Feudalisme 2

The Past and Present Society
Review
Reviewed Work(s): Feudalism in History by Rushton Coulborn
Review by: Owen Lattimore
Source: Past & Present, No. 12 (Nov., 1957), pp. 47-57
Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society
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FEUDALISM IN HISTORY
Review Article
FOR THE EDITOR, THE CONTRIBUTOR, AND THE REVIEWER THERE IS NO

form more difficult than the symposium. It is especially difficult
when it is compounded, as Professor Coulborn has here compounded it,
with a long "comparative study" of the same themes that are discussed
in the individual studies. The difficulties are illustrated but not
eliminated in a joint introductory essay by Coulborn and Stray
After stating that "the larger aim of the book . . is not to pro
a new definition of feudalism", they find it necessary to set
working definition of feudalism as "primarily a method of governm
not an economic or a social system", though this method of gover
ment "obviously modifies and is modified by the social and econom
environment". Within it, "the essential relation is not that betwee
ruler and subject, nor state and citizen, but between lord and vass
Hence "the performance of political functions depends on pers
agreements", and "political authority is treated as a private
possession". The system "tends to be most effective at the local
level". Since functions are personal, "the military leader is usually
an administrator, and the administrator is usually a judge".
With this list of characteristics the difficulties begin. The con-
tributors cannot write uniformly, because the historical material
is not uniform. The editors themselves write that "The idea of
feudalism is an abstraction . . . invented . . chiefly by scho
of the eighteenth century [who] coined the word feudalism t
up a long series of loosely related facts". In succession, the
tributors find that (Europe): "it is the possession of rights
government by .. and the performance of most functions
S . . through feudal lords which clearly distinguishes feudalism .. ";
(Japan): the "abstraction" of feudalism "is an abstraction which
applies with equal validity to many of the facts of Japanese
history . . . "; (China): the "justification for such usage [as
'feudal'] is economic rather than political . . . "; (Ancient Near
East): "As for the attempt to visualise feudalism in the ancient Near
'Feudalism in History. Edited by Rushton Coulborn. Foreword by
A. L. Kroeber. Contributions by Joseph R. Strayer (Western Europe);
Edwin O. Reischauer (Japan); Derk Bodde (China); Burr C. Brundage
(Ancient Mesoptamia and Iran); William F. Edgerton (Ancient Egypt);
Daniel Thorner (India); Ernst H. Kantorowicz (Byzantine Empire); Marc
Szeftel (Russia); and " A comparative study of feudalism" by Rushton Coulborn,
Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1956, p. 439.
48 PAST AND PRESENT
East as a process, our meager documentation d

luxury"; (Ancient Egypt): "no opinions are o
any of the institutions described are feudal
no single work solely devoted to feudalism in
a single article on the place of feudalism in th
of India"; (Byzantium): "feudalism . . in th
organization of feudal society, does not seem a
conditions"; (Russia) : "aspects" of feudalism
Probably the most important omission in t
any discussion of feudalism in Islamic societies. Admittedly,
in the present state of world scholarship it would be difficult to tackle
the subject: but an interesting attempt to bridge the gap could be
made by having a non-Marxist Western scholar make a critical survey
of the Russian literature in which the exi3tence of Central Asian
and Middle Eastern feudalism is assumed, and many phenomena are
described in detail. Even if the pioneer found himself disputin
the criteria which lead Soviet scholars to use the terminology of
feudalism in this area, constructive criticism could result in useful
clarification of the pros and cons. My nomination for this enterpris
would be Sir Hamilton A. R. Gibb.
Coulborn himself, as editorial essayist, ranges far beyond t
bounds of the introductory definition. The pattern that he finds in
feudalism is reduced to a few words by A. L. Kroeber, who agre
with Coulborn - as I frequently do not. Kroeber is a Grand Ol
Man of anthropology and the comparative study of cultures, a
his opinion may well be found more authoritative than mine, whic
will be given below. "Coulborn", says Kroeber, "sees feudalism
as a socio-political aid in the revival of civilization when this, follow
ing the death of creativity in intellectual endeavour, begins to dry
rot . . . its political and economic fabric disintegrates. A new
religion may then develop or be introduced and lay the foundation
for a later regrowth of the civilisation. Feudalism may or may n
develop; if it does . . . it is as a rude but healthy reconstructi
device from the low point of disintegration and decline and as
instrument of the spread of the reconstructing civilisation".
The final difficulty is that of the reviewer. He cannot possib
have an even knowledge of all the periods, regions, and cultu
presented by the widely selected contributors. The only sensib
thing he can do is to start from familiar ground and write his way
forward. I suggest therefore the following description of feudalism
to be set beside that of Professor Coulbcrn:
FEUDALISM IN HISTORY 49
Feudalism is a complex of economic, soc

