Feudalism-Third History Presentation

Good Afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Taeksoo Kim and I am in class 24. This is our second last presentation and I tried my best for this, but still, I might have some flaws in my speech so please excuse me when I do so. Today, I am going to talk something not very common to most of the countries including South Korea. Nowadays, people are equally treated; no matter they are rich or poor, or black or white even though some people don’t admit it. Also all people have same rights as human. But long time ago, even long time before 10^th century it wasn’t. People were not equal and didn’t have same rights. Do you get what I am going to talk about? It is Feudalism, also known as Feudal Services. In this speech, I will tell you the definition of Feudal Services, the levels in Feudal Services which are the king, the noble, the knight, and the peasant and my opinion about Feudal Services. But before I go deeper into this topic, let me tell you about some things about Charlemagne.

Charlemagne, also known as Charles the Great was one of the kings of the Frank Kingdom. He was born in 742 and died on January 28, 814. He reined the kingdom from 768 to 814. Also he was the Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death. His predecessor which means someone having the same job before him was Pepin the Short who was his father, and his successor which means having the same job after him was Louis the Pious who was Charlemagne’s son. He ruled the Frank Kingdom with his brother ‘Carloman’ when his father Pepin the Short died, but the sudden death of Carloman in 771 made Charlemagne became the only king. He conquered many tribes or cities, such as Aquitane, Pavia, or the Saxons. According to the movie and other sources he had 5 wives and about 20 children.

Now I will talk about my topic, Feudal Services. If I say it in a sentence, Feudalism was a set of political and military customs in Frank Kingdom that ranked people in levels. In fact, this custom was not only for Frank Kingdom but throughout Western Europe. In Feudalism, there is a ruler and people who are ruled. The levels are divided into four which are the kings, nobles, knights and the peasants. As we know, king or a monarch is a highest person, then nobility, knights, and peasants. Kings gave lands of his kingdom to nobles. Nobles gave their land to the knight. Then the knights gave land to the peasants for them to farm, get food and have shelter or protection. This was the way each level gave to another. Now let’s go the other way. Peasants gave food, taxes and military services to knights. Knights also gave military services and loyalty to nobles. And same with the nobles. They gave military services and loyalty to the king. Kings appointed nobles, or lords, for protection and to handle their territories. The lords appointed knights to protect both themselves and the king. The knights appointed peasants to work their land. So this is like a ladder of a pyramid. There are 3 important key words for Feudalism. Those three are fief, vassal, and lords. Fief is a land that is given to people such as nobles, knights, and peasants. And anyone who received a fief is called a vassal. Everyone was a vassal to the king. On the other hand, people who had others as workers were called the lords. And Feudalism was successful with these terms. This was similar to the policy in ancient Japan or North Korea. Ancient Japan had one emperor, then Shogun, Daimyo, Samurai and Peasants. Emperor had a same place as the king, Shogun and Daimyo, replacing the nobles, and Samurai the knights. In North Korea, the nation is in Kim Jung-Il’s hand who is the leader. Then his close relatives get the good position. And that is similar to what I am talking right now, Feudalism.

As I said, I will now talk about the levels in Feudal Services. There are simply four levels, which are a king or a monarch, a lord or a noble, a knight and a peasant. They each had different rights and things to do. And as you go down to the lower levels, there were more of them. So there were fewer kings than peasants, knights, or lords.

First, I will talk about the monarch. A monarch is a person who leads the country. It is a form of government in which a country is ruled only by one person alone. If someone has been the king, he normally rules the kingdom for his whole life and inherits the next king by birth. Many monarchs have different titles such as a King, Queen, Emperor or Empress. Irene, the Empress of the Byzantine Empire and Charlemagne the Emperor in Holy Roman Empire, can be one of the good examples of a monarch. They rule the nation and no one else can disagree to their decisions or do something other than their orders. They had many privileges such as living in a better place, the palace. Even today, there are some monarchies in Europe. Andorra, the Kingdom of Denmark, the Kingdom of Belgium or Great Britain is some of them. If we compare the nation as Global Leadership Program for Students, the monarch can be compared to the teacher.

