What is the explanation of the word "feudalism"?

[Edit this paragraph] Dictionary explanation

Feudalism of vocabulary

Pronunciation f fēng Jian

Explanation 1 Dali.

[Published] "Poetry, Shang Ode and Yanwu": "Life is in the next country, and feudalism is blessed." Mao Chuan: "Feng, uncle." Zheng Xuan wrote: "Life is given to a small country, thinking that the son of heaven is lucky. It is said that soup will cure seventy miles. "

Explanation 2[ Executive System] A political enfeoffment system. Feudal state and founding, that is, ancient emperors gave titles and land to relatives or heroes to establish countries in various regions. According to legend, the Yellow Emperor was the beginning of feudalism, and the weekly system was well prepared. A similar system was implemented in medieval Europe.

[Promulgated] Book of Rites: "Wang Zhi Lu Jue, Gong, Hou, Bo, Zi, Gong, etc ..., Gong, Baili, Hou Bo 70 Li, Zi Gong 50 Li."

Feudal [Other] ① In the twenty-fourth year of Zuo Zhuan, Xi Gong said: "In the past, Duke Zhou paid tribute to his second uncle, which was not salty, so feudal relatives used it as a fan to screen the Zhou Dynasty." Confucius said, "Therefore, I made my relatives princes, thinking that they were fences to cover the surrounding rooms." Qin unified China and abolished the county. After Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty put down the rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, the Han Dynasty established the country by sealing princes, but it was centralized.

(2) Biography of Three Kings in Historical Records: "The five emperors were different in the past, and Zhou Jue was the fifth, and the Spring and Autumn Period was the third, all because of their rank. Emperor Gao set the troubled times as antonym, showing the utmost virtue, settling in the sea, being a feudal vassal, and being a second-class title. " Sima Zhen Suoyin: "Wang and Liehou."

(3) Zong Yuan's On Feudalism: "Feudals are mostly ancient saints such as, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen and Wu."

(4) Song Lu's poem "Reading the Book of Changes on Yuan Day": "Monk can be feudal, and his grandson has already said nothing."

⑤ Yan Fu's "On the Retirement of Education in China": "The Qin Dynasty merged with the world, which was more ancient and mined. It abandoned feudalism and set up counties and counties, and abandoned Confucianism and became famous."

Explanation 3 [feudalism] refers to the feudal social form.

[Example] ① Qu Qiubai's A Journey to a Hungry Country 14: "The surging freedom war inspired them to expel landlords and overthrow feudal idols."

② Xie Juezai's unity, modesty and progress: "In feudal and private ownership society, the development of this virtue is limited."

Explanation 4 [feudalism] is a metaphor for conservatism, antiquated and closed.

[Example] Cao Ming's Braving the Wind and Waves: "He thought I was not liberated. I said that his mind is not liberated, or that feudal brain! "

[Edit this paragraph] feudal society

Feudal society, which means the social state of feudal system, is an academic term commonly used by Marxist historians.

The origin of the word feudalism is based on legal arguments. Marxist historians believe that it mainly emphasizes the division of land ownership. At present, feudal society and capitalist society are generally compared.

debate

Most historians believe that China never had a feudal society in a strict sense, or that the feudal system in China was limited to the Zhou Dynasty or even the Western Zhou Dynasty (see the system of enfeoffment). However, according to Marxist historiography, most countries and regions in history have experienced feudal social periods, such as Europe from the 9th century to about15th century. Since the Warring States Period, China has experienced a long feudal period. In feudal society, apart from emphasizing the ownership of land division, there is usually an obvious top-down class system.

The nature of feudal society

In feudal society, the natural economy was an economic structure based on land, combining agriculture with handicrafts, and taking the family as the production unit, which was self-enclosed and independent and mainly met its own needs. Most of the key means of production in this economic structure are in the hands of landlords (or feudal lords), so a class relationship of "landlords (feudal lords) exploiting farmers" can be formed.

In feudal society, the fundamental rule of the landlord class over other classes was feudal land ownership. By seizing land as means of production, the landlord class extorts land rent and usury from farmers who use land and exploits other classes. At the same time, different forms of feudal land ownership can be realized through contract leasing, paying land rent, hiring tenant farmers, etc., but its essence is still a relationship between exploitation and exploitation, which will not change the feudal society as the essence of class society.

