The Three

Orders
by - Arpita Bonal
 Features of

Feudalism
All lands belongto king & no land is
without its lord.

Peasants cultivated their own land as
well as
of the lord & performed labour services
 for
them.
Lord, in exchange provided military
 protection & had extensive judicial

control over them.
Feudal rights were hereditary.
 Feuda
lism
A political, economic, and social
system based on loyalty and
military .
service
 The Three
 Those Orders
who
fight Those
 Those
who who
pray
work

Photo source:
[Link]
Those who
Fight
 The second order :
Priestsplaced

Nobility
firstorder, themselves in the
and nobles in the second.

The nobility had a central role in social

processes because they controlled land.
This
control was the outcome of a practice
called
„Vassalage‟.
.
 The
 He was the lord of all the people
settled Manor
on his land. He owned vast tracts of
land
which contained his own dwellings, his
private fields and pastures and the

homes
and fields of his tenant-peasants.
His house was called a manor.
His private lands were cultivated by
 The Demense: The manorial
Estate
The demensewas the
lord'slandwhichwasworkedbythe
peasants
The other part was held by the peasants but their plot
could
be cultivated after the demense

Manor was divided into long strips

One serf would have to work a number of strips

Manor required cooperation among serfs because

horses and
plows were limited
Some manors
fishing, and hadmeadows
open tracts of forest
for or hunting,
grazing, ponds
church on for
the
estate
 The manorial
state
 The manor could not be completely
self-
sufficient because salt, millstones
and
metal ware had to be obtained from


outside sources.
Those lords who wanted a luxurious
lifestyle and
furnishings, were keen
musical to buy rich
instruments
and
The Medieval
Manor
Life on the
Medieval Manor

Serfsat work
 The Manorial
 A Manorwasaself-
System
sufficientagricultural
peasants
estate run by
serfs.a and
lord and worked by
 Many
serf peasants at this time became serfs. A
was a peasant who was bound to the land
 Asthe population of Europe increased during
and
didn‟t really own any land of their own.
this
time there was less land to go around. Many
peasants
Serfs lost their holdings and became serfs.
could not leave the manor, they had to
 work to
pay rent, and had to pay fines and fees for
various
services on the manor. Serfs also could not
 marry
In without
exchange for their labor, the
the Lord‟s permission.
lords of the
Manorsdid owethe serfs protection in the
event
of
. invasion.
 Daily Life of
Peasants
 Peasantslived a hard-workingsimple

 life. lived in houses which had

They
thatched
roofs resting on timber framework
with
 the spaces filled with mud and straw.
There
Many were
housesfew, if
only any
had windows.
one to two
rooms,

there
The was
hearthlittle
in privacy.
the main room was used
to
both heat the house and cook the
 The

Knights
From the 9thcentury, there was frequent localised
wars in europe. The amateur peasants-soldiers
were not sufficient & good cavalry was needed,
this led the rise of knights.

They were linked to the lords, just as the latter
were
 linked to the king.

 The lord gave the knight a piece of land (called

„fief‟)
and promised to protect it.

The „fief‟ could be inherited. It extended to

anything
1000 & 2000 acres or more. It had all
 Knight
 Elite s
military
soldiers
Usually


from
noblethe

classes
Stages of


training:
page, Statue of a
medievalknight
squire,
 The First Order : The
Clergy
Everyone could not become a priest. Serfs were


banned, as were the physically challenged. Women

could not become priests. Men who became priests
could not marry. Bishops were the religious
 nobility.
Like lords who owned vast landed estates, the
bishops
 also had the use of vast estates, and lived in grand
palaces.
The Church was entitled to a tenth share of

whatever the peasants produced from their land
over the course of the year, called a „tithe‟.
Moneyalso came in the form of endowments made
 The Medieval
Catholic Church
 filled the power vacuum left from the
collapse of the classical world.

monasticism:
 St. Benedict–Benedictine Rule of
poverty, chastity, and obedience.
 provided schools for the children of
the upper
inns,
class. hospitals,
libraries refuge in
& scriptoriato times
copy of war.
books

and illuminate
monks missionaries to the
manuscripts.
barbarians. [St. Patrick, St. Boniface]
 The Power of the
Medieval Church
 bishops and abbots played a large part
in the feudal system.

the
landchurch controlled
in Western about 1/3 of the
Europe.

tried
days to curbfor
a year feudal warfare only 40
combat.

 curb heresies crusades; Inquisition
tithe1/10 tax on your assets given to
the church.

Peter’s
[paid byPence1 penny per person
the peasants].
 Religio

n
For medieval men and womenChristian belief and
practice permeatedallaspectsoflife

The village Church was the center of the

community
Pop-religion retained elements of paganism and

was wrought with rituals and symbols

Mass was in Latin but homilies about the gospel
were in
the vernacular


Paintings and stained-glass windows exposed the

peasants to biblical stories

There was a strong sense of God‟s existence



believing
The Third Order : Peasants &
Serfs



Third order sustained the first two
orders.
Cultivators were of two kinds: free peasants and
 serfs.
Free peasants held their farms as tenants of the lord. The men
had to
 render military service (at least 40 days every year).
Peasant families had to set aside certain days of the week,
usually 3
but often more, when they would go to the lord‟s estate and
 work
there. The output from such labour, called labour-rent, would

 go
directly to the lord.

In addition, they could be required to do other unpaid labour



services,
like digging ditches, gathering firewood, building fences and
repairing
 Serf

s
Serfs cultivated plotsofland,but these belonged to
the Much of the producefrom this had to be given
lord.
to the lord.

Theyalso had to work on the land which belonged
exclusively to the lord. They received no wages
and
 could not leave the estate without the lord‟s
permission.
The lord claimed a number of monopolies at the
expense
 of his serfs. Serfs could use only their lord‟s mill to
grind
their flour, his oven to bake their bread, & his wine
presses to distil wine & beer.
The lord could decide whom a serf should marry, or
 Improvement in
Technolog
Agricultural
 Windmills y
 Water
 Wheels
Iron

Iron
down plow (could go
tools
much deeper

Horse
 intothesoil)
System ofcrop
collar
Medieval
Trade
 Medieval
Cities
 Medieval cities were
smaller than other
ancient cities. They
were limited by the
wall which
surrounded
them.
 Medieval London had
a
population of around
40,000.
 The Crisis of the
14thCentury
 Political Changes-
Emergenceof„New
Monarchs
‟-
 Inthe 15th&16thcenturies,
strengthened their military and financial
Europeankings
power. Historians called these kings „the
new monarchs‟. Louis XI in France,
Maximilian in
Austria, Henry VII in England and Isabelle

and

Ferdinand in Spain were absolutist rulers,

They started the process of organising
 Feudalism in

England
Feudalism developed in England from the eleventh
century (1066 AD).

The Angles and Saxons, from central Europe, had
settled
 in England in the sixth century.

The country‟s name, England, is a variant of

„Angleland‟.
 In the eleventh century, William, the Duke of
Normandy*, crossed the English Channel with an
army
and defeated the Saxon king of England.
Thank
You