{"schema":"https://ver.cy/schemas/card/1.0.0","id":"vr.tr.feudalism","code":"thing-q37739","url":"https://ver.cy/models/thing/q37739/","name":"feudalism","alternateNames":["bureaucrat capitalism","feudalism in Zhou China","Georgian feudalism","feudalism in France","feudal Japan","bastard feudalism","feudal monarchy","feudalism in Pakistan","feudalism in England","Indian feudalism","ganmgebeli","patrimonial monarchy"],"kind":"thing","status":"published","version":"0.1.0-research.1","language":"en","classifiers":{"family":"Thing Registry","category":"Physical world and living systems","entryKind":"thing","plane":"PHY","domain":["PHY.OBJ"],"industry":[],"navPath":"","tags":[],"facets":{}},"whatItIs":"This model owns the evidence-qualified configuration of landholding, personal dependence, service obligations, jurisdiction and surplus extraction described as feudalism within a specified place and period, including competing definitions and limits to that classification.","purpose":"Enable an agent to assess whether feudalism is a defensible description of a historically bounded social order, record its operative relationships and judge which interpretations or institutional actions the evidence supports.","scope":{"in":["The definition of feudalism being applied and the historical boundaries of the case","Relationships among lords, vassals, superior authorities and dependent cultivators","Conditional tenure, succession and transfers of rights","Service, dues, protection and other claimed or performed obligations","Distribution of jurisdiction, coercive capacity and control over agrarian surplus","Changes that reproduce, weaken or terminate the identified configuration"],"out":["Complete biographies and genealogies of individual rulers, nobles or cultivators","Detailed histories of particular kingdoms, wars or dynasties","Parcel-level cadastral records and estate accounting","Manorial production techniques and agricultural ecology","Slavery, serfdom, caste and patronage as independently modelled institutions","Capitalism, state formation and other neighbouring social-order models beyond their interfaces with this case"],"boundaries":[]},"distinguishingFeatures":["Require an explicit definition and evidence that satisfies it; a medieval date, noble title or castle alone does not establish feudalism.","For a tenure-and-vassalage definition, test for evidenced links among personal allegiance, conditional rights and specified services rather than treating any landlord-tenant relationship as feudal.","Distinguish relationships among lords and vassals from those between lords and cultivators; evidence for manorialism or serfdom alone does not establish the former.","Test how office, jurisdiction and revenue rights are acquired and exercised, distinguishing dependent or inheritable lordship from authority exercised solely through revocable salaried office.","For a broader social-order definition, test whether tenure, extraction and political authority form a connected configuration rather than assuming that isolated dues or patronage ties establish a whole system."],"structure":{"bundles":[{"id":"definition-and-historical-fit","name":"Definition and historical fit","description":"Establishes what feudalism means in this assessment and where that interpretation is supported.","layers":[{"id":"classification-criteria","name":"Classification criteria","description":"Records the chosen interpretation and the observations required to apply it.","findings":[{"id":"operative-definition","name":"Operative definition","description":"Record the analytical definition, its inclusion criteria and plausible rival interpretations.","questions":[{"text":"Does feudalism here mean tenure and vassalage, a broader configuration of lordship, a mode of production or another explicitly defined arrangement?","id":"operative-definition-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What observations would support this classification, and what observations would require rejecting or narrowing it?","id":"operative-definition-q02","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"case-and-evidence-boundaries","name":"Case and evidence boundaries","description":"Constrains the classification to the places, periods and populations actually evidenced.","findings":[{"id":"bounded-evidential-case","name":"Bounded evidential case","description":"Record the extent of the case and distinguish contemporary evidence from later interpretation.","questions":[{"text":"Which dates, localities and social groups are covered, and which nearby cases must remain outside this assessment?","id":"bounded-evidential-case-q01","kind":"boundary"},{"text":"Which records establish the relevant practices, and which labels or connections are supplied by later interpreters?","id":"bounded-evidential-case-q02","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]},{"id":"tenure-and-personal-dependence","name":"Tenure and personal dependence","description":"Examines how holdings and rights connect to allegiance, dependence and succession.","layers":[{"id":"holdings-and-allegiance","name":"Holdings and allegiance","description":"Identifies the parties, rights and acts establishing a claimed relationship.","findings":[{"id":"tenure-dependence-connection","name":"Tenure-dependence connection","description":"Record whether a holding or revenue right is demonstrably linked to personal allegiance and on what terms.","questions":[{"text":"What land, revenue or other right is held, from whom, and is its possession explicitly conditional on a personal relationship?","id":"tenure-dependence-connection-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which