Unique feudal thought

Feudal society often has quite obvious class system, such as the patriarchal clan system in China and the hierarch-king-Lord-jazz system in Western Europe, forming a pyramid-like ruling structure, but the relationship between them is not so perfect. Usually the Lord's jazz will no longer be loyal to the king, so there is a famous saying that "I am a minister, not a minister." However, the long-term maintenance of this ruling structure is based on the ideology of feudal society, which is usually based on "sovereign power" and incorporates some ideas of serving the ruling class. These thoughts also contain a few excellent moral values, such as China's "Confucianism".

Changes in feudal society

What fundamentally shook feudal rule was the destruction of its relations of production. Peasant uprising and bourgeois revolution are both class struggles aimed at changing feudal land ownership (and thus changing the whole feudal system). One of the most typical is the basic production relationship of capitalism-wage labor.

The earliest capitalism was born in Italy with developed commodity economy at that time, such as Florence and Venice.

The natural economy representing capitalism is a commodity economy with commodity exchange and commodity production as its core. Because the purpose of production has changed from single satisfaction to providing products to the society, this determines that the relations of production will be different from the original feudal system. Due to the development of commodity economy, the original natural economy was impacted and began to disintegrate. Farmers and craftsmen began to lose the means of production and become the proletariat, and then factory owners, that is, the earliest bourgeoisie, signed employment agreements with them, formed new production relations and hired labor.

With the disintegration of the capitalist economy to the original feudal natural economy, the increasingly powerful bourgeoisie has the ability to eliminate all factors that are contrary to the development of capitalism, such as the ideas of "divine right of nature" and "three cardinal guides and five permanents", and the production structure such as male ploughing and female weaving, and finally overthrow the feudal society and establish a capitalist country.

The destination of feudal society

Usually, feudal society will be transformed into capitalist society due to the development of productive forces. According to the various relations between the bourgeoisie and the feudal class, constitutional monarchy (Britain, Russia, the Second Reich of Germany, Japan, etc. ) and a * * * harmonious system (French * * Republic, German * * Republic, United States of America, etc. ) will form.

However, there are also special changes. For example, China changed from an autocratic feudal society to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society, and then crossed the capitalist society into a socialist society.

A society composed of various relations of production can coexist.

[Edit this paragraph] China feudal system

Feudalism is a social system. It belongs to the political system category given by the * * * Lord or the central dynasty to royal family members, royal families and heroic fiefs.

"Feudalism" means "closing the land to build the country", that is, the emperor divided the land outside the direct jurisdiction of Ji Wang to the vassals and granted them titles, so that they could establish a national seal to defend the central government.

In the ancient Central Plains Dynasty of China, the land sealed by China people was called "vassal state" (vassal state, vassal state or kingdom), and the monarch who ruled the vassal state (kingdom) was called "vassal king", "monarch" or "monarch", and the title of "king" was also used.

The feudal system in China's history

In the past, most people often thought that feudalism was created by Zhou Wuwang. However, in the Tang Dynasty, Liu Zongyuan once retorted in the article "On Feudalism": "Feudalism is not a saint, but it is also a trend." Liu Yimou said: "Because the Tang Dynasty, the Yu Dynasty and the Zhou Dynasty were feudal times, emperors would divide and rule them."

"Feudalism", simply put, means that the king divided the vassal's land to the vassal and built it in a feudal area. This is a way of defeating tribal rule and defeated land and population in ancient times. It can be seen that the so-called feudalism has been formed since the tribal war. However, feudalism officially originated in the Zhou Dynasty, and modern scholars have different opinions, but most of them advocate that it began in the Western Zhou Dynasty.

In view of the numerous governors at that time, Zhou Shi was bound to suffer from * * *, which was for the sake of the country's prosperity and destruction. In the name of peerless, feudal princes used colonial methods to enfeoffment Zhou and heroes to various places, and used the original clan tribes in various places to establish a country. The influence began from top to bottom, and Zhou officially became the master of the world, and the feudal scale was officially completed.

Legend has it that the descendants of the holy king, the adherents of Shang Dynasty and the soldiers who made meritorious deeds let them be "princes" in the local area and manage them in different districts to assist the King of Zhou. The banned "princes" continued to be sealed in the "national seal". Through this step-by-step enfeoffment, subordinates assumed the obligation to pay tribute to their superiors, defend themselves militarily and obey orders.

