Through a concerted, highly-detailed legal system and a centralized spy service, Charlemagne verified that nobles throughout the empire were obeying his authority. By the latter part of the 8th century, the most successful practitioner of this system was a Frankish ruler named Charlemagne, who built an empire that covered a significant, though truncated, portion of the former Western Roman Empire.

To maintain power and forestall any attempt to usurp his authority, a Germanic king would grant lands to his nobles in return for their pledging military support when the king summoned it. These tribes, under the collective designation “Germanic,” though they didn’t necessarily originate in what is now Germany, had their own local laws under their own rulers that didn’t answer to a centralized authority in Rome. But by the early 5th century, that division was becoming permanent – the eastern part prospered and eventually took the mantle of Roman authority, whereas the western part declined under repeated invasions from foreign tribes and officially ended in 476. At this point, the empire had already been divided into western and eastern parts by Diocletian, whose reign ended in 305. Let’s take a closer look.īefore roughly 400 AD, much of Western Europe was under the dominion of the Roman Empire. But for the mass of the populace it was quite oppressive, and by the end of the medieval period it had run its course. It produced a set of manners and norms – chivalry – and spawned an elegant form of literature that helped Europeans capture and develop pride in their histories. Feudalism in Western Europe was a politico-economic system that created a social fabric with military obligations.

The end of feudalism in the middle ages