For generations, historians described medieval Europe through the lens of a rigid “feudal pyramid,” where benefices created vassals and vassals became knights. Yet closer examination of the evidence shows that this picture is more myth than reality.
By David Bachrach
In her famous article, “The Tyranny of a Construct,” Elizabeth A. R. Brown put a shot across the bow of the century-long scholarly tradition of presenting medieval Europe as a “feudal pyramid” in which political, economic, social, and military power was diffused into the hands of barons, bishops, and castellans. Two decades later, Susan Reynolds sought to put a stake through the heart of the feudal construct with her monumental study Fiefs and Vassals. And yet the underlying assumptions of “feudalism” have retained their force in some corners of the scholarly world. This is particularly true of the treatment of military matters. Historians, who ought to know better, continue to write glowingly about knights who rose into the aristocracy as the vassals of lords who granted them benefices.
Benefices, Precaria, and Misconceptions
It is now well understood, particularly as the result of the work of the German historian Brigitte Kasten, that the whole construct of the benefice (Latin beneficium) as the foundation of the feudal order is based on a series of misconceptions about what a benefice was, its origins, who held them, and under what conditions. It had always been the case, dating back to the Roman Empire, that one way of providing an income to soldiers in late antique and medieval Europe was to provide them with lands, or the revenues from specific lands, either individually or corporately as part of a military unit. This was, for example, the main means of supporting the frontier troops of the later Roman Empire called limitanei. However, such grants of lands had nothing to do with either benefices or with vassalage.
The term beneficium belonged to later Roman land law and was an element in a specific type of property agreement known as a precarium. Under the terms of such an agreement, an individual called a precator transferred formal possession of a piece of property to another individual or institution, usually a church. After making this grant, the precator received back lifetime use (Latin usufructus) of the property as well as the lifetime use of an additional economic asset, often of comparable value. The lifetime use of both properties was denoted, in late Roman law and subsequently in early medieval Europe, as a beneficium. To assure that everyone agreed and understood that both properties belonged to the second party, again usually a church, the precator paid a small annual fee, usually on the anniversary of the date on which the agreement for the precarium was made.
Charles Martel divides the realm between his sons. Grandes Chroniques de France. Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms. fr. 2615, fol. 72.
The making of a precarial agreement was purely economic in nature and did not bring with it any implication of either servitude or service. People of all economic and social statuses engaged in precarial arrangements. There were many reasons to make a precarial agreement. Older people, particularly those without surviving children, used them as a kind of annuity. Clerics, who often were unmarried and did not have children, or at least legitimate children, often used precaria to increase their income while at the same time gaining religious benefits from making a donation to a church, which would only take effect once they died. Individuals who required a larger income to establish a business or purchase capital goods also found precarial arrangements valuable.
The widespread use of precaria led to the development of a body of supplemental law to protect the rights of both parties. The most important and well-known legal principle was the ius beneficiarium. Like the beneficium, this term and its underlying meaning has been misinterpreted and misrepresented by scholars who sought to identify a legal underpinning for feudalism. In particular, the ius beneficiarium has been presented as the right of the holder of a benefice to pass this asset on to an heir. But this interpretation is entirely contrary to the basic principle of the precarial property agreement, whereby the precator received lifetime use of additional assets, and the second party then received payment in the form of the property given by the precator. In fact, the ius beneficiarium offered protection to the precatores such that they would not lose use of the economic assets simply because they failed to pay the small annual fee on time. They usually had a lengthy period of up to two or three years to make good on the fee.
The use of the term beneficium to refer to the usufruct of assets acquired in a precarial agreement remained the norm up through the tenth century and retained this same meaning in many places well into the eleventh century. However, the term beneficium also took on an additional meaning under the Carolingian rulers to refer specifically to the property that was used to support fighting men. An early example of the use of the term beneficium in this way was during the rule of Charles Martel as mayor of the palace (718–741) in the regnum Francorum during the late Merovingian period. He famously required many churches to provide lands to his fighting men under the rubric of beneficia pro verbo regis, meaning the granting of benefices at the command of the king.