"Feudal system" is the original meaning of "feudalism" in ancient Chinese, that is, "sealing" land and "building" the country; The "feudalism" in ancient literature is the "enfeoffment system". The feudal system in the Zhou Dynasty was a social system in which the Zhou royal family divided the territory into vassals. Under the feudal system, the state land was not entirely owned by the Zhou royal family, but by the vassals who obtained the fiefs. They have all the resources and interests of the enclosed land, and they can fulfill their obligations only by paying a certain tribute to the Zhou royal family, which is equivalent to the relationship between the medieval European kingdoms and the Holy See, which is the basis of federalism in the modern sense. Zhou Wang is the * * * Lord (this * * Lord is the leader pattern left over from the clan society, and Yu is the last clan * * * Lord). Theoretically, the vassal's land can be reclaimed and redistributed by the Zhou royal family after his death, but it is generally hereditary. At the end of the Spring and Autumn Period, with the disintegration of the Jing Tian system and the development of the hegemony war, the royal family of the Zhou Dynasty declined, and the situation of "ritual and music conquering from the emperor" was replaced by "ritual and music conquering from the princes". Zhou Wang lost its position as the "master of the world" and the "feudal system" began to be destroyed. After Qin Shihuang unified China, the "feudal system" was abolished, and the Qin Dynasty implemented a single "county system" throughout the country.

The Han dynasty inherited the administrative division management system of the "county system" of the Qin dynasty. Different from the administrative divisions of the Qin Dynasty, the "county system" was implemented, and at the same time, the system of sealing off the country was implemented, including the kingdom and the vassal state. These two parallel systems are also called "county system". Although the Han dynasty was a parallel system of counties and countries, it was still dominated by the county system. In the early Han Dynasty, Liu Bang faced the patchwork of the forces of the vassal states and the background of the six countries after the death of Qin. His primary task is: to strive for stability, to eradicate the princes with different surnames, and to reconcile the polarization between the princes with different surnames and the county system by giving their descendants the right to vote. When Liu Bang fought against Xiang Yu, he created seven kings with different surnames. After he proclaimed himself emperor, he enfeoffed nine kings with the same surname, which made the opposition between the central authorities and enfeoffed countries last for a long time. In the early Han Dynasty, the feudal system was restored, and the county system was implemented at the same time, which made the counties and countries mixed and contained each other and played a positive role in maintaining centralization and national unity.

In the history of China, from the Three Kingdoms to the last dynasty-the Qing Dynasty, the management of national administrative divisions in various periods implemented the "feudal system" to varying degrees, but the enfeoffment system was not the main body; After the political power of each dynasty was stabilized, feudal countries and post-countries actually became one of the administrative division systems, or were formally enfeoffed; Even if there is a warlord regime, in most cases, it is necessary to accept the knighthood of the Central Plains Dynasty. For example, Ma Yin, the king of Chu in the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, was named "King of Chu" in 927 (Tiancheng two years), although he was founded in 907.

The feudal system in the Western Zhou Dynasty

There are three reasons for the first feudalization of Zhou Wuwang: First, to appease the Yin people, and at the same time to monitor them; Secondly, carry out armed immigration and expand its power; There is also to win people's hearts and consolidate the rule of the Zhou Dynasty.

▲ First feudalism

Feudalism is actually the enfeoffment of vassals, that is, the land is distributed to vassals to establish their own jurisdiction. The process and content of the first feudalization in the early Zhou Dynasty mainly included the following items:

After Zhou Wuwang destroyed the business, he automatically withdrew from Yindu and appointed Wu Geng, the son of Zhou Wang, to continue to manage the adherents of the business;

In the near Yin Dynasty, he enfeoffed his three brothers, Cai Shu and Huo Shu, with the purpose of monitoring Wu Geng, which was known as the "Three Supervisors" in history;

Zhou Wuwang made Haojiang its capital, and enfeoffed relatives and heroes as princes. Most of these fiefs are concentrated in the south bank of the Yellow River.

▲ Zhou Gongdong crusades against chaos

Zhou Wuwang died two years after the establishment of the Western Zhou Dynasty. Zhou Chengwang, his son, succeeded to the throne at a young age, and Duke Ji Dan, the younger brother of King Wu, served as political affairs agent. This practice is called "regency". Dissatisfied with the Three Armies, they spread rumors that the Duke of Zhou was not conducive to becoming a king and encouraged Wu Geng to rebel together, which was called "Three Armies Rebellion" in history.

Duke Zhou personally led the troops to deal with the third prison, and it took three years to put down the chaos. Later, the capital was established in Luoyi (now Luoyang, Henan Province), and the "Yin stubborn people" who participated in the Wu Geng rebellion were moved there, and heavily supervised, taking Luoyi as the political and military center to rule the eastern region. In addition, Duke Zhou formulated rites and music to maintain the order of the country and society.

