Feudal Society

First published in 1939-40, this study analyses feudal Europe as a social system rather than as a mere catalogue of fiefs. Bloch describes the collapse of older public authority, the ties of kinship and vassalage, the manor, the castle, and the mental world of dependence and honour. He compares regions, traces the two feudal ages he distinguishes, and sets lords, peasants, and clergy within an economy of land and service. War, law, and the conditions of life after the invasions occupy long sections. The book is comparative social history: an account of how power and livelihood were organised between about the ninth and thirteenth centuries.

Bound in buckram blocked with a design by Adam McCaulay. Red slipcase.