354), to describe the southern part of Maxima Sequanorum . According to the Chronica Gallica of 452 , the Burgundians were settled in the territory of Sapaudia in 443, after the Burgundian defeat by Flavius Aetius . By

315-692: A "feudal society". Although it is derived from the Latin word feodum or feudum (fief), which was used during the Medieval period, the term feudalism and the system it describes were not conceived of as a formal political system by the people who lived during the Middle Ages. Since the publication of Elizabeth A. R. Brown 's "The Tyranny of a Construct" (1974) and Susan Reynolds 's Fiefs and Vassals (1994), there has been ongoing inconclusive discussion among medieval historians as to whether feudalism

420-400: A brilliant warrior who secularized church lands for the purpose of providing precarias (or leases) for his followers, in return for their military service. Martel's military ambitions were becoming more expensive as it changed into a cavalry force, thus the need to maintain his followers through the despoiling of church lands. Responding to Brunner's thesis, Paul Fouracre theorizes that

525-533: A consensus viewpoint is that England before the Conquest had commendation (which embodied some of the personal elements in feudalism) while William the Conqueror introduced a modified and stricter northern French feudalism to England incorporating (1086) oaths of loyalty to the king by all who held by feudal tenure, even the vassals of his principal vassals (holding by feudal tenure meant that vassals must provide

630-418: A feudal order not limited solely to the nobility. It is his radical notion that peasants were part of the feudal relationship that sets Bloch apart from his peers: while the vassal performed military service in exchange for the fief, the peasant performed physical labour in return for protection – both are a form of feudal relationship. According to Bloch, other elements of society can be seen in feudal terms; all

735-415: A feudal relationship with agreed obligations to one another. The vassal's principal obligation to the lord was to provide aid or military service. Using whatever equipment the vassal could obtain by virtue of the revenues from the fief, the vassal had to answer calls to military service by the lord. This security of military help was the primary reason the lord entered into the feudal relationship. In addition,

840-465: A land grant in exchange for service was called a beneficium (Latin). Later, the term feudum , or feodum , began to replace beneficium in the documents. The first attested instance of this is from 984, although more primitive forms were seen up to one-hundred years earlier. The origin of the feudum and why it replaced beneficium has not been well established, but there are multiple theories, described below. The term "féodal"

945-550: A means of political gain. For them "feudalism" meant seigneurial privileges and prerogatives. When the French Constituent Assembly abolished the "feudal regime" in August 1789, this is what was meant. Adam Smith used the term "feudal system" to describe a social and economic system defined by inherited social ranks, each of which possessed inherent social and economic privileges and obligations. In such

1050-569: A provision that was later extended to various parts of Italian kingdom following the invasion by French troops. In the Kingdom of Naples , Joachim Murat abolished feudalism with the law of 2 August 1806, then implemented with a law of 1 September 1806 and a royal decree of 3 December 1808. In the Kingdom of Sicily the abolishing law was issued by the Sicilian Parliament on 10 August 1812. In Piedmont feudalism ceased by virtue of

1155-598: A quarter of the farmland in France and provided most of the income of the large landowners. The majority refused to pay and in 1793 the obligation was cancelled. Thus the peasants got their land free, and also no longer paid the tithe to the church. In the Kingdom of France , following the French Revolution, feudalism was abolished with a decree of 11 August 1789 by the Constituent Assembly ,

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1260-703: A region in northwestern Italy that borders Savoy, which were also possessions of the House of Savoy. The capital of the Duchy remained at the traditional Savoyard capital of Chambéry until 1563, when it was moved to Turin. The region was occupied by the Allobroges , a Gallic people that the Roman Republic subdued in 121 BC. The name Savoy stems from the Late Latin Sapaudia , referring to

1365-573: A set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility based on the key concepts of lords, vassals, and fiefs. In broad terms a lord was a noble who held land, a vassal was a person granted possession of the land by the lord, and the land was known as a fief. In exchange for the use of the fief and protection by the lord, the vassal provided some sort of service to the lord. There were many varieties of feudal land tenure , consisting of military and non-military service. The obligations and corresponding rights between lord and vassal concerning

1470-579: A short time, this province fell to the Arabs. From the 10th to 14th century, parts of what would ultimately become Savoy remained within the Kingdom of Burgundy-Arles . Beginning in the 11th century, the gradual rise to power of the House of Savoy is reflected in the increasing territory of their County of Savoy between 1003 and 1416. The County of Savoy was detached de jure from the Kingdom of Arles by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor in 1361. It acquired