istrative methods of organisation (not "
government"). It emerges in periods wh
between these aspects of a society, military
wide geographical range, but transport
expensive that the exchange of food and go
cannot be organized within a common mark
to which military operations can reach
military range and market range largely ac
feudal warfare, to take by arms that wh
acquired by trade. Because supplies canno
the troops, feudal military operations have
last for a relatively short time, even though
the troops may thrust to a considerable dis
or they may be seasonal forays to collec
capture rivals to be held for ransom; or a s
so far that it breaks away and founds by c
- which may or may not continue to ackno
overlordship of the parent unit.
The administrative aspect of the feudal co
the military and the economic aspects.
wide an outreach as the military striking
which it appeals. Actually the outreach
over an outlying sub-unit has to be disc
sub-unit break away. Even so, however,
may be wider than economic integration, w
who needs the support of the center may
feudal dues what he could not be compel
what could not be profitably transporte
the market.
Feudalism in fact has analogies with barter economics, its duties,
protections, and services being exchanged rather than bought or
sold. The subordinate barters his services in return for protection
by the superior. In time, the relationship becomes more one of
exploitation, as the superior tends to give less protection while
demanding more duties and services. The pre-feudal barbarian
war-band leader holds his followers by the generosity of his gifts
and the promptness with which he comes to their support, and a
shift of emphasis toward what is expected of the subordinate marks
the transition to feudalism.
A feudal period may precede imperial unification, as in Chou
China; it may supervene upon the disintegration of an empire, as
50 PAST AND PRESENT
in Western Europe; or after a societ

to royal or imperial unification it m
as in several post-Han periods in Chine
is not necessarily a relapse all the way
post-Han relapse in China restored Ch
To simplify the concepts involved
thinking that sometimes goes with a t
much worn by use, I suggest that we
of evolutionary and relapse (or d
suggested terms have the advantage of
devolution is quite common; it is on
Darwin and Alfred Russell Wallace, o
form, have become so solidly lodge
think about the phenomena of devo
about those of evolution.
Thus J. R. Levenson, in his review of the Coulborn volume in
Far Eastern Quarterly, 15, Aug. 1956, raises the question whether
feudalism should be considered a stage of development on the
way to capitalism. E. Balazs, in the same journal, 16, Feb. 1957,
approves of Levenson's "dynamic" approach, but will not accept
the suggestion that Chinese feudalism may not have been a true
feudalism, because it eventuated in a bureaucratic society instead
of in capitalism. He then notes, in a most pregnant phrase, the
importance of "la recurrence des p6riodes de refdodalisation en
Chine". Such "refeudalisations" are devolutionary phenomena;
they correspond to the concept of "relapse" suggested above.
In short, when we study any feudal period we must consider
what it came from and what it was going toward; and if a feudal
society, after evolving to a post-feudal form for some reason fell
back, we must consider just what it was that it reverted from, and
just how far back into its own past it relapsed.
I think that it is not too sweeping to say that all feudalisms grow
out of periods of warfare. One of the weaknesses of this book is
that it does not adequately consider the nature of the warfare that
precedes and helps to produce feudalism. To be brief, its essential
characteristic is that it is chronic; it is not a question of sharp clashes
and quick, decisive conquests, but of warfare over a long period,
several generations at least, grinding away the old society and its
loyalties until the fragments are ready to be reintegrated as a feudal
society, cemented together by feudal concepts, institutions, and
loyalties. (The Norman conquest appears decisive enough, and its
outcome was English feudalism; but it had been preceded by chronic
FEUDALISM IN HISTORY 5I
war among the Saxons in England and by

