Feudal Society, Volume 2: Social Classes and Political Organization (Paperback)

~ (Author), L.A. Manyon (Translator) "FOR the writers who first gave feudalism its name, for the men of the French Revolution, who worked to destroy it, the idea of nobility..." (more)
Key Phrases: droit normand, first feudal age, second feudal age, Middle Ages, East Francia, Girart de Roussillon (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Here is one of those rare books of impeccable scholarship which no intelligent person could possibly read without pleasure and interest and excitement. What Blochs book gives us is the anatomy of an age. – Geoffrey Barraclough

`Here is one of those rare books of impeccable scholarship which no intelligent person could possibly read without pleasure and interest and excitement. What Bloch's book gives us is the anatomy of an age.' - Geoffrey Barraclough --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Description

"Few have set themselves to the formidable task of reconstructing and analyzing a whole human environment; fewer still have succeeded. Bloch dared to do this and was successful; therein lies the enduring achievement of Feudal Society."—Charles Garside, Yale Review

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Product Details Paperback: 499 pages Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (August 15, 1964) Language: English ISBN-10: 0226059790 ISBN-13: 978-0226059792 Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies) Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews) Amazon.com Sales Rank: #256,901 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Index | Back Cover | Surprise Me!

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Inside This Book (learn more)

First Sentence:
FOR the writers who first gave feudalism its name, for the men of the French Revolution, who worked to destroy it, the idea of nobility seemed inseparably linked with it. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Statistically Improbable Phrases (SIPs): (learn more)
droit normand, first feudal age, second feudal age, military vassals, del diritto italiano, territorial principalities, high justice, low justice, peace associations, der roman, revue historique, legal class, great barons, feudal era, knightly class

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Middle Ages, East Francia, Girart de Roussillon, West Francia, Philip Augustus, Carolingian Empire, Frederick Barbarossa, Hugh Capet, Charles the Bald, Louis the Pious, Roman Empire, Bertrand de Born, Charles the Simple, Ramon Lull, West Frankish, William the Conqueror, Emperor Henry, German Minnesang, Hugh the Great, Marc Bloch, Robert the Pious

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Citations (learn more)

This book cites 32 books:

• Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances (8 Volumes in 7) by Heinrich Oskar Sommer on page 28, and Back Matter
• Norman Institutions by C. H. Haskins on page 33, and Back Matter
• First Century of English Feudalism (Ford Lectures, 1929.) by Frank Merry Stenton in Back Matter (1), and Back Matter (2)
• Time, Work, and Culture in the Middle Ages by Jacques Le Goff in Back Matter
• The Medieval Village (Dover Books on History, Political and Social Science) by G. G. Coulton in Back Matter

See all 32 books this book cites

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Books on Related Topics (learn more)

Medieval France by William Kibler

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Discusses:

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France in the Middle Ages 987-1460 by Georges Duby

Discusses:

• territorial principalities
• West Francia
• Philip Augustus

The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 4 by David Luscombe

Discusses:

• territorial principalities
• high justice
• knightly class

The Cambridge History of Medieval Political Thought c.350-c.1450 by J. H. Burns

Discusses:

• droit normand
• del diritto italiano
• territorial principalities

Medieval Callings by Jacques Le Goff

Discusses:

• territorial principalities
• high justice
• knightly class

Medieval France by William Kibler Discusses: territorial principalities low justice Middle Ages The Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages by Norman F. Cantor Discusses: peace associations feudal era Hugh Capet France in the Middle Ages 987-1460 by Georges Duby Discusses: territorial principalities West Francia Philip Augustus The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 4 by David Luscombe Discusses: territorial principalities high justice knightly class Loading...

