Having been exposed to a little bit of actual history, it wouldn’t surprise me a bit if the feudal societies in fiction are gross oversimplifications of real world feudalism.
There is a sizable minority of academic historians that deny there ever was such a thing as real world feudalism (as it is popularly conceived of). See for example, the work of historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown.
Thanks that was an interesting read. It seems like this may be connected to how there’s been a lot of effort to distinguish feudalism from manorialism.
There is a sizable minority of academic historians that deny there ever was such a thing as real world feudalism (as it is popularly conceived of). See for example, the work of historian Elizabeth A. R. Brown.
Can you give a quick summary of what they mean by this? This sounds very interesting.
Sure, see the Substack post Feudalism as a Contested Concept in Historical Political Economy by Mark Koyama.
Sorry for the late response.
Thanks that was an interesting read. It seems like this may be connected to how there’s been a lot of effort to distinguish feudalism from manorialism.