Feudalism in the Holy Roman Empire was a politico-economic system of relationships between liege lords and enfeoffed vassals (or feudatories) that formed the basis of the social structure within the Holy Roman Empire during the High Middle Ages. In Germany the system is variously referred to Lehnswesen, Feudalwesen or Benefizialwesen.
Feudalism in Europe emerged in the Early Middle Ages, based on Roman clientship and the Germanic social hierarchy of lords and retainers. It obliged the feudatory to render personal services to the lord. These included e.g. holding his stirrup, joining him on festive occasions and service as a cupbearer at the banquet table. Both pledged mutual loyalty: the lord to "shelter and protect", the vassal to "help and advise". Furthermore, feudal lord and vassal were bound to mutually respect one another, e.g. the lord could not, by law, beat his vassal, humiliate or lay hands on his wife or daughter.
The highest liege lord was the sovereign, the king or duke, who granted fiefs to his princes. In turn, they could award fiefs to other nobles, who wanted to be enfeoffed by them and who were often subordinate to the liege lord in the aristocratic hierarchy.
Terms
A fief (also fee, feu, feud, tenure or fiefdom, , , feodum or beneficium) was understood to be a thing (land, property), which its owner, the liege lord (Lehnsherr), had transferred to the hereditary ownership of the beneficiary on the basis of mutual loyalty, with the proviso that it would return to the lord under certain circumstances.
Enfeoffment gave the vassal extensive, hereditary usufruct of the fief, founded and maintained on a relationship of mutual loyalty between the lord and the beneficiary. The Latin word beneficum implied, not only the actual estate or property, the fief - in Latin usually called the feodum - but also the associated legal relationship.
The owner was the so-called liege lord or feudal lord (German: Lehnsherr Lehnsgeber; Latin: dominus feudi, senior), who was usually the territorial lord or reigning monarch. The beneficiary was his vassal, liegeman or feudatory (German: Vasall, Lehnsmann, Knecht, Lehenempfänger or Lehensträger; Latin: vassus or vasallus). Both parties swore an oath of fealty (Lehnseid) to one another. The rights conferred on the vassal were so similar to actual possession that it was described as beneficial ownership (dominium utile), whereas the rights of the lord were referred to as direct ownership (dominium directum).
The fief (German: Lehen or Lehnsgut) usually comprised an estate or a complex of estates, but also specified rights of use and rights of taxation or duties.
Linguistically the term Lehen is connected with the word leihen, to lend or loan, and meant something like "loaned property" (c.f. the modern German Darlehen, a loan), whilst the word feudum, which some etymologists suggest comes from the Latin fides (loyalty), is more likely to be derived from the Old High German fihu, fehu (whence modern Vieh), originally "cattle", but later generally "chattel".
The opposite of a fief was the freehold, allod or allodium, which roughly corresponds to the present freehold estate.
An institution during the transition from feudal states to what is now the free ownership of property, was the allodifizierte Lehen ("allodified fief"), a fief in which the feudal lord gave up direct ownership - usually in return for the payment of compensation or an allodified rent (Allodifikationsrenten) - but the vassal's ownership of the fief with an agreed agnatic succession - resembling a family entailed estate (Familienfideikommiß) - remained in place.
Types
There were numerous different types of feudal arrangement depending on regional tradition and the nature of feudal lordship (secular or ecclesiastical/monastic). The best-known of these were: