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The feudal system was based on permanent heritable land grants in exchange for services. At its origin these services were military services, so the crown (the ultimate landowner) granted large tracts of land to nobles and in exchange the nobles pledged to provide so many knights or footsoldiers in case of war. Those great nobles could grant part of that land to lesser nobles in exchange for a promise of lesser military support, and these in turn made smaller grants until at some point there was a grant to a person (called the freeholder) who actually farmed or lived on the land, and had to provide simple services such as a certain number of days' labour or a certain quantity of grain. These lesser relationships between one who granted land and one who provided services, nested within each other like Russian dolls, were called subinfeudation.
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Subinfeudation is a layering of responsibility?
Subinfeudation may be looked at as a layering of responsibility. Subinfeudation was when a vassal would sublease a portion of his lord's estate to another man who then became his vassal.
What is a system rule in which powerful lords divided land among lesser lords?
The system in which the powerful lords divided their land among lesser lords was called subinfeudation.
What is The lands given to lords and nobles by kings were called?
fief
Why did more centralized kingdoms develop in some parts of Europe and not in others?
Different kingdoms had different conditions. Some were perfect for feudalism, and others were feudalism was not needed or desirable. Feudalism is a system that develops where the central government is weak. The weakness of the central government means that it is not possible to raise an army efficiently when the country is threatened, and it is not possible to maintain an army that can meet a local threat quickly. Feudalism provides a system where local lords, who owe their power to the monarch, can maintain local military for the purpose of meeting local threats, and can be called to provide support in a national crisis. Through the system of subinfeudation, which builds a pyramid of power and obligation, this can be extended from the king to the level of the village and manor. There were parts of Europe where the central government was strong enough that feudalism was unnecessary. The Byzantine Empire did not need it because its government was inherited directly from ancient Rome, and had the authority of ancient Rome. At the other end of the spectrum were governments in Britain of the Early Middle Ages, and of Spain of the period of the Reconquista, which were small enough that the monarch could be a central authority of sufficient power not to need a structure for decentralization. Italy was much the same as Britain and Spain, except that the power was often in the hands of groups of people, as in the republics. By contrast, France and the Holy Roman Empire were too big for a weak central government to operate without the feudal pyramid. Neither was England, after the Norman Invasion, because of opposition to the central government by the population. In France and England, the feudal system operated through successive levels of the nobility. In the Holy Roman Empire, the land was divided into countries that were constituent parts of the Empire, so many parts were governed by kings, dukes, and counts palatine.
How did people rule in the medieval times?
For the most part, medieval people did not rule themselves, but were ruled by kings, through a system of nobility, feudalism, and subinfeudation called the feudal pyramid. Basically, and in a highly simplified description, this meant that the kings told the high ranking nobles what to do, the high ranking nobles told the lesser nobles what to do, and the lesser nobles told the serfs what to do. This system was moderated by the Church, and also by the fact that the feudal obligations went two ways: the nobility told the serfs what to do, but they were limited severely by custom and the fact that they also had obligations to provide land, housing, and protection to the serfs. Nevertheless, there were people who were self governing. There were independent republics, and probably the most important or well known was Venice. Venice was founded as a republic in 697, and remained so until after the Middle Ages ended. Other cities and communal towns existed throughout Italy and the Holy Roman Empire. Some of these had a sort of primitive democracy, though we might regard them as overly primitive to be called by that name. For example, in some cities, the government was done by vote, but the voters were limited to guild members. In other cities the government was provided by clergy. In Iceland, there were voters, but the right to vote was passed from one person to one person by inheritance or sale, and was limited to only a couple hundred people.