This type of beneficium was similar in some ways to the traditional beneficium associated with a precarial agreement because the recipient was required to pay an annual fee to the church from which the lands had been “borrowed” by the government. However, the overall model was very different. First, the church did not actually receive anything in return for the granting of usufruct of its properties. Rather, Charles Martel and his successors, including Charlemagne (768–814), asserted their right to control the assets of churches in a manner similar to their control over the assets of the royal fisc. Secondly, the holder of the beneficium from the church had to pay a much larger percentage of the revenues that he received from these lands than was the case in a normal precarial relationship. Typically, the fighting man was required to pay a ninth and a tenth (for a total of 19%) of the revenues of the property. However, as was the case in a typical precarial arrangement, the payment demonstrated legally that the church was still the actual owner of the asset.
Soldiers, Not Vassals
Early 9th-century depiction of a warrior – Valenciennes BM MS.99 fol. 35r
Throughout the eighth to eleventh centuries both types of beneficia coexisted throughout the lands that comprised the Carolingian Empire and its various successor states. The holders of beneficia in the traditional precarial arrangement never were denoted as vassals. Just as importantly, the fighting men who held beneficia pro verbo regis also did not become the vassals of the churches from whom they held lands. The churches were simply the providers of property to support the ruler’s soldiers. In addition, many of the fighting men who received beneficia from the ruler did not become his vassals. Under the Carolingians, the term vassalus denoted a relationship of personal service to the ruler, which often was not military in nature.
By the eleventh century, we do see the amalgamation of the two types of beneficia. Precarial arrangements provided the basis on which individuals entered the military service of churchmen, usually bishops. This phenomenon is particularly well attested in the German kingdom. However, these men usually were not denoted as the bishop’s vassi, but rather as his milites—that is, as his soldiers (not his knights).
In sum, scholars searching for a “feudal” Europe conflated entirely separate phenomena and asserted that the holders of benefices were vassals, and that these vassals, in turn, were “knights.” In reality, most holders of beneficia up through the end of the tenth century did not owe military service for them. Even in the eleventh century, when the term beneficium came increasingly to denote the lands used to support a fighting man, these individuals were neither vassals nor knights. Rather, like the limitanei seven centuries earlier, they were soldiers.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Further Reading:
Brigitte Kasten, “Economic and Political Aspects of Leases in the Kingdom of the Franks During the Eighth and Ninth Centuries: A Contribution to the Current Debate about Feudalism,” in Feudalism: New Landscapes of Debate (Turnhout, 2011), 27–55
For generations, historians described medieval Europe through the lens of a rigid “feudal pyramid,” where benefices created vassals and vassals became knights. Yet closer examination of the evidence shows that this picture is more myth than reality.
By David Bachrach
In her famous article, “The Tyranny of a Construct,” Elizabeth A. R. Brown put a shot across the bow of the century-long scholarly tradition of presenting medieval Europe as a “feudal pyramid” in which political, economic, social, and military power was diffused into the hands of barons, bishops, and castellans. Two decades later, Susan Reynolds sought to put a stake through the heart of the feudal construct with her monumental study Fiefs and Vassals. And yet the underlying assumptions of “feudalism” have retained their force in some corners of the scholarly world. This is particularly true of the treatment of military matters. Historians, who ought to know better, continue to write glowingly about knights who rose into the aristocracy as the vassals of lords who granted them benefices.
Benefices, Precaria, and Misconceptions
It is now well understood, particularly as the result of the work of the German historian Brigitte Kasten, that the whole construct of the benefice (Latin beneficium) as the foundation of the feudal order is based on a series of misconceptions about what a benefice was, its origins, who held them, and under what conditions. It had always been the case, dating back to the Roman Empire, that one way of providing an income to soldiers in late antique and medieval Europe was to provide them with lands, or the revenues from specific lands, either individually or corporately as part of a military unit. This was, for example, the main means of supporting the frontier troops of the later Roman Empire called limitanei. However, such grants of lands had nothing to do with either benefices or with vassalage.
The term beneficium belonged to later Roman land law and was an element in a specific type of property agreement known as a precarium. Under the terms of such an agreement, an individual called a precator transferred formal possession of a piece of property to another individual or institution, usually a church. After making this grant, the precator received back lifetime use (Latin usufructus) of the property as well as the lifetime use of an additional economic asset, often of comparable value. The lifetime use of both properties was denoted, in late Roman law and subsequently in early medieval Europe, as a beneficium. To assure that everyone agreed and understood that both properties belonged to the second party, again usually a church, the precator paid a small annual fee, usually on the anniversary of the date on which the agreement for the precarium was made.
