All countries of Western Europe in the IX-XX centuries were fragmented. Germany, Italy and France were divided into thousands of separate estates, ruled by dukes, counts or barons with unlimited power in their lands.
They judged serfs and free peasants, taxed people, fought and concluded peace agreements at their discretion. It was in those days that the words "overlord" and "vassal" appeared.
The reign of the overlords
A distinctive feature of feudal times was that the king did not possess almost any power. Moreover, in most cases, the power of the ruler was so insignificant and weak that he had absolutely no influence on political events taking place in the state.
That is, we can say that theoretically the state was ruled by the monarch, and almost all the reins of government were in the hands of overlords. To make the picture more clear, it should be clarified that the overlord is the supreme ruler of the territory, which is the main one in relation to all vassals subordinate to him.
In turn, the question arises of who the vassal is. Based on the foregoing, we understand that at that time they called landowners who were completely dependent on their overlord. They swore an oath to him and, accordingly, had a number of duties both in the military unit and in monetary obligations.
The specifics of feudal relations
Thus, feudal relations in themselves constitute a whole series of landowners dependent on each other, headed by a king, whose authority, as mentioned above, was highly doubtful.
The chief overlord understood this very well, and therefore he tried to maintain friendly relations with the most influential feudal lords of his kingdom, so that in case of danger or impending military operations he could be able to count on someone else's help.
The royal thrones served as a toy in the hands of influential gentlemen. The power of each of them directly depended on how impressive the army had one or another overlord. This not only allowed fighting among themselves, but also encroached on the royal throne. Having the most powerful troops, the dukes or counts could easily overthrow the king and put in his place his governor and actually rule the kingdom.
The emergence of new vassals
In order to secure their strength and power, many feudal lords practiced the distribution of part of their land for use to smaller landowners. Together with the territory, serfs and free peasants took over, which completely depended on what decision the overlord made.
This, in turn, obliged the vassals to take an oath of absolute fidelity. At the first call of their overlord, they pledged to appear in full combat uniforms, armed, on horseback. In addition, they had to be accompanied by squires and a predetermined number of armed people trained in military skill from among the new subjects.