Origins of Feudal Institutions

In the Middle Ages, networks of personal agreements formed the basis of the
political, economic and social systems. How these agreements developed and
how they were utilised during the early Middle Ages are currently topics of
scholarly debate.

For noble and peasant alike, the family was the single most important social unit
of the Middle Ages and the basis for other relationships. Functioning as a form of
social security, the family provided protection and care to the children, the aged
and infirm. Family alliances of blood and marriage were utilised to strengthen
feudal ties and to increase power bases. In order to prevent the splintering of
family property, the law of primogeniture was adopted across most of Europe.
Under this law, the eldest son received the full inheritance of the father, leaving
younger sons to make their own way.

In the Middle Ages, one of the most common paths for younger siblings was to
enter into ecclesiastical service. This tied the Church into the feudal network as
family loyalties remained intact for clergy and the hierarchy of the Church
mirrored the social structure of a patriarchal secular society. Noble bishops and
abbots increased the prestige and political clout of their natal families while the
presence of a royal member within a monastery benefited the entire spiritual
family.

Feudalism is the term applied to relationships between members of the

aristocracy. The basic unit of these feudal arrangements was the fief, a section
of land granted for temporary use. The vassalage agreement was between the
owner of the fief, the lord, and the recipient of the fief, the vassal. Technically,
ownership of the land remained with the lord but the vassal received "use of the
fruits", or usufruct, in exchange for fealty to the lord. Over time, these land
grants became hereditary and ownership of the land seldom reverted back to the
lord, except in cases of contumacy or absence of an heir.

The structure of these feudal arrangements was fluid and cannot be forced into a
defined hierarchy. Depending on the lands that a man held, he could be vassal to
more than one lord and lord to more than one vassal. This condition, called
subinfeudation, illustrates the amazing complexity and flexibility of feudal
institutions. To deal with the potential for conflicting loyalties that subinfeudation
could create, documents were often written to outline the precedence of the
various lords by which a vassal may be bound, defining a single overlord as liege
lord.

All feudal relationships were based on a perceived, if not an actual, imbalance of

power and the mutual exchange of goods, lands or services. Use of the term
feudalism is typically restricted to the relationships between members of the
nobility. However, relationships between the nobility and the peasantry,
manorialism, reflect a similar power structure.
Developing from the Roman villas of late antiquity, the manor became the basic
agricultural unit in the early Middle Ages and reflected the system of personal
bonds seen in feudal arrangements. In the manorial system, however, the bonds
were between lords and serfs and were defined by conditions of protection,
labour and economic support.

In the Roman villa, gangs of slaves worked the land of the owner. As the supply
of slaves dwindled between the fifth and eighth centuries, a new class emerged
from the combination of free peasants and slaves, the serfs. Faced with
shortages of slave field labour, landowners began to grant plots of land, called
tenures or hides, to serfs in exchange for tithes on crops, service in the lord's
own fields and various other types of taxes. In exchange, the lord was obligated
to provide military protection and justice for his tenants. Althought serfs had no
real status under law, social customs prevented excessive exploitation.
Combined with the co-operative agricultural styles that developed in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, these ties of mutual personal dependence came
to be defined as manorialism.

While outright slavery had ceased to exist virtually everywhere in Europe by the
twelfth century, most of the peasant labour force consisted of serfs who were
tied to a lord and, often, to the land. The shift from serf to freedman occurred
through manumission. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries increased
amounts of cultivable lands with higher productivities combined with
opportunities for manumission and placed large areas of farmland into the hands
of the non-nobles.

During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Europe was faced with a series of
agricultural, economic and demographic disasters. The arrival of a colder and
wetter climate meant that large areas of previously fertile land became
unproductive. Crop failures and famines were common by the early fourteenth
century and the arrival of the Black Death further decimated the population. At
first, the depopulation opened up lands for the survivors but successive sweeps
left few to maintain even the best farmlands or to preserve feudal patrimonies.