Viking incursions).
Chronic pre-feudal warfare is frequently (
connected with migration. We know tha
prepared the way for European feudalism
tribal society in which, as it migrated an
were beginning to break down, with th
war-leader becoming more important than h
describes a German society in which follo
to a personal leader - a pre-feudal abando
in favor of a new institution of personal m
of tribal origin, in which the follower mus
and the leader extravagantly generous.
The thirteenth-century Secret history of
in this volume, more's the pity, for we bad
of tribalism and feudalism in pastoral no
flowing with relevant matter. S. Yushkov
material cited from it by Vladimirtsov, in a
of the pre-feudal ('barbarian') state", in V
but no other Marxist writer seems to have f
reconnaisance. Yushkov analysed in parall
Kievan Russia, the pre-Chingis Khan Mon
century Anglo-Saxons. A weakness of th
Yushkov nor Vladimirtsov, by whose ma
appreciated the cyclical character of hist
of China. Here pastoral societies repeatedl
frontier of whatever dynastic state was
phases there was an evolution toward feudalism. There is an
excellent description and analysis of one of the most feudal develop-
ments of this kind in Father Louis M. J. Schram, "The Monguors
of the Kansu-Tibetan frontier", Trans. Amer. Philosoph. Soc.,
n.s. 44 (I), 1954. In the counter-phase of the same cycle, when such
groups broke away from attachment to the imperial frontier, they
relapsed from evolution toward feudalism into a devolution back
toward tribalism.
Mongol society was in a phase of relapse at the time Chingis was
born. His clan had been attached to the frontier of the Chin
empire, a barbarian conquest empire in North China, but had broke
away. Tribal war was chronic. There had been so much fightin
for so long that, on the one hand, tribes that were blood-kin had bee
set against each other and, on the other hand, many tribes were so
shattered that they could no longer sufficiently man their warband
52 PAST AND PRESENT
with trusted kinsmen. The old instit

crises could still decide the turn of
see them emerging in the Secret histo
ment in several directions. There is t
brotherhood", in which each sworn b
of the oath, as if born into the othe
ancestors. Then there is the submissi
and protection of an unrelated kin
in which the subordinate group retai
fall to the status of "head men".
There is also the "lad", or "youth" (compare Western terms
like "junker", "childe"), who may be orginally a captive, but brought
up in the tribe as a warrior. (This development, elaborated on a
large scale, is the origin of the Turkish janissaries). Alternatively,
breaking away from the kinship standard, there is the Mongol
"nukur", Russian "druzhinnik" member of a "comitatus" (all of
these terms are etymologically and semantically parallel); the Frankish
"antrustion", the Saxon "huscarle". These "companions" are
probably a key phenomenon in an evolution toward feudalism because
they are effective in destroying the old blood-kin standard and ready
to hand as the raw material for a new feudal aristocracy; it is from
them that the successful war-leader picks trusted men to whom to
delegate territory and power. They destroy the old kinship standard
because they are warriors who will, if need be, fight against their kin;
their supreme loyalty is to the war-leader whom they have chosen.
Of course a new kinship structure supersedes the old, but it is now a
feudally oriented kinship of the war-created upper classes. The
subject class, those who actually work on the land or with cattle,
have family only in the sense of wife and children, while the possess-
ing classes have "family" in the sense of a recorded genealogy which
is important in determining their status. The lack of family name is
a phenomenon found both among European serfs and Mongol
tribesmen in the last period of "refeudalisation" under the Manchu
empire.
When the eroding warfare that precedes feudalism is partly the
work of migrating peoples in a succession of waves - not one swift
flood - the feudalism that emerges may be one of "ethnic super-
stratification", on the model of A. Riistow, Ortsbestimmung der
Gegenwart, Ziirich, 1949. Riistow's model is adopted by Wolfram
Eberhard in his Conquerors and rulers; social forces in medieval China,
Leiden, 1952, and Eberhard again is discussed by Derk Bodde in
his contribution, on feudalism in China, to the Coulborn volume.
Bodde shows that superstratification need

