feudalism in europe
The feudalism is a ‘pecking’ order, the order goes, bottom is the serfs, then Knights, Barons and the highest class is the Kings.
Serfs- Serfs are the poor people or the slaves that had to do all the work for the higher people and classes, The Serfs work for the knights. Knights- Knights were given land by the Barons in favour for military service when demanded, and to protect the manor. The Barons who are the third most important people, they were allowed to establish their own system of justice, mint their own money and set their own taxes. Kings- the kings are the leaders and look after everything and own everyone. The Serfs class were hit the hardest by the plague because they had to do all the hard and dirty work, they also catered for everyone so it spread easily and caught on easily. Barons- The barons now had to pay higher wages because all there life they let the serfs do most the work but now that the serfs were dying out, they had to offer higher money and benefits so they could stay on the job and continue slaving for them. Eventually the entire class of Serfs died and the whole pyramid was broken and everything turned into chaos. The Black Death swept over Europe and erased about a third of Europe’s population and destroyed the feudalism, 20 million people. Serfs were able to leave the lands of the lords due to look for higher income with the huge labour shortages. The land that everyone lived on was then worthless while the plague was hitting Europe. Houses became deserted as families fled from the plague and moved away or got caught by the plague and died. The failure of Feudalism had begun and progressed each day as the plague then claimed more lives and kept destroying Europe. |