A precarious land grant of a fief was not the only form of property agreement in
the Middle Ages. Minor landholders often held their own lands called allods.
During the seventh to ninth centuries, Europe was enveloped in a period of
almost continuous warfare and these small landowners sought protection from
powerful lords by commendation. In exchange for this military and judicial
protection, minor landholders granted ownership of their lands to an overlord.
The use of the land normally returned to the former owner as a tenant under
specified conditions and this type of grant often required renewal whenever the
tenant or the overlord changed. Since tenant farmers were not trained soldiers,
their obligations seldom included military service. Because ecclesiastical nobles
were usually better organised, had higher levels of literacy and were less likely
to be engaged in wars, bishops and abbots (secular clergy with military powers)
were often the preferred lords for commendation. The Church acquired vast
tracts of land by this method in the early Middle Ages.
 In the late Middle Ages, the social classes underwent a period of fluidity.
Economic conditions favoured the merchant and craft classes, and even the
peasantry could demand better circumstances. Feudal obligations between lord
and vassal were being replaced by contractual agreements based on payments
of money. The economy expanding from an agricultural base to include
commercial and manufacturing interests. Also, Europe was no longer in a
constant state of warfare and even the Crusades had ceased to be a focus for
the energies of the martial nobility. In an attempt to close ranks and protect
social status, the noble elite turned their military attributes towards elaborate
forms of "mock battle" such as jousts and tournaments, and the martial and
moral aspects of feudal society were ritualised into chivalry. This diversion of
military prowess developed the romantic ideals of courtly love and knightly
honour that have been immortalised in the literature of the time. It is ironic that
the fanciful picture of the dignified knight and his lady that will forever be
associated with the knights of the Middle Ages was created by the demise of the
very systems that shaped it.

The Manorial System

This was the social, economic and administrative system that appeared in the
fifth century in Europe. It emerged from the chaos and instability after the
collapse of the Roman Empire. Farmers needed to be protected against
marauders and thieves, and sought such protection from their local lord of the
manor. In return for protection, the locals surrendered certain rights, and control
over their land. Sadly, in many cases throughout Europe, the peasants lost
everything to their local lord if he was avaricious – land, home, daughters,
produce and rights. All social revolutions have their base in the peasants’
accelerating hatred of the landlords and their manorial system.

Gradually, a system of obligations and service appeared, especially relating

towards manorial agricultural management. These were set down in official
documents called customals.
The manor consisted of the private land of the lord, and his tenants’ holdings.
These tenants were free or ‘unfree’, rank and position being determined by the
status of their land. In addition, meadowland was available to all for grazing of
herds. Gradually, over the centuries, this became known as Common Land. An
added facility might be woodland for timber, and the grazing of pigs.

The lord of the manor presided over the manor courtroom, and received money
or provisions or labour services from his tenants, either regularly or seasonally.
In the twelfth century labour services were changed for cash rents, but huge
inflation by the end of the twelfth century encouraged landlords to give up
rentals and accept forced service again. During the Black Death (1348), Europe’s
population fell from 80 million to less than 55 million, and the agricultural classes
were already heading for what they believed to be the prosperity and safety of
the towns and cities.
European Agrarian Society: Manorialism
One of the greatest achievements of the early Middle Ages was the emergence
of the single-family farm as the basic unit of production. Villa owners, that is,
former Roman patricians, were forced to settle their slaves on their own estates.
The wreckage of the Roman Empire and with it, the decline of any form of
centralized government, demanded such a development. This development often
called manorialism or serfdom, marks the beginning of the European peasantry,
a class or order of laborers who did not really disappear until quite recently.
Before we turn our attention to serfdom or manorialism, it is necessary to
highlight a few technological achievements of the period, roughly 500-1000.

By the 6th century a series of new farm implements began to make their
appearance. The first development was the heavy plow which was needed to
turn over the hard soil of northern Europe. The older "scratch" plow had
crisscrossed the field with only slight penetration and required light, well-drained
soils. The heavy plow or "moldboard" cut deep into the soil and turned it so that
it formed a ridge, thus providing a natural drainage system. It also allowed the
deep planting of seeds. The heavy plow, by eliminating the need for cross-
plowing, also had the effect of changing the shape of fields in northern Europe
from squarish to long and narrow. The old square shape of fields was
inappropriate to the new plow -- to use it effectively all the lands of a village had
to be reorganized into vast, fenceless open fields plowed in long narrow strips.
This invited cooperation.

