GoKawiilDetail from the Bayeaux Tapestry made in the 11th century, depicting (the very violent) Norman Conquest of England.
I read Marc Bloch’s Feudal Society for my yearlong book club on the development of the nation state, and the biggest takeaway is how tightly linked peace and development are. It sounds obvious but rarely do we see such a civilizational decline as the beginning of the Middle Ages.
When Rome collapsed, the Carolingian Empire rose up as a weaker, one-man (Charlemagne) attempt at continuation. It lacked the institutional depth of the Roman Empire, and coupled with the invasions of the Vikings from the north, Hungarians from the east, and Muslims from the South, it couldn’t maintain power.
Some networks remained like the city states along the Mediterranean, the Catholic Church, of course, and the Byzantine Empire, which survived for a thousand more years.
The first feudal age according to Bloch (roughly 860-1050) started after the fall of Charlemagne, when Europe became highly fragmented. It was a period of extreme instability and violence, which led to a declining population. Bridges and roads broke down, coin usage—and with it, trade—collapsed.
Towns and villages turned inward (often to local strong men) to protect themselves from chaos. This isolation forced each small community to rely on its own resources and customs, most went back to the very basic governance system of kinship. People depended precariously on subsistence farming (one frost and many would starve). Written laws fell into oblivion as most people became illiterate. Law became an oral tradition of custom, different from each village to the other.
Slowly, things changed.
Eventually, the Muslims were driven out of Spain. The Vikings integrated into the lands they had conquered (most of the UK and northern France). The Hungarians settled in the territory that now bears their name.
The “Peace of God” and the “Truce of God”, which prohibited war on holy days and protected civilians from war, were instituted by the Church around the 11th century to curb the rampant violence of the era.
The “second feudal age” (around 1050–1200) saw the beginnings of demographic recovery and commercial expansion. There was also a cultural renaissance as old Roman and Muslim works were translated. The study of Roman Law was revived in universities like Bologna.
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