1575-548: A solemn plebiscite of which our leaders can ignore neither the terms nor the commitments. [...] May the bells of our cities [...] in Savoy vibrate in unison to glorify, in this magnificent Centenary, the indefectible commitment of Savoy to France. The Savoyards did not feel Italian. Besides, they spoke French. This explains why in 1858–1859 when rumours ran of the Plombières secret agreement, where Napoleon III and Cavour decided of

1680-523: A system, wealth derived from agriculture, which was arranged not according to market forces but on the basis of customary labour services owed by serfs to landowning nobles. Heinrich Brunner , in his The Equestrian Service and the Beginnings of the Feudal System (1887), maintained that Charles Martel laid the foundation for feudalism during the 8th century. Brunner believed Martel to be

1785-464: Is a useful construct for understanding medieval society. The adjective feudal was in use by at least 1405, and the noun feudalism was in use by the end of the 18th century, paralleling the French féodalité . According to a classic definition by François Louis Ganshof (1944), feudalism describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of the warrior nobility that revolved around

1890-610: Is due to the Plombières Agreement of 1858, which in preparation for the unification of Italy ceded western Savoy to France, while the eastern territories in Piedmont and Liguria were retained by the House of Savoy, which was to become the ruling dynasty of Italy . In modern France, Savoy is part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. Following its annexation to France in 1860, the territory of Savoy

1995-505: Is feudalism?", 1944; translated in English as Feudalism ). His classic definition of feudalism is widely accepted today among medieval scholars, though questioned both by those who view the concept in wider terms and by those who find insufficient uniformity in noble exchanges to support such a model. Although Georges Duby was never formally a student in the circle of scholars around Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre , that came to be known as

2100-400: Is lest the Savoy authorities in their zeal should fare as some of the French did in the vote of 1852, finding to their surprise rather more votes than voters inscribed on the list. In his letter to the ambassador of Vienna Lord Augustus Loftus, the then– Foreign Secretary , Lord John Russell , said, "Voting in Savoy and Nice a farce ... we are neither entertained or edified". The annexation

2205-513: Is on purpose that the word incorporation ( rattachement ) is highlighted here: the Savoyards attach great value to it, and it is the only one they have resolved to use in the official terminology of the Centenary. In that, they are infinitely right. Yesterday another term that was used: annexation. Looking at it more closely it was wrong! Can we say annexation when we talk about a decision which

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2310-565: Is that early forms of 'fief' include feo , feu , feuz , feuum and others, the plurality of forms strongly suggesting origins from a loanword . The first use of these terms is in Languedoc , one of the least Germanic areas of Europe and bordering Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain). Further, the earliest use of feuum (as a replacement for beneficium ) can be dated to 899, the same year a Muslim base at Fraxinetum ( La Garde-Freinet ) in Provence

2415-536: The Führerprinzip . In 1974, the American historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown rejected the label feudalism as an anachronism that imparts a false sense of uniformity to the concept. Having noted the current use of many, often contradictory, definitions of feudalism , she argued that the word is only a construct with no basis in medieval reality, an invention of modern historians read back "tyrannically" into

2520-601: The Annales school , Duby was an exponent of the Annaliste tradition. In a published version of his 1952 doctoral thesis entitled La société aux XIe et XIIe siècles dans la région mâconnaise ( Society in the 11th and 12th centuries in the Mâconnais region ), and working from the extensive documentary sources surviving from the Burgundian monastery of Cluny , as well as the dioceses of Mâcon and Dijon , Duby excavated

2625-464: The Congress of Vienna to strengthen Sardinia as a buffer state on France's southeastern border. The French Second Republic first attempted to annex Savoy in 1848. A corps of 1,500 was dispatched from Lyon and invaded Savoy on 3 April, occupying Chambéry (capital city) and proclaiming the annexation to France. On learning about the invasion countrymen rushed to Chambéry. The corps were chased away by

2730-680: The County of Nice and Duchy of Savoy to the Second French Empire . Though this was a secret arrangement, it quickly became widely known. The treaty annexing Nice and Savoy to France was signed in Turin on 24 March 1860 ( Treaty of Turin ). In the northern provinces of the Chablais and Faucigny, there was some support for annexation to neighboring Switzerland, with which the northern provinces had longstanding economic ties. To help reduce

2835-464: The County of Nice in 1388, and in 1401 added the County of Geneva , the area of Geneva except for the city proper, which was ruled by its prince-bishop , nominally under the duke's rule: the bishops of Geneva , by unspoken agreement, came from the House of Savoy until 1533. On 19 February 1416 Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor , made the County of Savoy an independent duchy , with Amadeus VIII as

2940-763: The Inca Empire , in the pre-Columbian era , as 'tributary' societies . In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, J. Horace Round and Frederic William Maitland , both historians of medieval Britain, arrived at different conclusions about the character of Anglo-Saxon English society before the Norman Conquest in 1066. Round argued that the Normans had brought feudalism with them to England, while Maitland contended that its fundamentals were already in place in Britain before 1066. The debate continues today, but

