The Feudal Contract and the Monarchy in Medieval England

Abstract

In interpreting the feudal contract between kings and nobles in medieval Western Europe, Western historians have tended to elaborate on its interaction, equivalence, and even equality, with an emphasis on the resulting restrictions on the king’s authority. However, this was not the case in England during this period. After the Norman Conquest, “imported feudalism” became a strong support for the English monarchy. On this basis, the feudal contract between kings and nobles evolved from an oral to a textual contract and from “personal commitment” to “collective negotiation,” in a process strongly marked by the coercion and inequality bestowed on such contracts by hierarchical feudal roles. In the course of this process, the English kings ceaselessly consolidated their power by breaking down the feudal customs reflected in agreements between the two sides. Although the Magna Carta, as a text-based feudal contract, made explicit provision for feudal customs, it failed to effectively constrain royal power. History shows that if we seek to elaborate on the reciprocity and even equality of the feudal contract from the perspective of modern social contract theory and thus exaggerate the nobles’ right to resist the king, we will inevitably construct a mythical “feudal contract determinism.”