| | Some Objectivists or Libertarians apparently believe that feudalism was illegitimate (see here). However, that is not the case. In many ways, feudalism was an improvement over Roman society.
First, it is important to understand that feudalism developed over centuries, a longer span than the age of our nation, about as long as time from Jamestown to today. From the last western Roman emperor to Charlemagne, feudalism per se did not exist. Some of its roots had been laid down in the tribal traditions of the Germanic invaders, but the exact bilateralism of the social contract developed only slowly. The contact, broadly, was that the lord provided protection of the serfs and the serfs provided farmstuffs to him for that. That is legitimate. It is the same contract we have with our government.
One of advances in feudalism over Roman law was the abolition of slavery. In feudal Europe considered as a complex matrix, there were legal slaves as exceptions to the norm. For example, when king Stephen of Hungary Christianized his people about 1006 CE, he allied with Rome - rather than with Constantinople -- and this required that the Magyars abandon the institution of slavery. Slavery still existed in the East.
Furthermore, the medieval farmer had exactly the same opportunity to alter the contract that you do here and now. It happened. In England, one of the precursors to modern law enforcement was the system of "tithes and hundreds." The people took to themselves some of the burden of internal protection. In medieval society, the (free) farmers took to themselves the right to serve in the army rather than to pay produce. Magna Carta asserted in writing by contract the customary rights (and duties) of all free men (yeoman as well as barons). Articles 9, 15, and 16 clearly state contractual terms. Article 16 said that if the men chose to serve, then the lord could not demand further payment.
In point of fact, in point of theory, medieval government was legitimate. Would we want that kind of government today? We would not. Was it suitable for its time and place? Indeed it was. Was it an improvement over Roman law? Yes, it was. Were important elements of Roman law lost? Yes, they were. Were those elements recovered? We like to think so. Nonetheless, feudalism provided a legitimate form of social stability for its time and place.
|
|
