Why and How Feudalism Declined in Europe - Medieval History DOCUMENTARY

Kings and Generals animated historical documentary series on medieval history and economic history continues with a video on how and why Feudalism declined in Europe, as we try to deduce economic, political, social and scientific reasons why the nobles lost their supremacy over European society.

#Documentary #Medieval #Feudalism

[KingsandGenerals]

This video has been also dubbed into Spanish using an artificial voice to increase accessibility. You can change the Audio track language in the Settings menu. Este video se ha doblado al español utilizando una voz artificial para aumentar su accesibilidad. Puede cambiar el idioma de la Pista de audio en el menú Configuración.

[TheVitalOne]

Thank you for beginning an economic history series. Nothing against military history, but it accounts for 90% of history videos across YouTube and almost everything else since the dawn of time seems to get ignored.

[Dylan-lwxc]

Who would’ve thought 10 years ago, a few men with a YouTube channel would make history documentaries that surpassed anything the history channel produces.

[Melodeath]

I think you missed one of the most important factors in the decline of Feudalism: The fact that European kings (especially the French) spent the majority of the middle ages actively fighting against feudalism as a form of government. Trying to centralize power to the king alone, instead of having to share it with the nobility.

The French kings slowly but surely removed the influence and power that the nobility used to have, and the end result was the absolute monarchies of the 17th and 18th centuries.


People tend to forget how little power kings actually had during the middle ages. They often ruled on the mercy of their nobles, with even individual nobles sometimes controlling more land and wealth/power than the actual king.

[WizardsandWarriors]

We are working on Economic Lore videos, btw

[seanpoore]

You mentioned the longbow as part of the downfall of the knight, but this is also the period of the "infantry revolution" where the Swiss, Scotts, and various others used pikes/polearms to great effect against more traditional heavy cavalry armies

[spookyboi]

The phrase "Goodbye" that we use today is a shortend version of the saying "God be with you". Which was said to merchants, soldiers and others who left the walls of a midevil settlement.

[luifernando]

It’s generally understood in political science that the state as we know it did not exist in Europe at least till the 15-1600s. The origin of the state was the centralization of power that took place during those centuries and the attempts of the monarch to handle the emerging conflicts between the emerging bourgeoisie, the now empowered peasants and the feudal nobility

[NomicFin]

I don't remember who said it, but there's a quote about how nobody sets out to create a feudal system and rather it being what you get when other systems fail. A monarch would much rather have full control of the state than be forced to delegate a lot of power to feudal lords, so the decline of feudalism is inevitable as soon as the monarch has the means to make the feudal lords unnecessary.

[nord_anon]

Fun fact: serfdom wasn't a thing in Norway during the middle ages, in feudalisms hayday. We had landlords who rented to peasants, sure, but they did not have the authority other feudals did on the continent. Yeomanry was quite common, In fact I believe at one point 1/3 of farmland in the country was owned by the farmers who worked it.

[nonnayerbusiness]

One funny thing was that the Emperors of Austria had to spend centuries trying to convince their lords to allow their peasants to pay taxes and cash rent instead of obligation and labour. The lords wanted the power over others more than they wanted to be rich.

[saadabbas]

“These peasants became smart businessmen and learned accounting and banking. With this new found financial security, feudal life began to decline”.

[freddovich]

2 days after my exam in Middle Ages, this could have come in handy, just a little bit too late... But I do feel like this should be pointed out and think I'm qualified to mention this:

(TL;DR below) Modern historians criticize the use of the term "feudalism". It is argued that feudalism has had too many different interpretations to really mean anything anymore: Marc Bloch saw it as a way of land exploitation; Louis-Francois Ganshof saw it as a political system; Georges Duby saw it as time of anarchy and lawlessness. Not only is there conflict on what feudalism even means, but the use of the term also brings the danger of over generalizing the real life situation for millions of people. Medieval Europe was not one homogeonous system, rules and rights were different in every duchy and in every time period. Peasants in England had different rights than the ones in France; feudalism was different under Charlemagne than under Louis V the Fat, and it was different still under Philips IV the Fair (all of them being kings in France). Peasants in Italy had it completely different compared to the ones in Germany, as a lot of peasants in Italy where small private landowners who could sell their produce in the city-states, and even then it changes considering what time you look at. The definition given in this video, of a king giving land to nobles who let serfs work the lands, is not applicable to any system where the serfs or peasants own their own lands or have freedom of movement, or if the lands are under direct control of the king like when Philips II annexed Normandy from the English kings. In some cases, land was given to nobles as a loan, with the expectation that they would be returned upon the noble's death to the king, and sometimes it was given to a family in perpetuaty. Yet these systems are also implied to be feudal. Overall, the use of the term feudalism creates an unnecessarily oversimplified and negative view of life in the Middle Ages.

TL;DR: the term feudalism has many different meanings and overgeneralizes too much to be used when discussing social, political or economic medieval systems.

Anyways, good video as always, learned lots of stuff, but I felt like I had to point this out.

[kaltaron]

In Germany there's an old saying: "Stadtluft macht frei." - "Town air makes free." The reason is a law that if you live in a city for more than a year, you become free from serfdom.
Also fun fact: City had a negative growth if you don't count country folk migrating in until the (re-)introduction of sewers.
This format is nice and could certainly be applied to other changes in history like let's say the Bakufu or various Chinese dynasties.

Edit: I also think you missed another important factor: universities. The establishment of centers of learning not under the control of the church and less and less of a feudal lord had a huge long term effect.

[Mrdevs]

I would love to see more of the history of banking, especially in the Italian States as they took a lead role in centralized banking during the Renaissance and I've always found it fascinating. 😀

[Findinavia]

A lot of people seem to have forgotten that this is a general introduction to the topic. All of the other things people are talking about, either through classes or outside research, are things that require days and sometimes even entire semesters work of higher education to fully cover. This is a 20 minute YouTube video that introduces people to concepts that large portions of the population are not aware of. Feudalism may not be favored in the modern academic world but is well known to the population as a whole. People also are largely unaware of the impacts of the past on our modern economic world.

People are quick to cry “these liberals are ruining history” while ignoring things that are actually said in the video and ignoring aspects of the past that are not so palatable to us. Remember what these videos are and how short they are. You can’t fit a semester worth of education in 20 minutes. It’s just not possible. If you disagree with what K&G said, go research the topic more on your own. Stuff like this should inspire you to learn more history. I’m sure that is exact what K&G wants you to do. Learn more.

[Raadpensionaris]

A very Anglo centric explanation. The Dutch had the first modern capitalistic society and our feudalism disapeared in a different way than that of England.

[qwertystania]

This is somewhat inaccurate in the fact that feudalism was first replaced by mercantilism as the dominant economic system, which was then replaced by capitalism over the course of the 19th century

[hungrymusicwolf]

This video gave me a better understanding of feudalism than every history class I had on it in school combined. Thank you.

[MetalZoned]

Feudalism was followed by Mercantilism not Capitalism. Serfdom remained well into the 19th century.