political. Coulborn's use of and departures
do not, unfortunately, further clarify the p
of the editor by this contributor and perhap
might have improved the volume.
Eberhard's emphasis on ethnic superstr
by his long-held conviction that the Chou
Chinese of China's feudal age, were largely
partly Turkish or "proto-Turkish", partly
ever, that the weight of evidence and certai
opinion is against Eberhard on this point, va
has been in tracing back and differentiat
who surrounded the Chinese core in the
much evidence that in China's feudal per
themselves who were expanding, at the e
(See Lattimore, Inner Asian frontiers of C
Just what these "barbarians" were like is no
certainly not pastoral nomads. They were
China, far to the the south of what becam
the Great Wall line of demarcation betwee
the pastoral steppe. They may have been
congeners of the Chinese themselves, but
technology (more extensive rainfall farm
irrigated farming; probably more livestock a
still a village people while the more advanced
were developing towns and cities.
What we can envisage in China at the time
about the twelfth century B.C., is a landsc
some, in larger valleys and open plains, ha
cities. The society was a fusion of northern
It is probable that most of us who have writ
River "cradle" of the higher Chinese c
estimated the southern elements and that
there was a southern hand that rocked the northern cradle. The
southern elements had affiliations that reached far through the south-
west to Assam (where rice culture probably originated) and Gangetic
India. The northern elements had affiliations northeastward through
Manchuria to Siberia and northwestward to the oasis communities
of Inner Asia, but in the Mongolian steppe there was as yet no horse-
riding, livestock-herding, true pastoral nomadism. Both the Chou
Chinese, on the northwestern periphery, and those in the old heart
of China fought from chariots and did not yet have true cavalry.
54 PAST AND PRESENT
In the same way and at the same time

earlier, the Aryan invaders of India w
could also ride, but were not much
were only auxiliary skirmishers, "mai
off their horses, quite often from fea
because the stirrup was not invented
W. Hopkins, "The social and military p
ancient India",Journ. Am. Or. Soc., 1
In the case of China we are justified,
ism that arose within an expanding
encroaching on barbarians and not, as
civilization that was being encroach
the chronic war that eroded the pre
process of replacing atomic village uni
structure of which was one of urban c
territory. This model is compatible
from the periphery by the Chou be
where conquest was still going on, that
was developed, enabling the stronges
on the center and conquer it. The m
the fact that the horse-chariot, the ox
the horse for cavalry all came into C
came through cultural drift, not as pa
invaders in large numbers.
The bare bones of a feudal econom
economic function is weak. The major productive activity is
agricultural. The unarmed cultivators pay tribute to the warriors
and aristocrats who both protect and exploit them. The tribute
is not in money. It is partly in produce from the land which the
peasant cultivates "for himself", partly in labour on the lord's land,
partly in other labour (e.g. on buildings), partly in menial service
(which often includes household service for the women).
The feudal subject remains in service because he cannot escape.
All that is needed is a gentleman's agreement among the lords:
you return my runaway and I'll return yours.
Here I found helpful Szeftel's discussion of Russia, both in his
article and in his bibliographical comment. My knowledge of
Russian history is rudimentary and I have never been able to get to
grips with what Marxists, especially Russian Marxists, really mean by
feudalism. Szeftel's definitions of terminology are a contribution
toward making discussion between Marxists and non-Marxists
mutually intelligible. At present, all too often, what one says
whizzes past the ear of the other withou

even a certain amount of competition in wo
better whizzers without being better en
clearer to me a prevailing Western concept
of institutions", and a Marxist, specifically
- which he himself considers "technically
ism as a "social and economic 'format' ba
by the landord of a part of the cultivator's
He emphasizes the pre-feudal importan
Sea line of trade, forking to Byzantium
cities that stood on this line were wealthy e
and this precluded feudalism up to the t
economic crisis connected with a basic ch
relationships between Western and Easte
trade little profitable", and merchants, the
been in their service, and the princes of th
it more profitable to develop their land ho
beginning a century before the appearance
drove population from the Dnieper step
forest Russia (169). The princes organize
as land was still much more plentiful th
curious indeed for feudalism (and Szeftel sp
feudalism in medieval Russia), under which
under a prince, settling on his land, but st
services to another prince "without losing h
in the principality of his former prince
Even peasant settlers could also move from
to that of another. Thus full serfdom, with
did not develop until much later when R
country.
Szeftel is the only contributor to this vol
question of the mobility of the subordin
he has to say suggests that if there is su
anomalous feudalism can evolve, or some
but does not reach, full feudalism.
It can also be argued that degree of mobilit
measuring the juncture between economi
ization under feudalism, and the variati
feudalism as a general type. In Western
much more varied and accidented than in Russia between the Car-
parthians and the Urals. The alternations between mountain,
56 PAST AND PRESENT
forest and plain provide for unlimited combinations and re-