▲ Second feudalism

Zhou Gongdan put down the rebellion in the Third Prison and carried out the second feudalism. There are three purposes:

Distinguish between the adherents of Yin people and prevent them from mutinying again;

Consolidate the rule of the Zhou dynasty as a royal family;

Expand the scope of rule and strengthen local control.

The contents of the second feudalism in the early Zhou Dynasty mainly include:

Divide the old land of Yin people into Song and Wei countries to facilitate rule;

Dafeng's relatives and heroes, as the screen princes of the royal family;

In order to expand the scope of his rule, the Duke of Zhou surrounded the feudal country of the Yin people and prevented them from rebelling again, he deliberately moved part of the first feudal country to the east and part of it to the eastern seaside.

▲ The role of enfeoffment princes

And Zhou Gonggong * * * enfeoffed more than 70 countries, including 53 princes with the surname of Ji, indicating that there were two feudal dynasties at the beginning of Zhou Dynasty, and most of the enfeoffed princes were children of Zhou Gongtong, followed by heroes. Under the feudal system, the king of Zhou, also known as the "son of heaven", had a high authority, and the function of the enfeoffment system was to make them the screen ministers of the central government.

In addition, the titles of governors are divided into five categories: public, Hou, Bo, Zi and Gong. Governors must obey the emperor's orders, pay tribute to him, appear before him regularly, and lead troops to fight with him.

▲ paternalism

The Western Zhou Dynasty also established the patriarchal clan system to coordinate and maintain the development of the feudal system. According to the patriarchal clan system, only the "eldest son" is qualified to inherit the positions of emperor and vassal, while other sons are enfeoffed as subordinate positions, that is, vassal, QingDafu or scholar. The close combination of these two systems further consolidated the rule of the Zhou Dynasty.

▲ The disintegration of feudal system in Zhou Dynasty.

"During the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, it gradually changed from feudalism to counties." "There were 8,800 countries at the beginning of the Zhou Dynasty, and only 124 countries remained at the beginning of the Spring and Autumn Period. During the Spring and Autumn Period, countries annexed weak countries and generally took their land as their county. Because of the destruction of the country, there are special counties, counties and official posts. The feudal system gradually became a county system. " Qin destroyed the six countries, abolished feudalism, established counties, and established a centralized monarchy.

Feudalism in Western Han Dynasty

▲ sealing the country and sealing the county in parallel.

At the beginning of the establishment of the Western Han Dynasty, Emperor Gaozu named seven heroes who helped him fight against Xiang Yu as kings with different surnames (princes with different surnames from the royal family); Later, these fiefs were razed by treason or other means, and the children of the royal family were sealed in the homeland of the Seven Kings. As for other places, the county system of the Qin Dynasty is still adopted.

This situation of "parallel counties and countries" made the vassal countries threaten the central government and laid the groundwork for the political crisis in the Western Han Dynasty.

Bring down the rebellion in Wu Chu.

During the period of Emperor Wendi and Emperor Jingdi, the economy resumed development, people's livelihood improved and the country prospered. However, the influence of the vassals became more and more powerful and gradually became arrogant. In order to strengthen the central power, Han Jing implemented the policy of reducing the number of governors, which caused the dissatisfaction of governors and led to the rebellion with Chu. Zhou Yafu, the general sent by Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty, put down the rebellion, reduced the power of the governors, and made them idle members who only ate salaries, and no longer governed the people. Therefore, the foundation of centralized rule is more stable.

▲ Reduce the power of vassal states.

After the rebellion of the seven countries of Wu and Chu subsided, the vassal power was weakened, but it still had a vast territory and great economic strength. After the death of Emperor Jing of Han Dynasty, Emperor Wu of Han Dynasty inherited his father's policy of reducing vassals, and issued a "favor decree" to allow vassals to enfeoffment the land of the kingdom to their descendants, which made the strength of vassals smaller and smaller and greatly weakened their influence. Since then, "a big country is only over ten cities, and Hou Yaozong is only over ten miles", which no longer poses a threat to the central authorities.

[Edit this paragraph] European feudal system

Feudalism/feudalism originated in the Middle Ages, and the corresponding legal status and military responsibility of European aristocratic soldiers revolved around three centers: lords, vassals and land.

Defining the feudal system requires many conditions, because there is no widely recognized definition at this stage. For a person who just started to understand the feudal system, a practical definition is needed. The definition described in this paper is the oldest and most classic definition, and it is still recognized by many historians until now.