3045-441: The feudal system , was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour. The classic definition, by François Louis Ganshof (1944), describes a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations of

3150-509: The free trade zone – both treaty articles having been broken unofficially in World War I . France was condemned in 1932 by the international court for noncompliance with the measures of the Treaty of Turin regarding the provinces of Savoy and Nice. In 1960, the term annexation having acquired negative connotations in France, particularly after Germany's 1871 annexation of Alsace-Lorraine,

3255-549: The peasantry , which was bound by a system of manorialism . This order is often referred to as a feudal society , echoing Bloch's usage. Outside its European context, the concept of feudalism can be extended to analogous social structures in other regions, most often in discussions of feudal Japan under the shoguns , and sometimes in discussions of the Zagwe dynasty in medieval Ethiopia , which had some feudal characteristics (sometimes called "semifeudal"). Some have taken

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3360-714: The territorial state . This form of statehood, identified with the Holy Roman Empire , is described as the most complete form of medieval rule, completing conventional feudal structure of lordship and vassalage with the personal association among the nobility. But the applicability of this concept to cases outside of the Holy Roman Empire has been questioned, as by Susan Reynolds. The concept has also been questioned and superseded in German historiography because of its bias and reductionism towards legitimating

3465-459: The 10th century it was common to value land in monetary terms but to pay for it with objects of equivalent value, such as arms, clothing, horses or food. This was known as feos , a term that took on the general meaning of paying for something in lieu of money. This meaning was then applied to land itself, in which land was used to pay for fealty, such as to a vassal. Thus the old word feos meaning movable property would have changed to feus , meaning

3570-679: The 16th-century basis or incorporate what, in a Marxist view, must surely be superficial or irrelevant features from it. Even when one restricts oneself to Europe and to feudalism in its narrow sense it is extremely doubtful whether feudo-vassalic institutions formed a coherent bundle of institutions or concepts that were structurally separate from other institutions and concepts of the time. The term feudal has also been applied to non-Western societies, in which institutions and attitudes similar to those of medieval Europe are perceived to have prevailed (see Examples of feudalism ). Japan has been extensively studied in this regard. Karl Friday notes that in

3675-712: The 1850s. Slavery in Romania was abolished in 1856. Russia finally abolished serfdom in 1861. More recently in Scotland, on 28 November 2004, the Abolition of Feudal Tenure etc. (Scotland) Act 2000 entered into full force putting an end to what was left of the Scottish feudal system. The last feudal regime, that of the island of Sark , was abolished in December 2008, when the first democratic elections were held for

3780-541: The 1998 regional elections. A new non-party organisation, La Région Savoie, j’y crois ! ( I believe in the Savoy Region! ), was founded in 1998. The organisation campaigns for the replacement of the Savoie and Haute-Savoie departments with a regional government, separate from the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region , with greater devolved powers . A very marginal separatist movement has also appeared in Savoy within

3885-515: The 21st century historians of Japan rarely invoke feudalism; instead of looking at similarities, specialists attempting comparative analysis concentrate on fundamental differences. Ultimately, critics say, the many ways the term feudalism has been used have deprived it of specific meaning, leading some historians and political theorists to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society. Historian Richard Abels notes that "Western civilization and world civilization textbooks now shy away from

3990-701: The 8th century, the territory that would later become known as Savoy was part of Francia , and at the division of Francia at the Treaty of Verdun in 843, it became part of the short-lived kingdom of Middle Francia . After only 12 years, at the death of Lothair I in 855, Middle Francia was divided into Lotharingia north of the Alps, Italy south of the Alps , and the parts of Burgundy in the Western Alps, inherited by Charles of Provence . This latter territory comprised what would become known as Savoy and Provence . For

4095-462: The 9th and 10th centuries receded and gave way to a new feudal order wherein independent aristocratic knights wielded power over peasant communities through strong-arm tactics and threats of violence. In 1939, the Austrian historian Theodor Mayer subordinated the feudal state as secondary to his concept of a Personenverbandsstaat (personal interdependency state), understanding it in contrast to

4200-580: The Counts of Geneva was Conrad I, possible count palatine of Burgundy, in Vienne. Count Cono/Conrad died about 1003 in exile, during the Hermann II's rebellion (his brother duke of Swabia , of Conradines lineage). Their son, Robert, count of Geneva, was born about 970 and died about 1020. The county never played a major part as a feudal entity . The city of Geneva and its environs were retained, but