combinations of internal frontiers, with control of the movement of
troops, traffic, and also peasants.
In China and much of the rest of Asia the importance of water
for irrigation led to a special variation. The owner of watered land
could make peasants bid against each other, offering high percentages
of the crop for permission to cultivate. At the same time, growth of
technical proficiency in irrigation, drainage, and flood prevention
to a scale which eventually outran the resources of feudal nobles
and small kingdoms favored the rise of an imperial state supplanting
feudal parcellation.
It is among pastoral nomads that the extreme of mobility is reached,
for property as well as persons. The subject herdsman could, of
course, if he deserted his lord, be returned under a gentleman's
agreement by the lord with whom he sought refuge. In practice,
however, if such a fugitive stole horses he had a chance to buy himself
immunity and warrior standing. Thus the nomad had on his side a
kind of mobility that the land-bound peasant did not. Even in the
1250's, when the Mongol empire was strongest and most centralized,
it was impossible to control completely the inherent mobility of
horsemen. William of Rubruck describes how fugitive captives
of the Mongols lived as horse thieves and bandits, preying on the
caravan routes.
Collective responsibility, exercised through the head

subordinate groups, was the device for controlling this
If one fled, the head man and all the others were responsib
is a story in the Secret history of such a head man who wait
chance to come over to the side of Chingis; the story illust
the normal effectiveness of the device and its ineffectiveness when
defeat of the controlling group gave the subordinate group a chance
to shift allegiance.
I have never been able to accept the Soviet model of "nomadic
feudalism", even when it is modified as "patriarchal feudalism",
mainly because the Soviet scholars are so much obsessed with working
out theories of what the control of land must have been, asserting
a priori that land is the determining kind of feudal property, that
they neglect the significance of mobile four-footed property. We
badly need more analysis of the interaction between mobile livestock
property and immobile territorial property in nomadic evolution
toward and devolution from feudalism. In such an analysis an
eye must always be kept on the relationship between pastoral societies
and agriculturally-based empires, both when the empires are under
their own rulers and project their power

empires are ruled by conquerors of nomad o
There remains the question of what com
it have an inherent tendency to prepare t
If so, what are we to make of China, where
that succeeeded feudalism was able for centuries to smother and
stunt the growth of capitalist enterprise ? The question has be
raised by Levenson and Balazs, both of whom have been cited above
Balazs considers that Chinese bureaucratic society and Wester
capitalist society are "equidistant" from feudalism. I am incli
to believe that the nature of transport has more to do with the answ
than economic historians have yet recognized. The range and
profitability of transport are in part a function of the domin
productive activity of a society, in part a function of geography. I a
therefore impressed by Balazs' comment on a "geo-political"
difference; "the lack of articulation of continental China, and the
lack of a multi-national system of territorial states". Europe faced
many seas and its rivers flowed in many directions. Diversity of
regional products could be transformed into an animated trade more
easily than in China, leading to the growth of a kind of city and city
population of which there were very few in China, for in China all
the main rivers are parellel, all flow into the same ocean, transportation
from coast to hinterland is much more expensive than from hinterland
to coast, the configuration of both rivers and mountains favours a
regional economic structure, and the self-sufficiency of regions
favors the collection of tribute, careless of profit and loss, more than
venture enterprise which must take into account profit, loss, and
cost of transportation.
We have yet to work out terms of reference that are both sufficiently
inclusive and sufficiently precise. Too loose a classification yokes
the noun "feudalism" with so many adjectives - "nomadic",
"bureaucratic", "centralized", "patriarchal", etc. - that "feudalism"
itself is in danger of being drained of meaning. Too tight a
classification, on the other hand, tends to restrict "feudalism"
eventually to some one region or period, and to bar the historian from
examining important analogies of structure and homologies of
function. Feudalism in history does not succeed in defining a
uniform field of history, but it does contribute much valuable
material, and some important views, toward the working out of
converging approaches to the historical problems of feudalism.
Owen Lattimore

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The Past and Present Society

FOR THE EDITOR, THE CONTRIBUTOR, AND THE REVIEWER THERE IS NO

East as a process, our meager documentation d

Feudalism is a complex of economic, soc

in Western Europe; or after a societ

war among the Saxons in England and by

with trusted kinsmen. The old instit

Bodde shows that superstratification need

In the same way and at the same time

whizzes past the ear of the other withou

forest and plain provide for unlimited combinations and re-

Collective responsibility, exercised through the head

their own rulers and project their power

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