Feudalism: The Rights and Responsibilities of Lords and Vassals

“I believe that every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation, every possession, a duty. -John D. Rockefeller American tycoon, businessman, and philanthropist

Rights and Responsibilities are brothers that work together to preserve each other. Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory. Responsibilities are the social forces that binds one to the courses of action demanded by that force. Rights are latent without responsibilities to redress them. During the medieval Europe the Vikings and other invaders posed a large threat to the safety of people throughout Europe, causing the rulers to find it more and more difficult to defend their subjects as centralized governments like Carolingian Empire were torn apart. Thus, people began to turn to local landed aristocrats, or nobles, to protect them, and to survive, it became important to find a powerful lord who could offer protection in return for service which led to a new political and social system called “feudalism”. Having rights embroils having the responsibility to conserve them, and Feudalism vividly elucidates the rights and responsibilities of the lords and vassals in medieval Europe.

The feudal contract

Saxon England, nearly devoid of castles, was also devoid of most of the social and economic apparatus that typically produced the castle. In 987 the Carolingian line finally lost the royal title west of the Rhine. The descendants of Charlemagne had exercised no effective control over the great feudal pri...

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..." In Daily life in medieval times. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 1999. 21

This book helped me understand that the Norman invaders developed the already existing feudalism in England.

Cantor, Norman F. "Ecclesia and Mundus." In The civilization of the Middle Ages: a completely revised and expanded edition of Medieval history, the life and death of a civilization. New York: HarperCollins, 1993. 206.

This part of the book helped me to understand the weakness of the descendants of Charlemagne leading to the invasion by the Normans.

Cantor, Norman F. "Cultural and Society in the First Europe." In The civilization of the Middle Ages: a completely revised and expanded edition of Medieval history, the life and death of a civilization, 196. 1st ed. New York: HarperCollins, 1993.

This part of the book helped to understand the power of the lordship in feudalism.