manorialism
Medieval agricultural feudalism
Manorialism was the medieval European economic system organizing rural life around a lord's estate.
Peasants worked the lord's land in exchange for protection and the right to farm plots for themselves.
The manor functioned as a self-sufficient unit—fields, village, mill, and church under one authority.
The system dominated from roughly the 9th to 15th centuries, declining as money economies and wage labor emerged.
Lord's private estate
- fiefGranted feudal estate
- estateProperty and grounds
- vassalageSubordination to a lord
- villeinageFeudal tenant bondage
serfdom · tenancy · overlordship · suzerainty · fealty · homage · tithe · primogeniture
Feudal tenant farmer
- serfBonded agricultural laborer
- peasantLow-status agricultural laborer
- tenantOne who rents property
- reeveManor's administrative official
bailiff · steward · seneschal · cultivator · tiller · bondsman · thrall · husbandman
Nobleman or ruler
- seigneurFeudal landowning noble
- liegeFeudal superior or subject
- vassalLand-holding sworn subordinate
- overlordSupreme feudal superior
suzerain · squire · nobleman · landholder · freeholder · tenant-in-chief · leet · baron
Payment for temporary use
- duesRegular membership payments
- feePayment for service
- aidSupport given freely
- reliefEasing of distress
escheat · forfeiture · fine · banalities · monopoly · jurisdiction
demesne
Lord's private estate
villeinage · serfdom · tenancy · overlordship · suzerainty · fealty · homage · tithe · primogeniture · entail
villein
Feudal tenant farmer
reeve · bailiff · steward · seneschal · cultivator · tiller · bondsman · thrall · husbandman · plowman
lord
Nobleman or ruler
overlord · suzerain · squire · nobleman · landholder · freeholder · tenant-in-chief · leet · baron · patronage
rent
Payment for temporary use
relief · escheat · forfeiture · fine · banalities · monopoly · jurisdiction
open-field
Lacking enclosures or walls
- three-fieldMedieval farming rotation method
- fallowUnplanted field recovering
- glebeClergyman's endowed land
grange · arable · pasture · meadow · woodland · millpond · dovecote · plow · harrow · scythe
- medievalknights, castles, cathedral, kings, queens
- Medieval Eraknights, Middle Ages, castles, feudal lords, medieval period
- Medieval Europekings, queens, knights, castles, castle
- medieval societyserfs, noble lineage, peasants, serf, heir
- Middle AgesMiddle Ages, medieval period, castles, knights, Dark Ages
- economic historystock market crash, Industrial Revolution, trade routes, Great Depression, gold standard
manorialismcapitalism
Private profit-based economy
wage labor · market economy · commercial agriculture · sharecropping · tenant farming
manorialismfreehold
Permanent property title
yeomanry · smallholding · homesteading · land reform · enclosure
manorialismcapitalism
Private profit-based economy
market economy · industrial capitalism · laissez-faire economics · mercantilism · collective farming