4305-589: The Enlightenment wrote about feudalism to denigrate the antiquated system of the Ancien Régime , or French monarchy. This was the Age of Enlightenment , when writers valued reason and the Middle Ages were viewed as the " Dark Ages ". Enlightenment authors generally mocked and ridiculed anything from the "Dark Ages" including feudalism, projecting its negative characteristics on the current French monarchy as

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4410-517: The French Revolution, on just one night of 4 August 1789, France abolished the long-lasting remnants of the feudal order. It announced, "The National Assembly abolishes the feudal system entirely." Lefebvre explains: Without debate the Assembly enthusiastically adopted equality of taxation and redemption of all manorial rights except for those involving personal servitude—which were to be abolished without indemnification. Other proposals followed with

4515-406: The House of Chalons (and, after its extinction, the House of Orange-Nassau) remained the strongest claimant, Amadeus successfully completed the integration of the county with his territories, which were raised to a duchy by Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg . The title Count of Geneva passed securely into the House of Savoy , where it is maintained as a courtesy title . Medieval historians connected

4620-462: The Latin of the Frankish laws. One theory about the origin of fehu was proposed by Johan Hendrik Caspar Kern in 1870, being supported by, amongst others, William Stubbs and Marc Bloch . Kern derived the word from a putative Frankish term *fehu-ôd , in which *fehu means "cattle" and -ôd means "goods", implying "a movable object of value". Bloch explains that by the beginning of

4725-641: The Treaty of Lausanne of 30 October 1564. In 1714, as a consequence of the War of the Spanish Succession , Savoy was technically subsumed into the Kingdom of Sicily , then (after that island was traded to Austria for Sardinia ) the Kingdom of Sardinia from 1720. While the heads of the House of Savoy were known as the Kings of Sardinia, Turin remained their capital. Savoy was occupied by French revolutionary forces between 1792 and 1815. The entire region

4830-415: The Treaty of Turin and subsequent plebiscite as null and void, arguing that the plebiscite did not meet the standards of a free and fair vote. Today, historians generally acknowledge that the plebiscite of 1860 did feature irregularities, but they also affirm that the annexation instrument was the Treaty of Turin and not the plebiscite, whose main purpose was to demonstrate favorable public opinion in Savoy for

4935-679: The Western European societies commonly described as feudal. The word feudal comes from the medieval Latin feudālis , the adjectival form of feudum 'fee, feud', first attested in a charter of Charles the Fat in 884, which is related to Old French fé, fié, Provençal feo, feu, fieu, and Italian fio . The ultimate origin of feudālis is unclear. It may come from a Germanic word, perhaps fehu or *fehôd , but these words are not attested in this meaning in Germanic sources, or even in

5040-657: The annexation after the signature of the treaty. In an interview for the newspaper Le Dauphiné Libéré , Sylvain Milbach, a historian at the University of Savoy , qualifies the vote as Napoleonic, but also argues that a completely free and fair vote would not have dramatically changed the outcome, as the majority of Savoyards wished to become French. This is today the official stance of the General Council of Savoie . Feudalism Feudalism , also known as

5145-515: The annexation was renamed Rattachement de la Savoie à la France (Incorporation of Savoy to France). It was the latter term which was used by the French authorities during the festivities celebrating the 100th anniversary of the annexation. Daniel Rops of the French Academy justified the new title with these words: Savoy has begun to solemnize the feasts in 1960, commemorating the centenary of its incorporation ( rattachement ) to France. It

5250-509: The approaches to the western end of Lake Geneva , which had made the position strategic, were soon lost. In 1124, the Bishops of Geneva had their rule over the city acknowledged and continued to make themselves an independent force, while the Counts of Savoy encircled the territory and controlled the trade routes. From 1219 on, the counts' stronghold and capital was Annecy . At a moment when

5355-580: The aspects of life were centred on "lordship", and so we can speak usefully of a feudal church structure, a feudal courtly (and anti-courtly) literature, and a feudal economy. In contradistinction to Bloch, the Belgian historian François Louis Ganshof defined feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relationships existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulated this concept in Qu'est-ce que la féodalité? ("What

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5460-484: The attractiveness of Switzerland, the French government conceded a Free-Trade Zone that maintained the longstanding duty-free relationship of northern Savoyard communes to Geneva. After the treaty was already signed, a plebiscite was held on 22–23 April. Employing universal male suffrage, voters in the ceded provinces were offered the option of voting "Yes" to approve the treaty and join France or voting "No" and rejecting

5565-440: The authority and powers held by feudal lords , overlords , and nobles , and preferred the idea of autocratic rule where a king and one royal court held almost all the power. Feudal nobles regardless of ethnicity generally thought of themselves as arbiters of a politically free system, so this often puzzled them before the fall of most feudal laws. Most of the military aspects of feudalism effectively ended by about 1500. This