The only drawback as that it required an increased amount of animal power to

draw it across the soil. So, a second innovation attempted to overcome this
drawback: the introduction of teams of oxen. This became possible through the
adoption of two pieces of technology known to the Romans: the rigid horse collar
and the tandem harness. The rigid collar and tandem harness allowed teams to
pull with equal strength and greater efficiency. And this invited cooperation as
well for how many peasants can be said to have owned eight oxen, the number
requisite to pull the heavy plow? If they wished to use this new piece of
technology they would have to pool their teams. Added to this was the fact that
each peasant might "own" and harvest fifty or sixty small strips scattered widely
over the entire arable land of the village. The result was the growth of a powerful
village council of peasants to settle disputes and to decide how the total
collection of small strips ought to be managed. This was the essence of the
manorial system as it operated in northern Europe.

Northern European farmers also began to experiment with the three-field system
of crop rotation. Under the older, two-field system, the arable land was divided in
half. One field was planted in the fall with winter wheat while the other field
remained fallow. Under the three-field system, the same land would be divided
into thirds. One field would be planted in the fall with winter wheat or rye and
harvested in early summer. In late spring a second field planted with oats,
barley, legumes or lentils , which were harvested in late summer. The third field
would remain fallow. Such a system improved the arability of the soil since the
tendency to overuse was greatly diminished. The importance of this cannot be
overlooked. Without additional plowing, it would be possible for the land to yield
more food. The increased amount of vegetable protein made available meant
that European peasants might enjoy an improved level of nutrition. Lastly, the
diversification into other crops such as oats, meant that horses could be fed
properly. And the horse would eventually replace oxen as the preferred method
of animal power.

These innovations in agricultural techniques -- medieval microchips, if you will --

were by no means the only ones to make their appearance during the early
Middle Ages. Iron became increasingly utilized to make agricultural implements
since it was more durable than wood. New farm implements were either
discovered or refined such as the toothed harrow. There was also a startling
incidence of windmills. All this meant greater food production and with much
greater efficiency. These developments took place, gradually and regionally, on
the medieval manor. The manor was the fundamental unit of economic, political
and social organization. It was, furthermore, the only life the medieval serf or
peasant ever knew. The manor was a tightly disciplined community of peasants
organized collectively under the authority of a lord. Manors were usually divided
into two parts: the demense defined the lord's land and was worked by the serf
and then there were the small farms of the serfs themselves. There were also
extensive common lands (held by men in common by the grace of God) used by
the serfs for grazing, gleaning, hunting and fishing. The typical medieval manor
also contained various workshops which manufactured clothes, shoes, tools and
weapons. There were bakeries, wine presses and grist mills.

A lord controlled at least one manorial village and great lords might control
hundreds. A small manor estate might contain a dozen families while larger
estates might include fifty or sixty. The manorial village was never completely
self-sufficient because salt, millstones or perhaps metalware were not available
and had to be obtained from outside sources. However, the medieval manor did
serve as a balanced economic setting. Peasants grew their grain and raised
cattle, sheep, hogs and goats. There were blacksmiths, carpenters and
stonemasons who built and repaired dwellings. The village priest cared for the
souls of the inhabitants and it was up to the lord to defend the manor estate
from outside attack.

When a manor was attacked by a rival lord, the peasants usually found
protection inside the walls of their lord's house. By the 12th century, the lord's
home had become in many cases, a well-fortified castle. Peasants generally
lived, worked and died within the lord's estate and were buried in the village
churchyard. The world of the medieval peasant was clearly the world and
experience of the manor estate.

