The noble's estate was called a manor. It was the home of a number of peasants who farmed it in exchange for a place to live, fields to farm, and protection. The noble got the income from a part of the crop, and some labor or money as rent.
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As Rome grew, many Rome's rich landowners lived on huge estates. Small farmers found it difficult to compete with the large estates. So a large number of them old their lands to wealthy landowners. They became poor and jobless. So if they limited the size of the roman estates, the small farmers wouldn't have to sell lands and become poor.
There was not a name for a farming estate which used slave labour. Slaves worked on large landed estates. These were called fundi (plural of fundus) or latifundia (plural of latifundium, "spacious" + fundus, "farm, estate"). The name remained after these estates stopped using slave labour.
The estate of most feudal lords was called a manor. The manor was a large agricultural property worked by peasants who lived on it, usually in a hamlet or village. It might have had a number of features, including a manor house, for the lord and his family, workshops, barns, woodland, pasture, fields, and often a church.
A large landed estate.A Latifundia is "a piece of property covering a very large land area, found today only in Latin America and Italy." They specialized in agriculture destined for export, and were run by slave labour. They are/were very similar to the Spanish haciendas.
Feudalism came to dominate political & social life in Western Europe because by the 8th and 9th centuries, central governments, such as the Carolingian Empire could not effectively defend their people from invasions by Norsemen, Magyars, Slavs and Moslems. In addition, weak central governments failed to prevent internal civil wars among various nobles & princes. Nor could they defend their peoples against bandits and others. As a result of this turbulence and insecurity, people turned to local nobles for protection. Kings turned over large tracts of lands to local feudal leaders in return for a pledge of military assistance when needed.