5670-437: The church itself held power over the land with its own precarias . The most commonly utilized precarias was the gifting of land to the church, done for various spiritual and legal purposes. Although Charles Martel did indeed utilize precaria for his own purposes, and even drove some of the bishops out of the church and placed his own laymen in their seats, Fouracre discounts Martel's role in creating political change, that it

5775-576: The complex social and economic relationships among the individuals and institutions of the Mâconnais region and charted a profound shift in the social structures of medieval society around the year 1000. He argued that in early 11th century, governing institutions—particularly comital courts established under the Carolingian monarchy—that had represented public justice and order in Burgundy during

5880-523: The control of northern Italy, Savoy was important to France because it provided access to Italy. Savoy was important to Spain because it served as a buffer between France and the Spanish held lands in Italy. In 1563 Emmanuel Philibert moved the capital from Chambéry to Turin , which was less vulnerable to French interference. Vaud was annexed by Bern in 1536, and Savoy officially ceded Vaud to Bern in

5985-500: The death of its author Thomas Madox , in 1727. In 1771, in his book The History of Manchester , John Whitaker first introduced the word "feudalism" and the notion of the feudal pyramid. Another theory by Alauddin Samarrai suggests an Arabic origin, from fuyū (the plural of fay , which literally means "the returned", and was used especially for 'land that has been conquered from enemies that did not fight'). Samarrai's theory

6090-424: The edicts of 7 March, and 19 July 1797 issued by Charles Emmanuel IV , although in the Kingdom of Sardinia , specifically on the island of Sardinia , feudalism was abolished only with an edict of 5 August 1848. In the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia , feudalism was abolished with the law of 5 December 1861 n.º 342 were all feudal bonds abolished. The system lingered on in parts of Central and Eastern Europe as late as

6195-509: The election of a local parliament and the appointment of a government. The "revolution" is a consequence of the juridical intervention of the European Parliament , which declared the local constitutional system as contrary to human rights , and, following a series of legal battles, imposed parliamentary democracy . The phrase "feudal society" as defined by Marc Bloch offers a wider definition than Ganshof's and includes within

6300-507: The exact opposite: landed property. Archibald Ross Lewis proposes that the origin of 'fief' is not feudum (or feodum ), but rather foderum , the earliest attested use being in Vita Hludovici (840) by Astronomus. In that text is a passage about Louis the Pious that says annona militaris quas vulgo foderum vocant , which can be translated as "Louis forbade that military provender (which they popularly call "fodder") be furnished." Initially in medieval Latin European documents,

6405-427: The fate of Savoy, the Savoyards themselves took the initiative to ask for the incorporation ( rattachement ). [...] Incorporation, not annexation [...] The incorporation was an act of free will, in the logical order of geography and history [...]. Since the mid-20th century, regionalist movements have appeared in Savoy much as in other historic provinces of France. The Mouvement Région Savoie (Savoy Regional Movement)

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6510-403: The feudal structure not only the warrior aristocracy bound by vassalage, but also the peasantry bound by manorialism, and the estates of the Church. Thus the feudal order embraces society from top to bottom, though the "powerful and well-differentiated social group of the urban classes" came to occupy a distinct position to some extent outside the classic feudal hierarchy. The idea of feudalism

6615-509: The feudalism analogy further, seeing feudalism (or traces of it) in places as diverse as Spring and Autumn period China, ancient Egypt , the Parthian Empire , India until the Mughal dynasty and the Antebellum South and Jim Crow laws in the American South . The term feudalism has also been applied—often pejoratively—to non-Western societies where institutions and attitudes similar to those in medieval Europe are perceived to prevail. Some historians and political theorists believe that

6720-401: The fief form the basis of the feudal relationship. Before a lord could grant land (a fief ) to someone, he had to make that person a vassal. This was done at a formal and symbolic ceremony called a commendation ceremony , which was composed of the two-part act of homage and oath of fealty . During homage, the lord and vassal entered into a contract in which the vassal promised to fight for

6825-416: The final steps in the process of unification of Italy . Victor Emmanuel's dynasty, the House of Savoy, retained its Italian lands of Piedmont and Liguria and became the ruling dynasty of Italy . In 1919, contrary to the annexation treaty, France officially ended the military neutrality of the parts of the country of Savoy that had originally been agreed to at the Congress of Vienna , and also eliminated

6930-408: The first duke. Straddling the Alps, Savoy lay within two competing spheres of influence, a French sphere and a North Italian one. At the time of the Renaissance, Savoy showed only modest development. Its towns were few and small. Savoy derived its subsistence from agriculture. The geographic location of Savoy was also of military importance. During the interminable wars between France and Spain over