There was a complex set of personal relationships which defined the obligations
between serf and lord. In return for security and the right to cultivate fields and
to pass their holdings on to their sons, the serf had many obligations to their
lord. As a result, the personal freedom of the serf was restricted in a number of
ways. Bound to the land, they could not leave the manor without the lord's
consent. Before a serf could marry, he had to gain the consent of the lord as well
as pay a small fee. A lord could select a wife for his serf and force him to marry
her. A serf who refused was ordered to pay a fine. In addition to working their
own land, the serfs also had to work the land of their lords. The lord's land had to
be harvested by the serfs before they could harvest their own land. Other
services exacted by the lord included digging ditches, gathering firewood,
building and repairing fences, and repairing roads and bridges. In general, more
than half of a serf's workweek was devoted to rendering services to the lord. The
serf also paid a variety of dues to the lord: the annual capitation or head tax
(literally, a tax on existence), the taille (a tax on the serf's property), and the
heriot (an inheritance tax). Lastly, medieval serfs paid a number of banalities
which were taxes paid to use the lord's mills, ovens and presses.

The serf's existence was certainly a harsh one. The manor offered protection to
the serfs, something desperately needed in this time of uncertainty. The manor
also promoted group cooperation. How else could fifty serfs use a handful of
oxen to plow their fields? They had to learn to work collectively for the collective
good of the village community. The serf knew his place in medieval society and
readily accepted it. So too did the medieval nobility and clergy. The medieval
manor therefore sustained the three orders of medieval society: those who pray,
those who fight, and those who work.

Literacy may have reached its lowest level on the manor estate but at least the
serf was protected and secure.

Manorialism and feudalism presupposed a stable social order in which every

individual knew their place. People believed that society functioned smoothly
when individuals accepted their status and performed their proper roles.
Consequently, a person's rights, duties, and relationship to the law depended on
his or her ranking in the social order. To change position was to upset the
delicate balance. No one, serfs included, should be deprived of the traditional
rights associated with his or her rank in the medieval matrix. This arrangement
was justified by the clergy:

God himself has willed that among men, some must be lords and some serfs, in
such a fashion that the lords venerate and love God, and that the serfs love and
venerate their lord following the word of the Apostle; serfs obey your temporal
lords with fear and trembling; lords treat your serfs according to justice and
equity.

In the high Middle Ages, the revival of an urban economy, the humanization of
Christianity, the growth of universities and the emergence of centralized
governments would undermine feudal and manorial relationships. Although the
relationship of dependence remained, feudal institutions gradually disappeared.
Landlord and peasant: 9th - 15th century AD
Life on a manor is the medieval version of a relationship which occurs, between
landlord and peasant, in any society where a leisured class depends directly on
agriculture carried out by others. Such landlords may be patricians living in their
Roman villas (seen by many historians as the original version of the European
manor) or feudal knights ensconced in castles and fortified manor houses (a
development dating from Carolingian times).

Records suggest that the work of between fifteen and thirty peasant families is
required to support one knight's family (and correspondingly more for a baron
holding court in a castle). The relationship between the knight and his peasants
is the manorial system.

The knight has force on his side. Even in normal circumstances he may be able
to terrify his peasants into subjection. In unruly times - characteristic of much of
the Middle Ages - his armour becomes even more significant. The peasants need
his protection from marauding enemies. They are less likely than usual to assert
themselves.

On the other hand a cooperative labour force is more productive than a resentful
one, so the lord of the manor may be inclined to use his natural advantages with
moderation. And occasionally, when labour is in short supply - as after the Black
Death in the 14th century - the peasants themselves acquire a measure of
economic strength.

The resulting balance of power varies greatly in different places and times. There
is an important distinction between free peasants (theoretically able to leave a
manor at will, though economically often unable to do so) and serfs. Serfs are
the descendants either of slaves who have been given a measure of freedom, or
of free peasants who have accepted legal restrictions in return for the lord's
protection.

Serfs are slaves only in the one crucial sense of being tied to their lord's land.
That distinction comes to seem a quibble where serfdom continues into modern
times (as in Russia in the 19th century), outlasting the abolition of true slavery.

The system of labour and of rent which develops on a medieval manor is also
immensely variable. It is further complicated by the fact that part of any manor
(the demesne) is farmed by the lord on his own account, using peasant labour,
and part is cultivated by the peasants for their subsistence - paying the lord
some form of rent, whether in natural produce, days and weeks of their own
labour, or money.

Gradually, as in any long-established social system, the lords devise more and
more dues to supplement their revenue. These may be direct taxes (such as
'heriot', the lord's right to the best beast every time the head of a peasant family
dies) or fees for the functions of the manorial court.

