Chibnall quotes nineteenth- century historian, F. W. Maitland, that ‘feudalism is a good
word, and will cover a multitude of ignorances’ suggesting a long -understood need to better
conceptualise such a broad area of study. 7
Another later examination of the historiography of feudalism by Reynolds in 1994
suggests a cause for this confusion. She points towards sixteenth-century French historians
as the culprits due to their preoccupation with Roman Law in France. Their subsequent use
and interpretation of the Libri Feudorum , a work from twelfth-century Italy, Reynolds
argues, is the source of the blurred lines between ‘this academic law about fiefs...[and] the
customary law of the middle ages...often called feudal law’. 8 By providing an analysis of the
historiography of feudalism before continuing into her interpretation of European
feudalism, Reynolds demonstrates a modern recognition of accountability, acknowledging
the origins of contemporary debates.
Although usually reserved for subjects like sociology and politics, the increasingly
interdisciplinary nature of history in an academic context suggests a need for consideration
of all three levels of causation: direct, background and latent (the influence of sixteenth-
century French historians on modern analysis of feudalism being the second). As included by
Phillipp Schofield when looking at the breakdown of feudalism in England in the fourteenth-
century, such interdisciplinary developments also provide new perspectives, such as the
sociological use of quantitative research, highlighting the importance of measurable data
found in primary sources. 9
7 Marjorie Chibnall, The Debate on the Norman Conquest (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999), p. 79 8 Reynolds, p. 3 9 Phillipp Schofield, Peasants and Historians: Debating the Medieval English Peasantry (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2016), p. 104
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