7035-461: The highly profitable rights of justice, etc. (what Georges Duby called collectively the " seigneurie banale " ). Power in this period became more personal. This "fragmentation of powers" was not, however, systematic throughout France, and in certain counties (such as Flanders , Normandy , Anjou , Toulouse ), counts were able to maintain control of their lands into the 12th century or later. Thus, in some regions (like Normandy and Flanders ),

7140-520: The historical record. Supporters of Brown have suggested that the term should be expunged from history textbooks and lectures on medieval history entirely. In Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (1994), Susan Reynolds expanded upon Brown's original thesis. Although some contemporaries questioned Reynolds's methodology, other historians have supported it and her argument. Reynolds argues: Too many models of feudalism used for comparisons, even by Marxists, are still either constructed on

7245-446: The key concepts of lords , vassals and fiefs , though Ganshof himself noted that his treatment was only related to the "narrow, technical, legal sense of the word." A broader definition, as described in Marc Bloch 's Feudal Society (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm : the nobility, the clergy , and those who lived off their labour, most directly

7350-406: The literary figures of Reynier and Olivier from the late-12th-century Girart de Vienne to the Genevois, but this is pure fiction. By Samuel Guichenon , in Histoire généalogique de la royale maison de Savoie (1660) In 1401, Odo sold the County to Amadeus VIII of Savoy. His heirs, however, contested this and the legal processes were not completed until 1424. From 1424 the County of Geneva

7455-428: The local population. Five Frenchmen were killed and 800 captured. On 21 July 1858 in Plombières-les-Bains , Vosges , the prime minister of the Kingdom of Sardinia, Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour , met in secret with Napoleon III to secure French military support against the Austrian Empire during the conflicts associated with the Italian unification . During the discussion, Cavour promised that Sardinia would cede

7560-416: The lord at his command, whilst the lord agreed to protect the vassal from external forces. Fealty comes from the Latin fidelitas and denotes the fidelity owed by a vassal to his feudal lord. "Fealty" also refers to an oath that more explicitly reinforces the commitments of the vassal made during homage; such an oath follows homage. Once the commendation ceremony was complete, the lord and vassal were in

7665-482: The lord for criminal offences, including capital punishment in some cases. Concerning the king's feudal court, such deliberation could include the question of declaring war. These are examples of feudalism ; depending on the period of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied. In its origin, the feudal grant of land had been seen in terms of a personal bond between lord and vassal, but with time and

7770-457: The male line of the counts was near exhaustion, Robert of Geneva was raised to a shadow papacy by the French cardinals who seceded from the College of Cardinals and wished to rescind their part in the election of the irascible Urban VI ; elected 20 September 1378, Robert took the title of Clement VII . Unexpectedly, with the death of his brother, he succeeded as count in 1392. As count, Robert

7875-474: The middle of the 18th century, as a result of works such as Montesquieu 's De L'Esprit des Lois (1748; published in English as The Spirit of Law ), and Henri de Boulainvilliers 's Histoire des anciens Parlements de France (1737; published in English as An Historical Account of the Ancient Parliaments of France or States-General of the Kingdom , 1739). In the 18th century, writers of

7980-782: The oppression of feudal subjects with a holistic integration of political and economic life of the sort lacking under industrial capitalism. He also took it as a paradigm for understanding the power-relationships between capitalists and wage-labourers in his own time: "in pre-capitalist systems it was obvious that most people did not control their own destiny—under feudalism, for instance, serfs had to work for their lords. Capitalism seems different because people are in theory free to work for themselves or for others as they choose. Yet most workers have as little control over their lives as feudal serfs." Some later Marxist theorists (e.g. Eric Wolf ) have applied this label to include non-European societies, grouping feudalism together with imperial China and

8085-400: The order coming before capitalism . For Marx, what defined feudalism was the power of the ruling class (the aristocracy ) in their control of arable land, leading to a class society based upon the exploitation of the peasants who farm these lands, typically under serfdom and principally by means of labour, produce and money rents. He deemed feudalism a 'democracy of unfreedom', juxtaposing

8190-611: The past twenty years, most prominently represented by the Ligue Savoisienne , founded in 1994. In the March 1998 regional elections, 1 seat (out of 23) was won by Patrice Abeille, leader of the Ligue, which won a total of 17,865 votes across the two departments. In 2004, Waiting for Freedom in Savoy was founded to promote the peaceful separatist cause to young people. According to surveys conducted in 2000, between 41% and 55% of

8295-435: The population were in favour of the proposal for a separate Savoy region. Towards the end of 2005, Hervé Gaymard called for Savoie to be given special status, similar to a French region, under his proposed "Conseil des Pays de Savoie". In recent years, sparked by the tiny Savoyard separatist movement, much attention has been focused on questioning the validity of the 1860 annexation. The Ligue Savoisienne, for example, rejects