The manorial court: 9th - 15th century AD

The court is the judicial basis of the manorial system. In the decentralized and
unruly regions of medieval Europe, some measure of control is achieved by
giving lords legal powers over the peasants on their manors.
A large estate will consist of many manors, acquired not only by feudal grant but
also by marriage, purchase and even outright seizure. The lord or his
representatives move from one manor to another, holding court and consuming
the produce gathered since their last visit. The court dispenses justice for crimes
committed on the manor, hears civil disputes between tenants, and collects
rents, fines and fees.

Fees are claimed by the lord of the manor on a wide range of events in the life of
the community. They may be required for the issue of a legal document, for the
buying and selling of property and even - most notoriously - for permission to
marry.

These rights over the community last long after the economic basis of the manor
has crumbled. They are the final residue of feudalism, and the most resented.
Beaumarchais' radical comedy The Marriage of Figaro (staged just four years
before the French Revolution) hinges on the question of whether the count will
give permission for the wedding - or will attempt to revive a less authentic
seigneurial right to the bride's virginity.

This supposed right, known as the jus primae noctis (right of the first night) or
droit du seigneur (right of the lord), gives an intriguing glimpse of the nature of
the manorial system at the time when feudalism is declining into decay and
corruption.

There is no evidence that any lord ever claimed this outrageous prerogative, but
there are several cases of people in the late Middle Ages paying money to avoid
the exercise of the jus primae noctis. It is an unusually imaginative example of
the feudal system of rights and privileges, with their inherent potential for abuse.

Farming the manor: 9th - 18th century AD

The Frankish empire under Charlemagne is the source of feudalism and the
manorial system. It also introduces a related revolution in agriculture.

Rotation of crops to conserve the soil has been a standard part of agricultural
practice since the Neolithic Revolution. The classic method is the simple two-field
system. Of every two fields, one is planted each year (in Europe with wheat,
barley or oats). The other is allowed to lie fallow, grazed by the cattle and
fertilized by their manure.

The Franks introduce a major improvement, extending the rotation to three

fields. One field is now planted in the autumn with winter wheat or rye. One field
is planted in the spring with oats, barley or vegetables such as peas and beans.
The third field is left fallow.

The new arrangement requires summer rain for the crop planted in the spring, so
it is suitable only in the cooler regions of Europe. It seems to have been
introduced, perhaps in the late 8th century, between the Loire and the Rhine.

The advantages are considerable. The most obvious is an increase of one third in
the crop (previously 50% of the land was producing each year, now the figure is
66%). The work of preparing and harvesting the fields is more efficiently spread
out through the year. The ripening of crops in two seasons rather than one
reduces the risk of famine from freak weather.

And there is a benefit, in terms of health and variety, in the addition of

vegetables to a previously all-grain diet.

Strip-farming and enclosure: 9th - 20th century AD

The fields of a medieval manor are open spaces divided, almost imperceptibly,
into long narrow strips. Only the fields being grazed by cattle are fenced. The
others are open and are identifiable as separate fields only by the crops which
they bear. The unusual detail is that the single crop in each field is separately
farmed - in individual strips - by peasant families of the local village.

Some of the strips may also belong to the local lord, farmed for him by the
peasants under their feudal obligations. But more often the lord's land is in a
self-contained demesne around the manor.

Strip-farming is central to the life of a medieval rural community. It involves an

intrinsic element of fairness, for each peasant's strips are widely spread over the
entire manor; every family will have the benefit of good land in some areas,
while accepting a poor yield elsewhere.

The strips also enforce an element of practical village democracy. The system
only works if everyone sows the same crop on their strip of each open field. What
to sow and when to harvest it are communal decisions. The field cannot be
fenced, or the cattle let into it, until each peasant has reaped his own harvest.

Ploughing too is a communal affair. The heavy wheeled plough needed for
northern soils is expensive, as are horses to pull it. So a team of horses and
plough works successive strips of an open field for different peasants. The long
narrow shape of the strips reflects the difficulty of turning the team at each end.

In addition to the open fields, each village or manor has common land where
peasants have a right to graze cattle, collect wood, cut turf and perhaps catch
fish.

