The Feudal System: The Black Death

Since the beginning of civilization, all them have strived for a government system. For medieval Europe this government system was Feudalism. Feudalism was a working system for all aspects of the medieval life including culture and economy. The Black Death was a horrible disease that caused horrible symptoms and was responsible for the deaths of over one third of the population in Europe. The Black Death accelerated the fall of feudalism accelerated the fall of feudalism by completely disrupting its systems. Consequently, the black death caused the stable system, known as feudalism to cease to exist in Europe.

The Black death is a horrible disease that caused many symptoms in and on the body and was easily transmitted. There are a few different

The Black death, along with taking down Europe’s economy, also affected the way of life, and the church’s power. When the black death struck the church also started to lose it’s power. People started to abandon the church 's and piety, for more self indulgent ways of life such as Hedonism(Green). Also, the people became angry with the church not being able to deal with the problem which lead to people not believing in the clergy, which is known a anticlericalism. This also lead to protestant reformation when the church really lost it’s power(Green). People started to rely on the church a lot less and instead decided to make groups based on different beliefs and ultimately changed the culture of the people during the black death. During the plague, because of the deaths that happened people also created many groups and movements that changed the culture of the people. These people started to rise up in the year 1348. These people tried to appeal to god by committing different acts for the forgiveness of god. The Flagellants were very anti-Semitic, meaning that they did not like Jews. They were not the only people that were anti-Semitic because people all across medieval Europe had already believed that Jews were the cause of the black death. Many Jewish homes were born, drastically changing the life of many people. The pope disapproved of the flagellants and the flagellants disappeared after 1349(Edmond). The Flagellants are a good example of how the black death

One of the most important part of Feudal society the oath of Homage and Fealty. The Oath of Homage and Fealty required many things from both the lord and his vassal. The vassal was required to give the king, which he was declaring loyalty to, a certain set of obligations(Nelson). This would provide system between the vassal and the lord that allowed for a smooth economy to run because both the vassal and the king benefit and they have a system of trade. The vassal also had their own set of vassals called sub vassals, that were obligated to give to the vassal in return for a few things. The vassal become the sub-vassal’s ‘man’, which is what homage came from, and had to offer the sub-vassal a few things. These things included, a fief, which was usually land, respect, where the lord would not disrupt the vassal’s enjoyment of the fief, and Justice, where the lord will protect the vassal and if needed from other vassals. But the vassal also had to give the lord a few obligations too. First the vassal had to give the lord an amount of armed knights and provide him with an army(Nelson). This helps to allow feudalism to provide an army for anyone noble who needed it. Furthermore the vassal also had to provide the lord with 3 nights of protection if the lord was traveling nearby, gifts for the marriage of the lord 's eldest daughter and the knighthood of the lord’s son, fund other events the lord decided he wanted to do, come up with a ransom for the lord when needed, and give