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews 5 star:  (9) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.9 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews 48 of 49 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: A Modern Classic, Not Yet Out-Moded, January 27, 2005 By  Ian M. Slater "aylchanan" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)    This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback) I suppose I should be of two minds about Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society," a French work from the late 1930s which became available in English in the early 1960s, and was still fresh and exciting back when I was taking a freshman course on "Western Civilization." In theory, the book (and it is one book, although published in paperback in two volumes) has two major drawbacks. In practice, I find it solid, admirable, and well worth reading. One drawback is the author's romantic glorification of the medieval peasant -- Norman Cantor has called attention to this in his "Inventing the Middle Ages," pointing out that Bloch gave it Marxist trappings. I call it romantic because I suspect that Bloch owed at least as much to Jules Michelet's nineteenth-century historiography, initially with a veneer of "science" added. Of course, Bloch actually went out and did fundamental work in the archives, and tried to get a real picture of how, in the long term, life had been lived by ordinary people, instead of relying on Michelet-style suppositions. (Yes, Bloch's "Annales" school is supposed to be the antithesis of the enthusiastic Michelet; but, while Bloch established its methodology in reaction to existing approaches, in Bloch's last book "The Historian's Craft," Michelet is still among "our great forebears.") The second is the concept of "Feudalism" itself, which these days makes anyone with a serious background in medieval studies very uncomfortable. A very good case can be made that "Feudalism" is largely a set of modern constructs, re-invented several times since the sixteenth century to suit different legal, political, and social purposes, and presented as an "Historic Fact" alongside contemporary and later "discoveries" such as "Anglo-Saxon Liberty," "The Norman Yoke," and "Our Ancestors the Gauls." (A short, pointed, introduction to one aspect of the problem is J.G.A. Pocock's "The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century.") If it means anything for modern-day historians, the term applies to how control of land, and its revenue, was linked to social status, political authority, judicial functions, and reciprocal military obligations -- a large, messy, topic. So the feeling is growing that the word is best avoided, as carrying too much baggage, and too likely to be invoked as a substitute for thought. Indeed, as picked up by Karl Marx, Feudalism, equated largely with landlord-tenant agriculture instead of sub-divided political and judicial authority, became a theoretical concept to be applied to a variety of extra-European societies, as a stage in an inevitable social evolution. In this role, it produced, or at least became a part of, bitter, and literally murderous, disputes over the nature of Russian and Chinese society, among others. Even with all this in mind, and many years after first reading it, I find Bloch's emphasis on the material basis of medieval society refreshing, and think that he carried it out with reasonable consistency. Whatever his agenda, he went looking for real data, and adjusted theory to match it, which is where he parts company with both Michelet and Marx. That later work has revealed a more complex, and in some ways different, picture does not discredit his effort. And having the hardworking peasant as a sort of collective hero helps hold together discussions of things like field rotation, strip cultivation, and plough-teams, which most readers will not find all that gripping on their own. More important, in some ways, Bloch presented feudal *society* -- not some imaginary entity called "Feudalism" or "The Feudal System" -- as a whole set of ways of ordering people and institutions, and making resources available to various parts of a diversified ruling class. The unsystematic nature of actuality is not denied, but it is classified in terms of common elements. This getting down to practical realities may not sound so impressive, but a couple of generations of scholars had been smacking each other over the head (in this case, figuratively) in an argument of whether "Feudalism" was *really* Roman or Germanic, with partisan sub-divisions on whether either origin was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. Somehow, figuring out how it worked had seemed less important than what Mircea Eliade called "The Prestige of Origins" -- a form of mythical thought as much as a topic of historical research. So instead of a broad theory of a single "origin," we get "The Growth of Ties of Dependence" (volume one of the paperback edition), followed by "Social Classes and Political Organization," showing the extent to which the pattern of rural hierarchies did, or did not, carry over into "higher" or "more advanced" developments. Although probably much more accurate for France than for other parts of Europe, and for some centuries more than others, the book does manage to present a (by and large) convincing picture of how Europe re-organized itself between the collapse of Rome and the High Middle Ages. A reminder of the people who made it all possible, but were usually left out of the chronicles, and certainly are missing from most of the chansons de geste and romances, is not a bad basis for a book. Still, largely for reasons of documentation, Bloch is sometimes rather better at explaining how the military aristocracy was supported, than at presenting the daily lives of the people who were doing the work. His analysis of how some knights and officials had "fiefs" which were simply stipends, or even what we might consider cafeteria privileges, is an interesting sidelight to "life on a medieval manor" approaches. It also reveals that methods of supporting the clergy and the nobility were not all that different, which shouldn't be a big surprise, given the limited options available. So I continue to think of Bloch's "Feudal Society" as a valuable contribution, to be read and pondered, although not taken at face value, by anyone seriously interested in medieval European society, or supposedly comparable systems elsewhere. Since it has also generated a half-century of follow-ups, attacks, and defenses, it is also a good book to have read as part of getting acquainted with a wider literature. 