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Article: Fiefs and Vassals: The Medieval Evidence Reinterpreted.(Brief Article)
- Article from:
- The Historian
- Article date:
- March 22, 1996
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1996 Phi Alpha Theta, History Honor Society, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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By Susan Reynolds. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. xi, 544. $29.95.)
A generation ago, medievalists in the United States were beginning to suspect that feudalism was a modern construct that did not fit the facts. In 1974, these doubts, expressed by E. A. R. Brown, surfaced in the American Historical Review. Now, twenty years later, Susan Reynolds surveys the evidence for such misgivings and concludes that they are fully justified. The model feudalism upon which most medievalists have been relying is no longer tenable.
Reynolds sets aside the Marxist model of feudalism, which considers nobles in relation to peasants and the whole economy, and ...