Féodalité, seigneurie, féodalisme. Georges Duby et la tradition des études médiévales

Abstract

Throughout his work, Georges Duby has never ceased to express his disapproval of the notion of “féodalité”, though central to medieval studies at that time. On several occasions, he has stated expressly how this concept and the adjective “feudal” seemed unsuitable when applied to eleventh- and twelfth-century society. Unable to get rid of these terms, which had gained acceptance among medievalists, Duby made them part of his vocabulary, but refused to use them as such without pointing out how arbitrary and conventional, they were. This article aims to present the main model that Duby built in his thesis, in order to understand the objections, he makes to the pertinence of this notion of “féodalité” that has entered the vocabulary of specialists. After tracking how Duby tried to redefine this notion between the 1950s and the 1970s, the article goes on to discuss the choice of the term “féodalisme” as the key word that best represents his interpretive model, as it was brought up to date during the 1970s.

Keywords

• Marxism
• Duby (Georges)
• Manorial system
• Feudalism
• Feudal society