21 of 21 people found the following review helpful: 5.0 out of 5 stars On the top ten list for medieval studies, July 12, 2002 By  Glenn McDorman (Denver) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)       This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback) Bloch's work is one of the ten most important and influential books on medieval Europe. Bloch displays true excellence in sholarship and narration. Nothing is stated without factual documentation to support it, and no information is carried beyond its logical conclusions. It is essential to read this two volume work before moving too deeply into medieval studies. Combine this work with Strayer's Feudalism (out of print, unfortunately) and you will have a good understanding of what society was like in a good portion of the Middle Ages. 10 of 11 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars The Evolution of Feudalism, June 1, 2005 By  S. Pactor "reader" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)       Amazon Verified Purchase This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback) Certainly an undeniable classic in the field of "history of the middle ages". As other reviewers have already noted, Bloch was one of the initial members of what grew to become the "annales" school of western history, though, to be fair, he died before you could call it a "school" or "movement". Volume one of the two volume set looks at the growth of feudalism in western society, and by western I'm talking about Northern France, Western Germany, England and Northern Italy. Bloch's main concern in this volume is setting the conditions which led to the developmen of feudalism from 800 AD to 1000 AD and then describing the various forms that feudalism took. The book is well translated, and I found it hard to argue with much of the thesis. I too have read Norman Cantor's "the Making of the Middle Ages" where he calls Bloch a Marxist (and maligns the entire Annales school). I've also read more recent productions from the Annales school. I have to say, based on this particular book, I don't really see where Bloch is a)romanticizing the peasant (another Cantor criticism) or b) a marxist. It seemed to me that Bloch's explanation for the growth of feudalism was, basically, that central government decayed to the point where various muck a mucks needed to find an alternative way to "rally the troops" in the face of frequent small to mid size invasions. Feudalism, with its emphasis on individual obligation and quid pro pro, was an attempt to remedy the lack of communication over long distances and lack of central authority. The peasants didn't really figure in this book at all, except near the end. Certainly, one wouldn't accuse this book of being filled with marxist/post-modern/decontructionist gobbeldy gook. This is a must read for those interested in the field, especially lay men.		Ad feedback   Most Recent Customer Reviews 5.0 out of 5 stars A review by a non-historian I read this book for a contemporary historiography class. As has been told by other reviewers, Marc Bloch is the founder (together with Lucien Febvre) of the Annales school. Read more Published on December 2, 2006 by Alejandro Cheirif 5.0 out of 5 stars Feudalism as a social type This book might be the most widely read among Bloch¡¯s works who is the pioneer of Annal school. This book typifies the methodology of Annal school. Read more Published on July 14, 2002 by Suckwoo Lee 5.0 out of 5 stars On the top ten list for medieval studies Bloch's work is one of the ten most important and influential books on medieval Europe. Bloch displays true excellence in sholarship and narration. Read more Published on July 12, 2002 by Glenn McDorman 5.0 out of 5 stars Lords of the Land: Marc Bloch's Feudalism - Masterful Work Marc Bloch's Feudal Society is the most informative and by far the best documented treatise one is likely to encounter among all the books and articles ever written on this... Read more Published on April 11, 2000 by Dr. Mark C. Kennedy 5.0 out of 5 stars Lords of the Land: Marc Bloch's Fduealism - Masterful Work Marc Bloch's Feudal Society is the most informative and by far the best documented treatise one is likely to encounter among all the books and articles ever written on this... Read more Published on April 11, 2000 by Dr. Mark C. Kennedy 5.0 out of 5 stars Lords of the Land: Marc Bloch's Fduealism - Masterful Work Marc Bloch's Feudal Society is the most informative and by far the best documented treatise one is likely to encounter among all the books and articles ever written on this... Read more Published on April 11, 2000 by Dr. Mark C. Kennedy 5.0 out of 5 stars Classic, innovative history Marc Bloch, one of the greatest historians of this century, and one of the leaders of the French Annalistes, provides a stimulating, in-depth and multifaceted analysis of the... Read more Published on April 6, 2000 Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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Product Details