grant, oath, homage record or account of practice establishes that connection rather than merely suggesting it?","id":"tenure-dependence-connection-q02","kind":"provenance"}]}]},{"id":"succession-and-overlapping-ties","name":"Succession and overlapping ties","description":"Examines reproduction of tenure and conflicts among concurrent dependencies.","findings":[{"id":"transmission-and-priority","name":"Transmission and priority","description":"Record how rights pass between holders and how multiple allegiances are prioritized or contested.","questions":[{"text":"Under what documented conditions could a holding be inherited, divided, alienated, resumed or forfeited?","id":"transmission-and-priority-q01","kind":"action"},{"text":"Where a holder owed obligations to multiple lords, what evidence establishes priority or shows unresolved conflict?","id":"transmission-and-priority-q02","kind":"provenance"}]}]}]},{"id":"service-protection-and-performance","name":"Service, protection and performance","description":"Records the content and actual operation of obligations within lord-dependent relationships.","layers":[{"id":"specified-obligations","name":"Specified obligations","description":"Identifies duties, beneficiaries, triggering events and claimed reciprocal commitments.","findings":[{"id":"obligation-content","name":"Obligation content","description":"Record military and nonmilitary duties alongside any evidenced obligations of protection or maintenance.","questions":[{"text":"Which services or payments were owed by each party, to whom, and on what occasions?","id":"obligation-content-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What limits on duration, frequency, location or amount were specified, and in what original units?","id":"obligation-content-q02","kind":"measurement"}]}]},{"id":"performance-and-remedy","name":"Performance and remedy","description":"Separates prescribed duties from fulfillment, substitution and dispute.","findings":[{"id":"enacted-obligations","name":"Enacted obligations","description":"Record evidence of actual performance and the responses available when an obligation was not met.","questions":[{"text":"What evidence shows service or protection actually delivered, waived, resisted or replaced by payment?","id":"enacted-obligations-q01","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"Who could authorize substitution or seek a remedy for nonperformance, and through which documented procedure?","id":"enacted-obligations-q02","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"lordship-and-jurisdiction","name":"Lordship and jurisdiction","description":"Maps adjudication, coercion and superior authority across the case.","layers":[{"id":"authority-and-reach","name":"Authority and reach","description":"Identifies the powers exercised by lords and other authorities and their limits.","findings":[{"id":"jurisdictional-rights","name":"Jurisdictional rights","description":"Record who claimed and exercised judicial, fiscal or coercive powers over which people and matters.","questions":[{"text":"Who could hear disputes, impose penalties, collect jurisdictional revenues or mobilize force, and over whom?","id":"jurisdictional-rights-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"Which powers followed a holding or personal status, and which derived from an office, delegation or independently claimed right?","id":"jurisdictional-rights-q02","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"overlap-and-challenge","name":"Overlap and challenge","description":"Examines competing authorities, appeals and practical limits on enforcement.","findings":[{"id":"contested-authority","name":"Contested authority","description":"Record how royal, ecclesiastical, urban, communal or other authorities interacted with lordly claims.","questions":[{"text":"Which recorded disputes reveal overlapping jurisdiction, immunity or divergence between claimed and effective authority?","id":"contested-authority-q01","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"Through what available appeal, negotiation, collective action or superior intervention could an affected party challenge a lord's claim?","id":"contested-authority-q02","kind":"action"}]}]}]},{"id":"agrarian-dependence-and-transformation","name":"Agrarian dependence and transformation","description":"Tests how cultivator dependence and surplus extraction connect to the proposed feudal order and how those connections change.","layers":[{"id":"cultivators-and-extraction","name":"Cultivators and extraction","description":"Distinguishes cultivator status, tenure and burdens from relationships among lords and vassals.","findings":[{"id":"agrarian-dependence-profile","name":"Agrarian dependence profile","description":"Record obligations and constraints affecting cultivators without treating rent, serfdom and vassalage as interchangeable.","questions":[{"text":"Which cultivators owed labour, produce or money, and what documented restrictions affected movement, marriage, inheritance or access to land?","id":"agrarian-dependence-profile-q01","kind":"definition"},{"text":"What evidence connects these burdens and restrictions to the lordship configuration being classified, rather than to a separate tenancy or status institution?","id":"agrarian-dependence-profile-q02","kind":"boundary"}]}]},{"id":"institutional-change","name":"Institutional change","description":"Tracks changes in relationships without presuming a universal sequence of development or decline.","findings":[{"id":"persistence-and-reclassification","name":"Persistence and reclassification","description":"Record which defining relationships persist or change after