From about the 13th century there are pressures on this agricultural system for
two different reasons. One is the wish to rationalize the use of the land by
changing each peasant's rights from scattered strips to a unified plot
surrounding a family cottage. There is considerable resistance to this, because it
eliminates the old safeguard by which good and poor land was evenly shared
out.
The other motive is the greed of lords of the manor, who regularly attempt to
enclose the common land and incorporate it in their own demesne.
Enclosure of common land causes particular unrest, not only for the loss of an
ancient right but because the poorest peasants (those who lack a share in the
open-field system) rely on these pastures and woods for subsistence.

The issue becomes a crisis at different times in different parts of Europe, in some
places even in the 20th century. But the trend is everywhere the same -
transforming the open fields of the Middle Ages into the fenced, hedged or
walled fields of the individual farms which are characteristic of today's
landscape.
Landlord, tenant and labourer: from the 13th century AD
The gradual move towards enclosure brings with it a change in the employment
system in European agriculture. The feudal relationship of lord and peasant (with
payments to the lord made in the form of labour, sometimes commuted for
money) gives way to a system of landlord, tenant and labourer which is entirely
based on money. The tenant pays money to the landlord for the use of his land;
the landlord pays money to the labourer for his work. In broad terms the free
peasants, who have owned a share of the land in the open-field system, become
the tenants. The serfs become the labourers.

The new system probably begins during the prosperous 13th century. With the
growth in national and international trade, the subsistence farming of the feudal
manor is unable to meet the demands of the market. England is one of the first
regions to make the change, owing to its prosperous trade with Flanders in wool
(by its nature sheep-farming is ill-suited to the open-field system). In the 14th
century a different pressure continues the process; shortage of labour after the
Black Death leads to an increased use of wages to pay for work done in the
fields.

The change gradually introduces the system of land tenure and labour which has
prevailed in most of Europe ever since.
 French Revolution
Crisis in the Old regime
The French Revolution resulted from two state crises which emerged during the
1750s – 80s, one constitutional and one financial, with the latter providing a
'tipping point' in 1788/9, when desperate action by government ministers
backfired and unleashed a revolution against the 'Old Regime'. In addition to
these there was the growth of the bourgeoisie, a social order whose new wealth,
power and opinions undermined the older feudal social system of France. The
bourgeoisie were, in general, highly critical of the pre-revolutionary regime and
acted to change it, although the exact role they played is still hotly debated
among historians.

Maupeou, the Parlements and Constitutional Doubts

From the 1750s it became increasingly clear to many Frenchmen that the
constitution of France, based around an absolutist style of monarchy, was no
longer working. This was partly due to failures in government, be they the
squabbling instability of the king's ministers or embarrassing defeats in wars,
partly due to new enlightenment thinking, which increasingly undermined
despotic monarchs, and partly due to the bourgeoisie seeking a voice in the
administration. The ideas of 'public opinion', 'nation' and 'citizen' emerged and
grew, along with a sense that the state's authority had to be defined and
legitimized in a new, broader, framework which took more notice of the people,
instead of simply reflecting the monarch's whims. People increasingly mentioned
the Estates General, a three chambered assembly which hadn't met since the
seventeenth century, as a possible solution.

The idea of a government – and king – operating with a series of constitutional

checks and balances had grown to be vitally important in France, and it was the
13 parlements which were considered – or at least considered themselves - the
vital check on the king. However, in 1771 the parlement of Paris refused to co-
operate with the nation's Chancellor, Maupeou, and he responded by exiling the
parlement, remodelling the system, abolishing the connected venal offices and
creating a replacement disposed towards his wishes. The provincial parlements
responded angrily and met with the same fate.

