Western Feudalism

From Karl Polanyi
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[1] Two outstanding facts about western civilization as a historical event are:
(a) The survival in the West of the civilization of Mediterraneen antiquity after a prolonged eclipse - (at least 1/2 millenium in the West, though not in the East or South).
(b) That this survival was achieved through the instrumentality of so-called feudal society of the High Middle Ages, a society characterised although to a varying extent
(1) politically, by a loose form of government (particularism);
(2) militarily, by the prevalence of a military system based on a privileged chivalry supported by landholdings; (3) economically a system of predominantly self-sufficient rural households based on labor: organized (i) hierarchically (ii) with limited obligations, and (iii) personally dependent.

The question is this: Since primitive feudalism and the essentially different feudalism of decay are both sociological phenomena (i.e. not not limited to a definite society or culture, time and place), how was the historical phenomenon of Western feudalism brought about, and as its consequence the survival of the legacy of ancient civilization?

Primitive feudalism is a development out of tribal society which is mainly induced by territorial expansion (whatever its [2] cause be). (The city state of antiquity seems primarily a development out of tribal society without the feudal characteristics - no expension [3]

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Reference:
KPA: 30/17