[Northkeep] interesting article on the f word

[Hugh & Belinda Niewoehner]

  Feudalism, that is:

The "system" of feudalism that we all were taught in school never

actually existed.

http://historymedren.about.com/od/feudalism/a/feudalism.htm



The article is interesting from the point of view that the terminology 
historians use and oversimplification of Medieval Society has been 
caused by errors made in the sixteenth century.


However, as one Calontiri wrote:


> It's been a while since I read any of the "anti-feudalism" 
> literature.  As I remember=2C it mostly comes down to a semantics 
> issue=2C with a bit of "not every relationship fits the mold" thrown 
> in.  As in all situations=2C reality does not perfectly fit the label 
> we use to describe it.
>
> The feudal model does not fit every relationship throughout the time 
> period called the middle ages.  There are those who argue that since 
> it doesn't fit perfectly=2C we should do away with the term.  If we 
> did that=2C we would have to do away with every word that gets over 
> used to describe something that almost fits the definition.
>

-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: Attached Message Part
URL: <http://lists.ansteorra.org/pipermail/northkeep-ansteorra.org/attachments/20101006/487e5f2b/attachment-0001.txt>