A hierarchical political and economic system of the Middle Ages in which land was granted in return for military or labor services and the peasantry was ruled by a class of landowners. Several of the great civilizations of the world have passed through a feudal period in the course of their history - in many countries of Europe and in Japan. The origins of European feudalism were in the early Frankish kingdom of the 8th century; feudalism spread with Frankish conquests.
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