Despite a campaign designed to win over the public, Maupeou never gained
national support for his changes and they were cancelled three years later when
the new king, Louis XVI, responded to angry complaints by reversing all the
changes. Unfortunately the damage had been done: the parlements had been
clearly shown as weak and subject to the king's wishes, not the invulnerable
moderating element they wished to be. But what, thinkers in France asked,
would act as a check on the king? The Estates General was a favourite answer.
The Financial Crisis and the Assembly of Notables
The financial crisis which left the door open for revolution began during the
American War of Independence, when France spent over a billion livres, the
equivalent of the state's entire income for a year. Almost all the money had been
obtained from loans. The problems were initially managed by Jacques Necker, a
French Protestant banker and the only non-noble in the government. His cunning
publicity and accounting - his public balance sheet, the Compte rendu au roi,
made the accounts look healthy - masked the scale of the problem from the
French public, but by the chancellorship of Calonne the state was looking for new
ways to tax and meet their loan payments. Calonne came up with a package of
changes which, had they been accepted, would have been the most sweeping
reforms in the French crown's history. They included abolishing lots of taxes and
replacing them with a land tax to be paid by everyone, including the previously
exempt nobles. He wanted a show of national consensus for his reforms and,
rejecting the Estates General as too unpredictable, called a hand picked
Assembly of Notables which first met at Versailles on February 22nd 1787. Less
than ten were not noble and no similar assembly had been called since 1626.

Calonne had seriously miscalculated and, far from weakly accepting the
proposed changes, the 144 members of the Assembly refused to sanction them.
Many were against paying new tax, many had reasons to dislike Calonne and
many genuinely believed the reason they gave for refusing: no new tax should
be imposed without the king first consulting the nation and, as they were
unelected, they couldn't speak for the nation. Discussions proved fruitless and
eventually Calonne was replaced with Brienne, who tried again before dismissing
the Assembly in May.

Brienne then tried to pass his own version of Calonne's changes through the
parlement of Paris, but they refused, again citing the Estates General as the only
body which could accept new taxes. Brienne exiled them to Troyes before
working on a compromise, proposing that the Estates General would meet in
1797; he even began a consultation to work out how it should be formed and
run. But for all the good will earnt more was lost as the king and his government
began forcing laws through using the arbitrary practice of lit de justice. The king
is even recorded as responding to complaints by saying "it's legal because I wish
it" (Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution, 2002, p. 80), further
fuelling worries over the constitution.

The growing financial crises reached its climax in 1788 as the disrupted state
machinery, caught between changes of system, couldn't bring in the required
sums, a situation exacerbated as bad weather ruined the harvest. The treasury
was empty and no-one was willing to accept more loans or changes. Brienne
tried to create support by bringing the date of the Estates General forward to
1789, but it didn't work and the treasury had to suspend all payments. France
was bankrupt. One of Brienne's last actions before resigning was persuading
King Louis XVI to recall Necker, whose return was greeted with jubilation by the
general public. He recalled the Paris parlement and made it clear he was just
tiding the nation over until the Estates General met.
The composition of society was also a major contributing factor to the tensions
and conflicts generated under the old regime. Society was divided into Three
Estates, the first Estate comprised of the clergy (1%), the nobility, and rest of the
population was classified as the Third Estate. Not only was the Third Estate
heterogeneous, comprising of the bourgeoise (lawyers, doctors, intellectuals,
businessman, the traders, merchants, factory owners), peasants, and beggars,
but all three Estates. There were many distinguishing factors that set the three
Estates apart. The first two Estates were associated with the monarchy and
avoided or paid little taxes, whilst at the same time earning the most money.
The Third Estate paid the highest taxes and earned the least. The bourgeoisie
were seen as becoming stronger economically but still maintaining the same
legal status as that of the poorest peasant. The bourgeoise resented their
nobles, who were simply 'born' into their position of wealth. They nobles believed
that their noble birth' set them apart from the rest of society.'

However, the nobility were also dissatisfied under the ancient regime, where
they had little, yet still more then the bourgeois, influence in politics. Although
the upper clergy enjoyed many privileges, including being exempt from paying
taxes, owned about 10 per cent of the land, and received their wealth from the
land they owned and the collection of the tithes. Yet, the lower clergy did not
enjoy these same privileges, while the 'Bishop plays the great nobleman and
spends scandalous sums on hounds, horses, furniture, servants, food and
carriages, the parish priest does not have the wherewithal to buy himself a new
cassock the bishops treat their priests , not as honest footman, but as stable-
boys.' It is clear that social unrest was felt by the whole population.
Communist Revolution in China
The Chinese Communist Revolution was the key defining period of modern
China, and therefore one of the most important grouping of events of the 20th
Century. By establishing a Communist regime under Mao Zedong in mainland
China, and a rump Nationalist regime under Chiang Kai-Shek on Taiwan, the
Revolution had ramifications that continue to define the modern world.