• Paperback: 499 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press (August 15, 1964)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226059790
• ISBN-13: 978-0226059792
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.2 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #256,901 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ian Myles Slater on: A Modern Classic, Not Yet Out-Moded, January 27, 2005

By	Ian M. Slater "aylchanan" (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback)

I suppose I should be of two minds about Marc Bloch's "Feudal Society," a French work from the late 1930s which became available in English in the early 1960s, and was still fresh and exciting back when I was taking a freshman course on "Western Civilization." In theory, the book (and it is one book, although published in paperback in two volumes) has two major drawbacks. In practice, I find it solid, admirable, and well worth reading.

One drawback is the author's romantic glorification of the medieval peasant -- Norman Cantor has called attention to this in his "Inventing the Middle Ages," pointing out that Bloch gave it Marxist trappings. I call it romantic because I suspect that Bloch owed at least as much to Jules Michelet's nineteenth-century historiography, initially with a veneer of "science" added. Of course, Bloch actually went out and did fundamental work in the archives, and tried to get a real picture of how, in the long term, life had been lived by ordinary people, instead of relying on Michelet-style suppositions. (Yes, Bloch's "Annales" school is supposed to be the antithesis of the enthusiastic Michelet; but, while Bloch established its methodology in reaction to existing approaches, in Bloch's last book "The Historian's Craft," Michelet is still among "our great forebears.")

The second is the concept of "Feudalism" itself, which these days makes anyone with a serious background in medieval studies very uncomfortable. A very good case can be made that "Feudalism" is largely a set of modern constructs, re-invented several times since the sixteenth century to suit different legal, political, and social purposes, and presented as an "Historic Fact" alongside contemporary and later "discoveries" such as "Anglo-Saxon Liberty," "The Norman Yoke," and "Our Ancestors the Gauls." (A short, pointed, introduction to one aspect of the problem is J.G.A. Pocock's "The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law: A Study of English Historical Thought in the Seventeenth Century.")

If it means anything for modern-day historians, the term applies to how control of land, and its revenue, was linked to social status, political authority, judicial functions, and reciprocal military obligations -- a large, messy, topic. So the feeling is growing that the word is best avoided, as carrying too much baggage, and too likely to be invoked as a substitute for thought.

Indeed, as picked up by Karl Marx, Feudalism, equated largely with landlord-tenant agriculture instead of sub-divided political and judicial authority, became a theoretical concept to be applied to a variety of extra-European societies, as a stage in an inevitable social evolution. In this role, it produced, or at least became a part of, bitter, and literally murderous, disputes over the nature of Russian and Chinese society, among others.

Even with all this in mind, and many years after first reading it, I find Bloch's emphasis on the material basis of medieval society refreshing, and think that he carried it out with reasonable consistency. Whatever his agenda, he went looking for real data, and adjusted theory to match it, which is where he parts company with both Michelet and Marx. That later work has revealed a more complex, and in some ways different, picture does not discredit his effort. And having the hardworking peasant as a sort of collective hero helps hold together discussions of things like field rotation, strip cultivation, and plough-teams, which most readers will not find all that gripping on their own.

More important, in some ways, Bloch presented feudal *society* -- not some imaginary entity called "Feudalism" or "The Feudal System" -- as a whole set of ways of ordering people and institutions, and making resources available to various parts of a diversified ruling class. The unsystematic nature of actuality is not denied, but it is classified in terms of common elements.