8400-580: The proclamations; no control possible; even travellers suspected and dogged lest they should pry into the matter; all opposition put down by intimidation, and all liberty of action completely taken away. One can really scarcely reproach the Opposition with having given up the game; there was too great force used against them. As for the result of the vote, therefore, no one need trouble himself about it; it will be just as brilliant as that in Nice. The only danger

8505-496: The quota of knights required by the king or a money payment in substitution). In the 20th century, two outstanding historians offered still more widely differing perspectives. The French historian Marc Bloch , arguably the most influential 20th-century medieval historian, approached feudalism not so much from a legal and military point of view but from a sociological one, presenting in Feudal Society (1939; English 1961)

8610-412: The same period or later: Counties and duchies began to break down into smaller holdings as castellans and lesser seigneurs took control of local lands, and (as comital families had done before them) lesser lords usurped/privatized a wide range of prerogatives and rights of the state, including travel dues, market dues, fees for using woodlands, obligations, use the lord's mill and, most importantly,

8715-434: The same success: the equality of legal punishment, admission of all to public office, abolition of venality in office, conversion of the tithe into payments subject to redemption, freedom of worship, prohibition of plural holding of benefices ... Privileges of provinces and towns were offered as a last sacrifice. Originally the peasants were supposed to pay for the release of seigneurial dues; these dues affected more than

8820-465: The term feudalism has been deprived of specific meaning by the many ways it has been used, leading them to reject it as a useful concept for understanding society. The applicability of the term feudalism has also been questioned in the context of some Central and Eastern European countries, such as Poland and Lithuania, with scholars observing that the medieval political and economic structure of those countries bears some, but not all, resemblances to

8925-533: The term 'feudalism'." County of Geneva The County of Geneva , largely corresponding to the later Genevois province, originated in the tenth century, in the Burgundian Kingdom of Arles (Arelat) which fell to the Holy Roman Empire in 1032. Several nobles had held the title of a Count of Geneva in Upper Burgundy ( Bourgogne transjurane ) from the 9th century. The progenitor of

9030-489: The territory came to encompass the social, political, judicial, and economic spheres. These acquired powers significantly diminished unitary power in these empires. However, once the infrastructure to maintain unitary power was re-established—as with the European monarchies—feudalism began to yield to this new power structure and eventually disappeared. The classic François Louis Ganshof version of feudalism describes

9135-518: The transformation of fiefs into hereditary holdings, the nature of the system came to be seen as a form of "politics of land" (an expression used by the historian Marc Bloch ). The 11th century in France saw what has been called by historians a " feudal revolution " or "mutation" and a "fragmentation of powers" (Bloch) that was unlike the development of feudalism in England or Italy or in Germany in

9240-469: The treaty. Voters were not permitted the options of either joining Switzerland , remaining with Italy , or regaining its independence, were the source of some opposition. With a 99.8% vote in favour of joining France, there were allegations of vote-rigging , notably by the British government, which opposed continental expansion by its traditional French enemy. The correspondent of The Times in Savoy who

9345-440: The vassal could have other obligations to his lord, such as attendance at his court, whether manorial , baronial, both termed court baron , or at the king's court. It could also involve the vassal providing "counsel", so that if the lord faced a major decision he would summon all his vassals and hold a council. At the level of the manor this might be a fairly mundane matter of agricultural policy, but also included sentencing by

9450-472: The vassal/feudal system was an effective tool for ducal and comital control, linking vassals to their lords; but in other regions, the system led to significant confusion, all the more so as vassals could and frequently did pledge themselves to two or more lords. In response to this, the idea of a "liege lord" was developed (where the obligations to one lord are regarded as superior) in the 12th century. Around this time, rich, "middle-class" commoners chafed at

9555-405: The warrior nobility and revolved around the key concepts of lords , vassals , and fiefs . A broader definition, as described by Marc Bloch (1939), includes not only the obligations of the warrior nobility but the obligations of all three estates of the realm : the nobility, the clergy , and the peasantry , all of whom were bound by a system of manorialism ; this is sometimes referred to as

9660-502: Was approved by 130,889 voters over 135,449? [...]. Savoy was not annexed [...] but actually incorporated freely and by the will of its inhabitants. A former French deputy, P. Taponnier, spoke of the annexation: In late March 1860, the betrothal ceremony of Savoy to France took place in Tuileries Palace [...], a ceremony which was a pact of love and fidelity [...] it is with free consent that she [Savoy] gave itself to France by