Next, I will talk about the nobles. They are the second highest ranked group. Nobles had more privileges than knights and peasants, but still less than the kings. They were very honored and were maintained and acknowledged by the law or government. They obtained the land or a castle from the king and had peasants to work for them. They had to show loyalty and faith to the king. Also they had to send their army whenever the king needed them. But as I said they had more advantages than others so it was a good rank or level to be in. Nobles were hereditary. This means that when a noble have a son or a daughter, they become the nobles, too. Nobles are in a level like PAs and TAs because they help the king as in the PAs and TAs helps the teachers.

Because dukes are shown in the movie a lot, I will talk shortly about them. Dukes are the member of nobility. They were the highest rank below the monarch. In Middle Ages, dukes were the rulers of the provinces and some cities. In the movie, some of the examples of the dukes are, the Duke of Aquitaine, and the Duke of Bavaria, Tasillo. In these days some countries still have dukes, such as France, Italy, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom.

Now I will talk about the knights. They had third highest rank below the king and the noble. In the movie there are many knights shown. Charlemagne’s friends, Roland, Turpin, Oliver, Ogier and even the traitor, Ganelon were all knights. Knights were the members of the warrior class of the Middle Ages in Europe who followed a law named ‘Chivalry’. Chivalry had three main areas; the military, social life and religion. The military areas were very important to the knights. Along with fighting well in the wars, there were many customs and rules to be followed as well. One of them was to having a expensive and heavy weapons. But this wasn’t all. Horses were also definitely important and each knight often owned many several horses just in case. Also one of the greatest signs was the colored banners which displayed their powers and strengths. Chivalry and religion was also together. Each army had different religion and supported their religions. For example, Christian army supported Christians and Muslim army supported the Muslims. As a result the armies fought each other protecting their people and harming others. Becoming a knight wasn’t a widely attainable goal in the medieval eras. The sons of knights were easily allowed to become a knight bout it was almost impossible from the lower class such as peasants.

Now finally, I will talk about the last remaining level, the peasants. Peasants were the agricultural workers who owned or rented a small land of ground. Peasants made up the majority of the agricultural labor force in the society, dependant on the cultivation of their land. If there were no stock piles and no provisions, they would thrive and starve which can make the country very vulnerable. Most of the people in Middle Ages were peasants. They had very harsh environments around them and they suffered in hardship very often. Hardships were such as poor harvests of not having enough provisions. Peasants usually had only one set of clothing but two at most. Also they usually gave their lord, nobles about 20% of their earnings. They also owed the priest or a bishop 10% of their earnings. Of course the knights also took some for keeping them alive and protecting them. Overall, the peasants only got 10~20% of their earnings. They were mostly very poor and had huge differences with the kings.

I have told you all the four levels in Feudal Services and I had some more details about them. And now I will talk about my opinions about this Feudal Systems.

 I really think that this policy or system was very useful and helpful for the country. They made country very strong and helped the society to be straighter. For example what would happen if Feudal Services were not available at the time when Charlemagne lived? Think about it. The decisions and opinions will be always different and if there was no good decision made, Charlemagne would have not been able to gain victory. However there is a big noticeable problem in this policy. People were divided into many groups. This system had levels; kings, nobles, knights, and peasants. And these levels had so many differences. For example, kings could just relax, eat, and sleep while the peasants had to work. This is wrong to me because I think this is not fair. I believe everyone living in the Earth should be equally treated.

This is end of my speech and before I finish it let me summarize what I have just said in this speech. I first talked something about Charlemagne which we are studying. Then I told you the definition of Feudalism and levels in Feudalism which was kings, nobles, knights, and the peasants. Next, I had some more details about each level and had examples from the movie we saw, named ‘Charlemagne’. Lastly I told you my opinions about Feudal Services. It was a good policy but it also had some bad points. Again, this was about Feudalism and I hope you have enjoyed it, if you could. Thank you for your time, your attention and listening.