Feudalism is the system of governing whereby semiautonomous nobility have certain responsibilities to the king, in return for the use of grants of land, known as fiefs, in which semi-free peasants, known as serfs, are employed to labor the land.
             As the Roman Empire crumbled, emperors granted land to nobles in exchange for their loyalty. These lands eventually developed into manors. A manor is the land owned by a noble and everything on it. A typical manor consisted of a castle, small village, and farmland.
             A definite class system existed in these medieval communities. Also, these early feudal states were self-sufficient, trading little with outsiders. Eventually though, smaller villages grew together increasingly. Nobles would combine forces to wage war and acquire larger kingdoms. Often these leaders would die or fall to squabbling; thus their kingdoms would fall apart. In the end, with states continually growing and conquering, a stable culture was reborn.
             During the Middle Ages, peasants could no longer count on the Roman army to protect them. German, Viking and Magyar tribes overran homes and farms throughout Europe. The peasants turned to the landowners, often called lords, to protect them. Many peasants remained free, but most became serfs. A serf was bound to the land. He could not leave without buying his freedom, an unlikely occurrence in the Middle Ages. Life for a serf was not much better than the life of a slave. The only difference was that a serf could not be sold to another manor.
             Serfs would often have to work three or four days a week for the lord as rent. They would spend the rest of their week growing crops to feed their families. Other serfs worked as sharecroppers. A sharecropper would be required to turn over most of what he grew in order to be able to live on the land.
             Feudalism came to be initially a system of local defense against the constant dangers and uncertainties of a rather primi...