The making of a precarial agreement was purely economic in nature and did not bring with it any implication of either servitude or service. People of all economic and social statuses engaged in precarial arrangements. There were many reasons to make a precarial agreement. Older people, particularly those without surviving children, used them as a kind of annuity. Clerics, who often were unmarried and did not have children, or at least legitimate children, often used precaria to increase their income while at the same time gaining religious benefits from making a donation to a church, which would only take effect once they died. Individuals who required a larger income to establish a business or purchase capital goods also found precarial arrangements valuable.
The widespread use of precaria led to the development of a body of supplemental law to protect the rights of both parties. The most important and well-known legal principle was the ius beneficiarium. Like the beneficium, this term and its underlying meaning has been misinterpreted and misrepresented by scholars who sought to identify a legal underpinning for feudalism. In particular, the ius beneficiarium has been presented as the right of the holder of a benefice to pass this asset on to an heir. But this interpretation is entirely contrary to the basic principle of the precarial property agreement, whereby the precator received lifetime use of additional assets, and the second party then received payment in the form of the property given by the precator. In fact, the ius beneficiarium offered protection to the precatores such that they would not lose use of the economic assets simply because they failed to pay the small annual fee on time. They usually had a lengthy period of up to two or three years to make good on the fee.
The use of the term beneficium to refer to the usufruct of assets acquired in a precarial agreement remained the norm up through the tenth century and retained this same meaning in many places well into the eleventh century. However, the term beneficium also took on an additional meaning under the Carolingian rulers to refer specifically to the property that was used to support fighting men. An early example of the use of the term beneficium in this way was during the rule of Charles Martel as mayor of the palace (718–741) in the regnum Francorum during the late Merovingian period. He famously required many churches to provide lands to his fighting men under the rubric of beneficia pro verbo regis, meaning the granting of benefices at the command of the king.
This type of beneficium was similar in some ways to the traditional beneficium associated with a precarial agreement because the recipient was required to pay an annual fee to the church from which the lands had been “borrowed” by the government. However, the overall model was very different. First, the church did not actually receive anything in return for the granting of usufruct of its properties. Rather, Charles Martel and his successors, including Charlemagne (768–814), asserted their right to control the assets of churches in a manner similar to their control over the assets of the royal fisc. Secondly, the holder of the beneficium from the church had to pay a much larger percentage of the revenues that he received from these lands than was the case in a normal precarial relationship. Typically, the fighting man was required to pay a ninth and a tenth (for a total of 19%) of the revenues of the property. However, as was the case in a typical precarial arrangement, the payment demonstrated legally that the church was still the actual owner of the asset.
Soldiers, Not Vassals
Throughout the eighth to eleventh centuries both types of beneficia coexisted throughout the lands that comprised the Carolingian Empire and its various successor states. The holders of beneficia in the traditional precarial arrangement never were denoted as vassals. Just as importantly, the fighting men who held beneficia pro verbo regis also did not become the vassals of the churches from whom they held lands. The churches were simply the providers of property to support the ruler’s soldiers. In addition, many of the fighting men who received beneficia from the ruler did not become his vassals. Under the Carolingians, the term vassalus denoted a relationship of personal service to the ruler, which often was not military in nature.
By the eleventh century, we do see the amalgamation of the two types of beneficia. Precarial arrangements provided the basis on which individuals entered the military service of churchmen, usually bishops. This phenomenon is particularly well attested in the German kingdom. However, these men usually were not denoted as the bishop’s vassi, but rather as his milites—that is, as his soldiers (not his knights).
In sum, scholars searching for a “feudal” Europe conflated entirely separate phenomena and asserted that the holders of benefices were vassals, and that these vassals, in turn, were “knights.” In reality, most holders of beneficia up through the end of the tenth century did not owe military service for them. Even in the eleventh century, when the term beneficium came increasingly to denote the lands used to support a fighting man, these individuals were neither vassals nor knights. Rather, like the limitanei seven centuries earlier, they were soldiers.
David Bachrach is a Professor at the University of New Hampshire, where he researches medieval military history, particularly in England and Germany.
Further Reading:
Brigitte Kasten, “Economic and Political Aspects of Leases in the Kingdom of the Franks During the Eighth and Ninth Centuries: A Contribution to the Current Debate about Feudalism,” in Feudalism: New Landscapes of Debate (Turnhout, 2011), 27–55
Susan Reynolds, Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted (Oxford, 1994)
Elizabeth A. R. Brown, “The Tyranny of a Construct: Feudalism and Historians of Medieval Europe,” The American Historical Review 79.4 (1974), 1063–1088
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