In China, a succession of dynasties had ruled since ancient times. At the

beginning of 1909, the Chinese emperor Kuang-Hsu had recently died. He left
behind three-year-old nephew PuYi to rule the throne with the baby's father,
Prince Chun, as regent. Kuang-Hsu's aunt had great power over the rule of her
nephew, and she prevented him from taking measures toward the modernizing
that China badly needed. China needed a strong, modern monarch to rule and
not a three-year-old.

In China, war raged almost constantly from 1910 to 1949. During this time
Chinese political parties fought civil wars against each other as well as against
the Japanese in World War II. After the monarchy fell in 1911, it was a fight over
what form of government would rule next.

Misconceptions
The Chinese Communist Revolution is often confused with the larger Chinese
Civil War. The latter was a much larger struggle which began in 1927, and
continued until at least 1950. The Chinese Communist Revolution refers
specifically to the latter stages of that contest.

By some reckonings, the Chinese Civil War did not end until the Republic of
China (Taiwan) unilaterally declared it over in 1991, but as the People's Republic
of China never acknowledged this and there has never been a peace treaty of
any kind, strictly speaking the Chinese Civil War could be considered as dormant,
but not over.

Time Frame
The Communist Revolution began with the 1946 resumption of open war
between the Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang (KMT), or Chinese
Nationalists, after the end of the Second World War. It concluded with the
effective victory of the Communists and the expulsion of Nationalist forces to the
island of Taiwan.

History
With the end of the Second World War, the energies of the Communists and the
KMT were no longer focused on fighting the Japanese. The 1946 breakdown of
peace talks led to the resumption of hostilities, with the Soviet Union providing
Mao Zedong's Communists with support, and the KMT of Chiang Kai-Shek backed
by the United States.
Initially the KMT sought to make the frontline of the war in Manchuria, however it
was an unequal struggle. The KMT forces had borne the brunt of the conflict with
the Japanese, and were largely exhausted by the effort. Contrary to later claims
made by Maoists propagandists, the Communists did very little to expel the
Japanese from China and were content to save their strength for a later
resumption of the civil war. The Nationalists were also hamstrung by their own
corruption and the failure of their economic management, which made them
deeply unpopular across China.

The Communists suffered defeats and setbacks in 1946 and 1947, but learned
from their errors and by 1948 had turned the tables on the KMT, defeating them
in battle and capturing large amounts of demoralized troops and their
equipment. Beijing fell in 1949 with hardly a shot fired in its defense. Mao
Zedong formally proclaimed the People's Republic of China a reality in October
1949. Chian Kai-Shek retreated with the remainder of his army and roughly two
million refugees to Taiwan, and subsequently repelled from outlaying islands at
the Battle of Kuningtou, but the Communists caputred Hainan Island in 1950.
With the capture of Hainan, the lines ossified and the Chinese Communist
Revolution ended.

Effects
For more than twenty years after the Communist Revolution, the West blocked
any change in the UN Security Council that would allow the Communist People's
Republic of China to replace the Nationalist Republic of China as the veto-
wielding permanent member. This did not change until Nixon and his famous
rapprochement with the Communist Chinese.

Less than one year after the end of the Chinese Communist Revolution, Chinese
troops would be battling UN forces in the Korean War. Communist victory in the
world's most populous country also fanned the anti-communist hysteria of 1950s
America, and the question "who lost China?" would figure prominently in the
accusations of Senator Joseph McCarthy and others.

Significance
The Chinese Revolution was among the first hot conflicts of the Cold War, and its
ramifications were certainly among the most far-reaching. The most important
long-term effect was to create a Communist state with the size and power to
stand as a rival to the Soviet Union within the Communist world. The Soviets and
Chinese were initially allies, but eventually split apart, and fought bloody border
conflicts in the 1960s. The Sino-Soviet split forced many Communist states to
choose sides, with China even invading pro-Soviet Vietnam in 1979.