However, feudalism has other definitions. Since the 1960s at the latest, many historians who study the Middle Ages have incorporated a wider range of social fields into the feudal system and joined the peasant class bound by the manor system, which is called "feudal society". Since the 1970s, others have re-examined the previous evidence and concluded that feudalism is an infeasible term and needs to be removed from academic and educational discussions. Or at least need to add strict restrictions and warnings when using.

Outside Europe, the concept of feudalism is generally only used for analogy (called "semi-feudalism"). It is most commonly used to discuss the Japanese under the rule of generals, and sometimes used in Ethiopia and Gondel in the Middle Ages. However, some people have made a wider analogy to the feudal system, including ancient Egypt, Parthian Empire, feudal India, and even the southern United States in the19th century.

The origin of a word

The word "feudal system" first appeared in17th century (16 14), and it was used to mean to disappear quickly or completely. During the period when the feudal system prevailed, no author used this word. This word is derogatory and is used to describe any law or custom that is considered unfair or outdated. Most of these laws or customs are more or less related to the medieval fief system (Latin: feodum, which first appeared in a document in Frankish in 884 AD), so they were merged into this single term. Feudalism comes from the French word fé od alisme, which was coined during the French Revolution. The English novelist Tobias Smollett mocked the word in his work Humphrey Clinker (177 1): "Every policy, custom and even personality quirk can be traced back to this (feudal) source ... I expect to see men's shorts and buttered ale influenced by the feudal system."

trait

Feudal system has three basic characteristics: lords, vassals and fiefs; The structure of feudal system is coordinated by these three elements. The Lord is a nobleman who owns the land, and the vassal is a person who owns the land that the Lord has enfeoffed to them. The enfeoffed land is a fief. The vassal will fight for the Lord in exchange for the fief he gave. The relationship and responsibility among lords, vassals and fiefs formed the foundation of feudal system.

Before the Lord sublets the land to someone, he must make that person a vassal. This requires a formal symbolic ceremony, called commendation ceremony, which consists of two parts, namely, the act of showing respect and the oath of worship. In the oath of loyalty and obedience, the vassal promised to obey the Lord's orders to fight. "Loyalty" comes from the Latin word "Fidelitas", which means loyalty; Therefore, the oath of allegiance became the guarantee that the vassal was loyal to the Lord. Once the praise ceremony was completed, the Lord and the vassal established a feudal relationship and had mutual obligations and responsibilities recognized by both sides.

The main obligation of the Lord to the vassal is to give the fief or its income; Feudal fiefdoms were the main reason why vassals established feudal relations. In addition, the Lord sometimes has other obligations. One of them is to maintain this fief. Because the Lord did not cede the land, but only leased it, it was still the Lord's responsibility to maintain the fief. And vassals have the right to benefit from the output of fiefs. The responsibility of another Lord is that he must protect the fiefs and vassals from harm.

The main duty of the vassal is to provide "assistance" to the Lord, that is, to perform military service. The vassals equipped their weapons and equipment with the production of fiefs, responded to the call of the lords to perform military service, and guaranteed the rights and interests of the lords. This military security mechanism is the main reason for the lords to establish feudal relations. In addition, bannermen sometimes need to bear other responsibilities to the lords. One of them is to give advice to the Lord. In this way, when a Lord is faced with a major decision, such as whether to participate in the war, he will call all the princes and convene the Senate. The vassal may also be required to give part of the output of the fief to the Lord. Feudal officials were sometimes required to grind grain and bake bread in mills and ovens owned by lords and pay taxes to lords.

Therefore, there are many different "levels" between sovereignty and fief. The king is a nobleman. He rented the fiefs to nobles, who were vassals of the king. At the same time, nobles are their vassals, farmers working on their land and their lords. Finally, the emperor is the Lord who provides fiefs for the king, and the king is the vassal of the emperor. This tradition formed the basis of the "monarchy" as an imperial alliance with the world order.

[Edit this paragraph] Modern significance

Nowadays, the word feudalism in spoken language also refers to conservative and backward thinking.

The feudal society described in Zhai Tongzu's China Feudal Society is the real feudalism, that is, the enfeoffment system.

After Qin dynasty, the society was no longer a enfeoffment system, but a centralized system or a monarchy.

Feudalism, which is usually said now, is mostly derogatory and synonymous with conservatism and backwardness, such as feudal thought and superstition, which is quite different from the original face of feudalism. I'm afraid there is still a long way to go before the word feudalism can be returned to its true colors.