Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online

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Feudal society
(2,271 words)

1. History of terminology and scholarship

Early modern society did not call itself feudal or a feudal society but a society of estates (Estates, society of). It was labeled a feudal society in the French Revolution (1789), a term that also served to characterize the break with the society of the ancien régime [6]. Feudal society represented the polemical and ideological antithesis of the revolution that produced bourgeois society, whic…

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Schmale, Wolfgang, “Feudal society”, in: Encyclopedia of Early Modern History Online, Editors of the English edition: Graeme Dunphy, Andrew Gow. Original German Edition: Enzyklopädie der Neuzeit. Im Auftrag des Kulturwissenschaftlichen Instituts (Essen) und in Verbindung mit den Fachherausgebern herausgegeben von Friedrich Jaeger. Copyright © J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung und Carl Ernst Poeschel Verlag GmbH 2005–2012. Consulted online on 19 March 2024 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/2352-0272_emho_COM_019236>
First published online: 2015
First print edition: 20180126



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