Protofeudalism () is a concept in

medieval history In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

, especially the

history of Spain The history of Spain dates to contact between the List of the Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, pre-Roman peoples of the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula with the Greeks and Phoenicians. During Classical A ...

, according to which the direct precursors of

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

can be found in

Late Antiquity Late antiquity marks the period that comes after the end of classical antiquity and stretches into the onset of the Early Middle Ages. Late antiquity as a period was popularized by Peter Brown (historian), Peter Brown in 1971, and this periodiza ...

Historiographical context

Spanish

historiography Historiography is the study of the methods used by historians in developing history as an academic discipline. By extension, the term ":wikt:historiography, historiography" is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiog ...

relies heavily on the concept and projects it onto the late

Visigothic Kingdom The Visigothic Kingdom, Visigothic Spain or Kingdom of the Goths () was a Barbarian kingdoms, barbarian kingdom that occupied what is now southwestern France and the Iberian Peninsula from the 5th to the 8th centuries. One of the Germanic people ...

, but its usage is generally deprecated in the English-language historiography of Spain (or anywhere else). The current tendency in English scholarship to downplay feudalism and reduce the usage of related terminology, especially its application to the

Early Middle Ages The Early Middle Ages (or early medieval period), sometimes controversially referred to as the Dark Ages (historiography), Dark Ages, is typically regarded by historians as lasting from the late 5th to the 10th century. They marked the start o ...

, is in direct conflict with recent trends in Spanish historiography to push the start of feudalism back into the Visigothic period, sometimes seen as part of a tendency to "Europeanise" Spanish history. Interest was renewed in the history of a united Visigothic Spain during the dictatorship of

Francisco Franco Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...

in the mid-20th century. The perennial need to explain the rapid downfall of the Visigothic kingdom in the face of Arab invasions led some scholars to postulate the increased privatisation of public authority in the hands of regional, landed nobility: twin tendencies, called "protofeudalism" (privatisation) and "particularism" (regionalism). Typically, the protofeudal phenomenon is dated to the late 7th century, but sometimes earlier. In 1967, the Spanish historian

Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz y Menduiña (; April 7, 1893, in Madrid – July 8, 1984, in Ávila) was a Spanish scholar, politician and orator. He served as Prime Minister of the Spanish Republican government in exile during the dictatorship of Fr ...

traced the protofeudalisation (''protofeudalización'') of the Visigothic army at least to the legislation of

Erwig Erwig (; after 642 – 687) was a king of the Visigoths in Hispania (680–687). Parentage According to the 9th-century '' Chronicle of Alfonso III'', Erwig was the son of Ardabast, who had journeyed from the Byzantine Empire to Hispania during ...

and Wamba. A description in English of the general phenomenon is given by Payne in his general history of Iberia in two volumes:

Decentralization was unavoidable, and power became a matter of personal relationship and example. The chief lieutenants of the crown were rewarded for their services by salaries or stipendia in the form of overlordship of land or temporary assignment of income from land held in precarium, that is, on a nominally revocable basis. This system was actually first used by the church to support local establishments, and by the seventh century was widely employed by the crown and also by the magnates (the high aristocracy) to pay their chief supporters and military retainers. The process of protofeudalization inevitably carried with it a splintering of juridical and economic sovereignty that further weakened political unity.

Criticism

French historian Céline Martin has disputed the reality of "protofeudalism" by pointing to the public nature of oaths of fidelity in the late Visigothic kingdom, where oaths were generally sworn by (local) populations and not by individual men to individual lords.

Roger Collins Roger J. H. Collins (born 2 September 1949) is an English medievalist, currently an honorary fellow in history at the University of Edinburgh. Collins studied at the University of Oxford ( Queen's and Saint Cross Colleges) under Peter Brown ...

has criticised the concept as little more than an attempt by Spanish academics to integrate Spanish history into that of Europe in general. Collins cites L. García Moreno as proclaiming "international unanimity in applying the adjective 'protofeudal' to the socio-political formation incarnated by the Kingdom of Toledo at the beginning of the eighth century". Collins, however, "thinks not". Michael Kulikowski cites the discovery of mid-7th-century ''

trientes The triens ( trientes) was an Ancient Rome, Ancient Roman bronze coin produced during the Roman Republic valued at one-third of an as (coin), as (4 Uncia (coin), unciae). The most common design for the triens featured the bust of Minerva and fo ...

'' at El Bovalar as evidence for commercial activity in central Spain refuting the prevailing notion of "

autarky Autarky is the characteristic of self-sufficiency, usually applied to societies, communities, states, and their economic systems. Autarky as an ideology or economic approach has been attempted by a range of political ideologies and movement ...

" and protofeudal

serf Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery. It developed du ...

dom.Kulikowski, 301.

References

Notes

Sources

*Castellanos, Santiago (2003). "The Political Nature of Taxation in Visigothic Spain." ''Early Medieval Europe'', 12, pp. 201–28. *Castellanos, Santiago and Viso, Iñaki Martín (2005). "The Local Articulation of Central Power in the North of the Iberian Peninsula (500–1000)." ''Early Medieval Europe'', 13 (1), pp. 1–42. *Collins, Roger J. H. (1984). "Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages." ''Annual Bulletin of Historical Literature'', 68 (1), pp. 32–41. *Collins, Roger J. H. (2004). ''Visigothic Spain, 409–711''. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. *Kulikowski, Michael (2004). ''Late Roman Spain and Its Cities''. JHU Press. . *Moreno, L. García (1992). "El estado protofeudal visigodo: precedente y modelo para la Europa carolingia" in: J. Fontaine and (edd.), ''L'Europe héritière de l'Espagne wisigothique''. Madrid, pp. 17–43. *Payne, Stanley G. (1973)
''A History of Spain and Portugal'', Vol. 1.
Milwaukee: University of Wisconsin Press. *Stocking, Rachel L. (2007). "Review article: Continuity, culture and the state in late antique and early medieval Iberia." ''Early Medieval Europe'', 15 (3), pp. 335–348.

Historiographical context

Criticism

References

Notes

Sources

Further reading