Most regions in medieval Europe were ruled by clergy or feudal lords.

These are examples ; depending on the period of time and location in Europe, feudal customs and practices varied ; see examples of feudalism.

The term feudal has also been applied to non-Western societies in which institutions and attitudes similar to those of medieval Europe are perceived to have prevailed ( See Other feudal-like systems ).

The modern sense of human rights can be traced to Renaissance Europe and the Protestant Reformation, alongside the disappearance of the feudal authoritarianism and religious conservativism that dominated the Middle Ages.

Feudal levies could only be raised for a fixed length of time before they returned home, forcing an end to a campaign ; mercenary forces, often called Brabançons after the Duchy of Brabant but actually recruited from across northern Europe, could operate all year long and provide a commander with more strategic options to pursue a campaign, but cost much more than equivalent feudal forces.

Khazaria was the first feudal state to be established in Eastern Europe.

With the arrival of Italian trading firms, the creation of the military orders, and immigration by European knights, artisans, and farmers, the affairs of the Kingdom improved and a feudal society developed, similar to but distinct from the society the crusaders knew in Europe.

Agricultural production was regulated by the iqta, a Muslim system of land ownership and payments roughly ( though far from exactly ) equivalent to the feudal system of Europe, and this system was not heavily disrupted by the crusaders.

Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practised in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market economy and new forms of agrarian contract.

During the Renaissance, most of Europe was still by and large following the feudal economic model.

Despite their wealth they had little power in the feudal system dominated by the rural land owners, and across Europe began to advocate for their own privileges and powers.

Uniquely in Europe, these horsemen comprised a militia cavalry force with no feudal links, being under the sole control of the king or the count of Castile because of the " charters " ( or fueros ).

The merging of the Scandinavian and native elements contributed to the creation of one of the most powerful feudal states of Western Europe.

In most parts of medieval Europe, the upper class obtained the sole rights to hunt in certain areas of a feudal territory.

Western writers often describe the Zhou period as " feudal " because the Zhou's early rule invites comparison with medieval rule in Europe.

There were many minor provinces in the region between southern Liguria and northern Tuscany dominated by the Malaspina ; Tuscany in this time was a part of feudal Europe.

In the southern states, where the climate and sociological conditions differed from the north, the kitchen was often relegated to an outbuilding, separate from the big house, the mansion, for much of the same reasons as in the feudal kitchen in medieval Europe: the kitchen was operated by slaves, and their working place had to be separated from the living area of the masters by the social standards of the time.

The abbey church at Cluny, the largest in Europe, had become wealthy from rents, tithes, feudal rights and pilgrims who passed through Cluniac houses on the Way of St. James.

AD 1500 ), under régimes of the early national monarchies of Western Europe, the bourgeoisie acted in self-interest, and politically supported the king or the queen against the legal and financial disorder caused by the greed of the feudal lords.

Martel was also the founder of all the feudal systems that marked the Carolingian Empire, and Europe in general during the Middle Ages, though his son and grandson would gain credit for his innovations.

Actually one of the first democratic decisions in feudal Europe.

His works frequently juxtapose characters from the Old World ( Europe ), embodying a feudal civilization that is beautiful, often corrupt, and alluring, and from the New World ( United States ), where people are often brash, open, and assertive and embody the virtues — freedom and a more highly evolved moral character — of the new American society.

In the Middle Ages, feudal and serfdom systems became the predominant political and economic systems in Europe.

Parts of Europe, including much of Scandinavia, never adopted many feudal institutions, including serfdom.

This was most clearly seen in the feudal system, where a lord was expected to enter combat armored and on horseback and bring with him an entourage of peasants on foot.

The Shihab leadership continued until the middle of the 19th century and culminated in the illustrious governorship of Amir Bashir Shihab II ( 1788 – 1840 ) who, after Fakhr-al-Din, was the most powerful feudal lord Lebanon produced.

After the Shehab dynasty converted to Christianity, the Druze community and feudal leaders came under attack from the regime with the collaboration of the Catholic Church, and the Druze lost most of their political and feudal powers.

Outside a European context, the concept of feudalism is normally used only by analogy ( called semi-feudal ), most often in discussions of feudal Japan under the shoguns, and sometimes medieval and Gondarine Ethiopia.

He would reform taxes and attempt to break the feudal system, in order to undercut rivals, the most important of which was also named Bashir: Bashir Jumblatt, whose wealth and feudal backers equaled or exceeded Bashir II – and who had increasing support in the Druze community.

In feudal Japan there was no custom of ransoming prisoners of war, who were for the most part summarily executed.

In the 13th century, most Italian city states already were hiring mercenaries, but Venetian troops were still recruited from the lagoon, plus feudal levies from Dalmatia ( the very famous Schiavoni or Oltremarini ) and Istria.

Parts of Westphalia came under Brandenburg-Prussian control during the 17th and 18th centuries, but most of it remained divided duchies and other feudal areas of power.

Under the feudal system, most land in England was cultivated in common fields, where peasants were allocated strips of arable land that were used to support the needs of the local village or manor.

The revolts ceased when King Alfonso V of Aragon nominated the town as a Royal Burg, directly ruled by the King and free from feudal taxation, in the period in which it was maybe the most populous city of Sardinia.

As the Holy Roman Empire ( HRE ) was until its dissolution a feudal structure, most of its Dukes were actually reigning in their lands.

His last, and perhaps the most momentous act, was his will and testament known as " The Succession Statute " in which he divided the country among his sons, leading to almost 200 years of feudal fragmentation of the Polish Kingdom.

In the 16th century, under the Sanseverino family, amongst the most powerful feudal lords in Southern Italy, the city became a great centre of learning, culture and the arts, and the family hired several of the greatest intellectuals of the time.

From the 14th century onwards, most of the Salerno province became the territory of the Princes of Sanseverino, powerful feudal lords who acted as real owners of the region.

The Merovingian boy-kings remained ineffective rulers who inherited the throne as young children and lived only long enough to produce a male heir or two, while real power lay in the hands of the noble families who exercised feudal control over most of the land.

For nearly 1500 years of feudal China, the Nine exterminations ( 誅九族 ) is considered one of the most severe punishments found in traditional Chinese law enforced until the end of Qing.

For example, in a feudal mode of production, religious ideology is the most prominent aspect of the superstructure, while in capitalist formations, ideologies such as liberalism and social democracy dominate.

These were two of the most powerful families in the Thessalian feudal aristocracy yet they seemed notable to later Greeks such as Theocritus only for their association with Simonides.

Subordinate only to the shogun, daimyo were the most powerful feudal rulers from the 10th century to the middle 19th century in Japan.