What Is Feudal Warfare
War & Society in Europe Midterm There were a number of conditions that would lead to the emergence of “feudal warfare” in the early Middle Ages and there would be an equal number that would lead to its decline in the later middle ages as well yet to find the meaning of “feudal warfare” one has to look first at where this notion came from, and that was Feudalism. Feudalism was a contrasting system dealing with political and military relationships existing among members of the higher social class, Kings, Lords and other owners of large lands in Western Europe during the Middle Ages. The Feudal system started by the granting of fiefs, chiefly in the form of land and labor, in return the lord would receive political and military services that was usual sealed by oaths of fidelity, instead of a written out contract. The Lord and vassal would be interlocked in a bunch of mutual rights and obligations, to the advantage of both. Where the lord owed his vassal protection and the vassal owed his lord a specified number of days annually in military service and supplies of goods, and the lord were expected to provide a military for his king. With that “feudal warfare” would arise as Kings would try to obtain more land then each other and expand their territory. As mentioned in class the Carolingian Empire was the first great European dynasty, it would unite all the small Frankish kingdoms that had established themselves in Gaul and this is where the early form of feudalism was used to raise the Carolingian armies. One of the major conditions that lead to the emergence of “feudal warfare” was the successive waves of invades that the different kingdom of Europe would face. Over the next three centuries there would be successive waves of attacks. The first of these waves would come from the Magyars who came according to Keegan “appeared in the Danubian plain, Attila's former grazing-land in 862." The Magyars were known for their Hun like tactics attacking