This getting down to practical realities may not sound so impressive, but a couple of generations of scholars had been smacking each other over the head (in this case, figuratively) in an argument of whether "Feudalism" was *really* Roman or Germanic, with partisan sub-divisions on whether either origin was a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. Somehow, figuring out how it worked had seemed less important than what Mircea Eliade called "The Prestige of Origins" -- a form of mythical thought as much as a topic of historical research.

So instead of a broad theory of a single "origin," we get "The Growth of Ties of Dependence" (volume one of the paperback edition), followed by "Social Classes and Political Organization," showing the extent to which the pattern of rural hierarchies did, or did not, carry over into "higher" or "more advanced" developments.

Although probably much more accurate for France than for other parts of Europe, and for some centuries more than others, the book does manage to present a (by and large) convincing picture of how Europe re-organized itself between the collapse of Rome and the High Middle Ages. A reminder of the people who made it all possible, but were usually left out of the chronicles, and certainly are missing from most of the chansons de geste and romances, is not a bad basis for a book.

Still, largely for reasons of documentation, Bloch is sometimes rather better at explaining how the military aristocracy was supported, than at presenting the daily lives of the people who were doing the work. His analysis of how some knights and officials had "fiefs" which were simply stipends, or even what we might consider cafeteria privileges, is an interesting sidelight to "life on a medieval manor" approaches. It also reveals that methods of supporting the clergy and the nobility were not all that different, which shouldn't be a big surprise, given the limited options available.

So I continue to think of Bloch's "Feudal Society" as a valuable contribution, to be read and pondered, although not taken at face value, by anyone seriously interested in medieval European society, or supposedly comparable systems elsewhere. Since it has also generated a half-century of follow-ups, attacks, and defenses, it is also a good book to have read as part of getting acquainted with a wider literature.

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars On the top ten list for medieval studies, July 12, 2002

By	Glenn McDorman (Denver) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback)

Bloch's work is one of the ten most important and influential books on medieval Europe. Bloch displays true excellence in sholarship and narration. Nothing is stated without factual documentation to support it, and no information is carried beyond its logical conclusions. It is essential to read this two volume work before moving too deeply into medieval studies. Combine this work with Strayer's Feudalism (out of print, unfortunately) and you will have a good understanding of what society was like in a good portion of the Middle Ages.

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Evolution of Feudalism, June 1, 2005

By	S. Pactor "reader" (San Diego, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Feudal Society, Volume 1: The Growth of Ties of Dependence (Paperback)

Certainly an undeniable classic in the field of "history of the middle ages". As other reviewers have already noted, Bloch was one of the initial members of what grew to become the "annales" school of western history, though, to be fair, he died before you could call it a "school" or "movement".

Volume one of the two volume set looks at the growth of feudalism in western society, and by western I'm talking about Northern France, Western Germany, England and Northern Italy. Bloch's main concern in this volume is setting the conditions which led to the developmen of feudalism from 800 AD to 1000 AD and then describing the various forms that feudalism took.

The book is well translated, and I found it hard to argue with much of the thesis. I too have read Norman Cantor's "the Making of the Middle Ages" where he calls Bloch a Marxist (and maligns the entire Annales school). I've also read more recent productions from the Annales school. I have to say, based on this particular book, I don't really see where Bloch is a)romanticizing the peasant (another Cantor criticism) or b) a marxist.

It seemed to me that Bloch's explanation for the growth of feudalism was, basically, that central government decayed to the point where various muck a mucks needed to find an alternative way to "rally the troops" in the face of frequent small to mid size invasions. Feudalism, with its emphasis on individual obligation and quid pro pro, was an attempt to remedy the lack of communication over long distances and lack of central authority.

The peasants didn't really figure in this book at all, except near the end. Certainly, one wouldn't accuse this book of being filled with marxist/post-modern/decontructionist gobbeldy gook. This is a must read for those interested in the field, especially lay men.