9765-582: Was divided administratively into two separate departments , Savoie and Haute-Savoie . The traditional capital remains Chambéry (in Italian : Ciamberì from the Latin : Camberia), on the rivers Leysse and Albane , hosting the castle of the House of Savoy and the Savoyard senate . The state included six districts: The County and Duchy of Savoy incorporated Turin and other territories in Piedmont ,

9870-641: Was established. It is possible, Samarrai says, that French scribes, writing in Latin, attempted to transliterate the Arabic word fuyū (the plural of fay ), which was used by the Muslim invaders and occupiers at the time, resulting in a plurality of forms – feo, feu, feuz, feuum and others—from which eventually feudum derived. Samarrai, however, also advises to handle this theory with care, as Medieval and Early Modern Muslim scribes often used etymologically "fanciful roots" to support outlandish claims that something

9975-472: Was first created to form the département of Mont-Blanc . In 1798, it was then divided between the departments of Mont-Blanc and Léman (French name of Lake Geneva). In 1801, Savoy officially left the Holy Roman Empire . On 13 September 1793 the combined forces of Savoy, Piedmont and Aosta Valley fought against and lost to the occupying French forces at the Battle of Méribel (Sallanches). Two-thirds of Savoy

10080-501: Was first used in 17th-century French legal treatises (1614) and translated into English legal treatises as an adjective, such as "feodal government". In the 18th century, Adam Smith , seeking to describe economic systems, effectively coined the forms "feudal government" and "feudal system" in his book The Wealth of Nations (1776). The phrase "feudal system" appeared in 1736, in Baronia Anglica , published nine years after

10185-478: Was founded in December 1971 as a 'movement' (rather than a traditional political party) in favour of regional autonomy. Unlike other historic provinces, including Normandy and Brittany , Savoy does not currently have its own region within France and is part of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. In the 1996 local elections, the Savoy Regional Movement received 19,434 votes; it received 4,849 in

10290-488: Was in Bonneville on 22 April called the vote "the lowest and most immoral farce(s) which was ever played in the history of nations". He finished his letter with those words: I leave you to draw your own conclusions from this trip, which will show clearly what the vote was in this part of Savoy. The vote was the bitterest irony ever made on popular suffrage. The ballot-box in the hands of those very authorities who issued

10395-497: Was of Arabian or Muslim origin. Feudalism, in its various forms, usually emerged as a result of the decentralization of an empire: such as in the Carolingian Empire in the 9th century AD, which lacked the bureaucratic infrastructure necessary to support cavalry without allocating land to these mounted troops. Mounted soldiers began to secure a system of hereditary rule over their allocated land and their power over

10500-642: Was partly since the military shifted from armies consisting of the nobility to professional fighters thus reducing the nobility's claim on power, but also because the Black Death reduced the nobility's hold over the lower classes. Vestiges of the feudal system hung on in France until the French Revolution of the 1790s. Even when the original feudal relationships had disappeared, there were many institutional remnants of feudalism left in place. Historian Georges Lefebvre explains how at an early stage of

10605-628: Was promulgated on 14 June 1860. On 23 August 1860 and 7 March 1861, two agreements were signed between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia to settle the remaining issues concerning the annexation. This was part of a secret agreement ( the Plombières Agreement ) brokered between the French emperor Napoleon III and the Count Camillo of Cavour (Prime Minister of Sardinia at that time) that allowed

10710-532: Was restored to the Kingdom of Sardinia in the First Restoration of 1814 following Napoleon's abdication; approximately one-third of Savoy, including the two most important cities of Chambéry and Annecy, remained in France. Following Napoleon's brief return to power during the Hundred Days and subsequent defeat at Waterloo, the remaining one-third of Savoy was restored to the Kingdom of Sardinia at

10815-417: Was simply a military move in order to have control in the region by hording land through tenancies, and expelling the bishops who he did not agree with, but it did not specifically create feudalism.   Karl Marx also uses the term in the 19th century in his analysis of society's economic and political development, describing feudalism (or more usually feudal society or the feudal mode of production ) as

10920-491: Was unknown and the system it describes was not conceived of as a formal political system by the people living in the medieval period. This section describes the history of the idea of feudalism, how the concept originated among scholars and thinkers, how it changed over time, and modern debates about its use. The concept of a feudal state or period, in the sense of either a regime or a period dominated by lords who possess financial or social power and prestige, became widely held in

11025-490: Was virtually dependent on the cooperative graces of the count of Savoy. With his death in 1394, the House of Geneva was extinguished and the title passed to the husband of the heiress, Humbert VII of Thoire and Villars who died in 1400. Eventually in 1401, the year after Humbert's death, his heir Odo of Thoire-Geneva sold the comté to Count Amadeus VIII of Savoy . Though other members of the Genevan House protested, and

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