This holds true both for royal property, provided to ecclesiastical and temporal nobles alike, and for those nobles and clergy who possessed manors and would in turn grant fiefs to vassals. The escalation of the agrarian economy allowed for an expansion of lordship. A cross-cultural comparison has shown that the bipartite manorial organization underpinning the Carolingian feudal system was a unique agrarian type that can only be fully grasped by taking into account the agrarian revolution of the early Middle Ages.
Some of the distinctive features of these two components in Europe can be understood through their contexts. 2 Close And one form of feudalism in a general sense ( Feudalismus) is just as exclusively European, and it gave birth to the Estates: a feudal system based on vassalage ( Lehenswesen). The medieval Estates of kingdoms and principalities (or territories), from which key elements of the modern parliamentary system have evolved, are specific to the historical social area of Europe they find no parallel in any other culture. 1 Close That parliamentary democracy is a momentous, fundamental consequence of Europe's unique social development is also true beyond the shadow of a doubt. This system in turn had its roots-though not exclusively nor extensively-in the most important countries and not least in the political and social conditions of the feudal system.” Otto Hintze introduced his seminal work “Preconditions for Representative Government throughout World History” with these words they are just as true today as they were in 1931. “Representative government, which has left its distinctive stamp on political life all over today's civilized world, began with the medieval Estates system. Thus, what was said in previous chapters about the determinants of agricultural developments in Europe, the agrarian system, and family structure may now act as starting points for understanding the feudal system as a special European form of feudalism in general. There can be no doubt that the early medieval innovations it brought forth were interconnected.
This was yet another development that arose in the central Carolingian region between the Rhine and the Seine. Lordship systems defined by the feudal system prevailed in most regions of medieval Europe.
One form of feudalism in a general sense ( Feudalismus) is just as exclusively European, and it gave birth to the Estates: a feudal system based on vassalage ( Lehenswesen). The medieval Estates of kingdoms and principalities (or territories), from which key elements of the modern parliamentary system have evolved, are specific to the historical social area of Europe. This chapter discusses the feudal system in medieval Europe.