Feodalismen som fenomen : den säregna makten i det tidiga feodala samhället

Sammanfattning: The French historian Marc Bloch is considered to be one of the masters of medieval history, particularly his creation Feudal Society has been an essential piece of work for everyone who desires a deeper understanding of the general feudal society. Bloch gives his readers a vivid and living picture of a society so far beyond our present that it is sometimes hard to keep in mind that this society is part of our legacy. At the same time Bloch endows his readers with the special historical outlook he and his successors has developed, the history of the mentalities. By reaching further back in time, to the Roman and Germanic cultures and the manorial system, he proves his point that the feudal society was build on the legacy of older structures and institutions. In the coming study I will disentangle the early feudal structure of power as Bloch has described it in his Feudal Society. The essence of this power structure is to find in the very characteristic tie between two men, the vassalage. It is therefore the nature of vassalage, with the heavily armed horseman and the relations between the lord and his vassal, which is going to be of primary importance for my study. In my quest for the vassalage´s spirit, Bloch´s underlying structures mentioned above will play a vital part in the understanding of this power structure that dominated the feudal society. If the reader keep this in mind the study’s name, Feudalism as a Phenomenon – The Peculiar Power in the Early Feudal Society, becomes clear.