In the 17th century, more than three centuries after the death of this particular social practice, English scholars began to use the term feudalism to describe it. The word was derived from the English scholars of foedum, the Latin form of the fiefdom. The importance of feudalism has expanded since the 17th century, and today it often describes servitude and hierarchical oppression. However, feudalism is best understood as a first phase of social development leading to private ownership of the land and the creation of different land or earthly interests. Unlike Bloch, the Belgian historian François-Louis Ganshof defined feudalism from a narrow legal and military perspective, arguing that feudal relations existed only within the medieval nobility itself. Ganshof articulated this concept in What is feudalism? (“What is feudalism?”, 1944; translated into English as feudalism). Its classical definition of feudalism is now widely accepted among medieval scholars,[43] although it is questioned both by those who consider the concept in broader terms and by those who find in noble exchanges insufficient unity to support such a model. Feudalism was the system in medieval European societies from the 10th to the 13th century n.H. a social hierarchy was established, based on local administrative control and the distribution of land into units (Fiefs). A landowner (Sir) gave a fiefdom, with the promise of military and legal protection, in exchange for a payment of some kind from the person who received it (Vasall).
Such a payment came in the form of a feudal service that could mean military service or regular payment of goods or money. The lord and the vassal were both independents, and the term feudalism is generally not applied to the relationship between the nonfree peasantry (Serfs or Villeins) and the higher social person on the land from which they worked. Felony – In feudal law, any serious violation of the feudal treaty between Lord and Vassal. Subsequently, it was extended into the common law to include any crime against the king`s peace, signing that any serious crime should also be distinguished from the feudalism of the general brutality and oppression of medieval Europe. The popular understanding of feudalism often equates the bloody conquests of the Middle Ages (500-1500) with feudalism, because feudalism was a dominant social framework for much of the period.