Fief

Feudo (in Latin, feodum or feudum; in medieval French, fief; in Germanic languages, Lehn, Lehen or leen; lit. loan) is the term used in feudalism to assign to the land that the lord grants to the vassal in the vassalage contract, as part of the benefit that the lord owes to the vassal. servant for the fulfillment of their obligations of auxilium et consilium ('help' —military support—, and 'advice' —political support—). The economic and production relations that were established in the feud They occurred between that "vassal", now acting as "lord", and the peasants of his jurisdiction according to their different situation: serfs (the one with the greatest subjection, usually subject to mandatory benefits of work) or free peasants.

Taxes

In the fief there were establishments for a use, the lord charged against benefits in cash or in kind. Among these establishments were the bakery, the blacksmith, the tavern and the mill. They could also accrue for the exploitation of a forest, the use of a river, and eventually its fording through a bridge, the use of which accrued the "toll" or pontage. All these incomes constituted the monopoly of the lord and were also supplemented with those he obtained from his own farmland or domain, in which the serfs worked. The Church also had its own tax called tithe, consisting of the collection of 10% of the harvest. The King was the one who commanded and organized everything.

Fief and lordship

In Castile, it can be considered as equivalent to lordship. However, there is a historiographical debate about the differences between the seigneurial regime in Castile and the European model, linked to the decomposition of the Carolingian Empire.

In the Crown of Aragon the term fief was as common as señorío. Unlike the models in Castilla, in Aragon the so-called honored feud or honorato coexists, together with the traditional fief, which differs from the rest in which no economic compensation is produced, since the feudal concession is absque tamen aliquius prestacione servicii or nulli servitio obnoxium, and is received under the formula of oath, fidelity and tribute.

The fief is linked to the nobility

Although originally the lord (for example, the king) retained the ability to withdraw the fief from his vassal (for example, a count), the fief in practice became lifelong and hereditary, becoming the heritage of a noble family. It is not convenient to use the term property for this relationship, more properly linkage. Full property rights are not typical of the Middle Ages (not even of the Old Regime), but of Roman law or the Liberal State. The lord who gives it, and his noble vassal who receives it, somehow share some kind of domain right over the fiefdom (which could go as far as the theoretical reversion to the lord in case of felony or breach of due fidelity, or the release of all obligation for the vassal in felony by the lord), in the same way that the lord and his peasant serf also share domain over the land (useful domain and eminent domain).

The fief, economic unit

The way to economically exploit the fief, in its "classical" way, in the centuries of the High Middle Ages, in which there was almost no monetary circulation and very little commercialization of the surpluses, consisted of distributing the land into two portions: the stately reserve and the meek. Each meek was given to a peasant, who entrusted himself ( commendatio ) to the lord (either freely or by force), becoming his servant. In Latin servus (ancilla) could be translated as slave, but in reality in feudal times the use of slave labor in agriculture was not dominant. The legal status of the serf was not one of freedom either, since he was tied to the land he worked. Of course, he had the product of his meekness, which he cultivated at his discretion and from which he obtained what was necessary for his subsistence (in terms of historical materialism, the reproduction of his labor power). The days that he fixed the custom (corvea in France, serna in Castilla) he had to work obligatorily in the seigneurial reserve. This surplus work is the way of obtaining the surplus by the lord, who will benefit from the product of that reserve (appropriation of the surplus by extra-economic coercion, in those same terms, which defines the feudal mode of production).

The activation of the economy throughout the centuries, especially after the year 1000, which allows there to be monetary circulation and the emergence of regional, urban and then long-distance markets, will cause the model to be altered, and labor payments are converted into payments in kind (fixed or percentages, as in sharecropping) or in money (feudal rent). For the lord, there were also a multitude of feudal rights that guaranteed that all kinds of surplus would be delivered to him (portazgos, tolls, right to mill, tavern, store, exploitation of forests, hunting and rivers...) including the most important payments. controversial (ius primae noctis or derecho de seigneur, usually redeemable with a payment). The appropriation of taxes theoretically from the king (such as the alcabala in Castile) was also very common from the lords, in the Late Middle Ages.