commutation, enfranchisement, jurisdictional transfer or formal abolition.","questions":[{"text":"Which dated evidence shows a defining relationship changing in practice, and which shows only a change in terminology or formal law?","id":"persistence-and-reclassification-q01","kind":"provenance"},{"text":"After the documented change, should the agent retain, narrow or withdraw the feudalism classification under the chosen definition?","id":"persistence-and-reclassification-q02","kind":"action"}]}]}]}]},"agentConduct":{"may":["Describe feudal arrangements in a stated place and period, citing sources and competing definitions.","Say when the label is disputed for a society or period."],"mustNot":["Apply feudalism as a single model to all medieval or non-European societies.","Use the term as an insult to describe present-day groups without evidence.","Invent charters, obligations or titles as historical fact.","Present inherited privilege as natural or deserved."],"requiresHuman":["Using historical tenure records in a present-day land or title dispute."]},"ethics":{"considerations":["Feudal systems bound people to land and lords; histories should not erase the unfree.","Labelling a society feudal can import a European frame onto other peoples."],"affectedParties":["Descendants of serfs and tenants","Societies described by the label","Learners"]},"owners":{"steward":"Nobody now; historians and archives hold the record.","roles":[],"masterSystems":["National archives and manorial records"]},"relations":[{"target":"Q1518716","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"},{"target":"Q845132","type":"parent","note":"registry parent class"}],"interaction":{"identity":{"applicability":"required","items":["Vercy registry: vr.tr.feudalism","Wikidata: Q37739 (https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37739)"]},"properties":{"applicability":"required","items":["Analytical definition: Tenure-and-vassalage; broader lordship order; mode-of-production interpretation; other explicitly stated definition","Historical extent: Date interval with uncertainty bounds and named geographic coverage","Classification support: Supported under stated definition; partially supported; contested; unsupported; insufficient evidence","Tenure and dependence links: Identified parties linked by specified holdings, rights, allegiance and conditions","Obligation composition: Military service; counsel or attendance; labour; produce; money; protection; other documented obligation","Obligation burden: Service days per stated period, payments in original units, or documented shares of output; unknown where unmeasured","Jurisdictional allocation: Authority holder linked to persons, territory, subject matter and any superior or appellate authority","Rights transmission: Hereditary; life-held; revocable; elective; transferable with consent; mixed; disputed; unknown","Institutional trajectory: Reproducing; expanding; renegotiating; fragmenting; transforming; formally abolished with residual practices; indeterminate"]},"recognition":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"capabilities":{"applicability":"required","items":["Evaluate a bounded historical case against an explicit definition of feudalism and explain missing or contradictory evidence.","Trace relationships among tenure, allegiance, service, jurisdiction and extraction without assuming they share the same hierarchy.","Compare localities or periods using matched definitions and documented limits of comparability.","Identify which actors could claim, contest, inherit, transfer or terminate particular rights under recorded contemporary rules.","Assess how a documented change in obligations or authority affects the configuration and its classification.","Generate targeted research questions where records, terminology or institutional practice remain unresolved."]},"hazards":{"applicability":"required","items":["Applying a single feudal model to all medieval societies can conceal major regional and chronological differences.","Conflating vassalage, manorialism and serfdom can produce false claims about rights and obligations.","Using the term as an unsupported political analogy can misrepresent both historical evidence and contemporary institutions."]},"interfaces":{"applicability":"not-applicable","items":[]},"context":{"applicability":"required","items":["Feudalism is encountered in historical scholarship and teaching about medieval European power, landholding and obligations.","It provides a contested framework for comparing relationships among lords, vassals and dependent populations within specified places and periods."]}},"sources":[{"title":"Wikidata item Q37739: feudalism","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q37739","note":"identity and sense of the item"},{"title":"Wikipedia: Feudalism","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism","note":"general description of the item"}],"openQuestions":["Which scholarly definition or explicit combination of definitions should govern this registry entry, given that no registry definition is recorded?","Should tenure-and-vassalage and broader agrarian interpretations be alternative assessment profiles within the same model, and what would make their results comparable?","What evidential threshold can distinguish an operative regional configuration from isolated relationships conventionally called feudal?","How should applications outside the model's initial research region preserve local institutional meanings and test comparability?","How should the model represent missing evidence for cultivator experience and informal practice when surviving records chiefly express the claims of authorities?"],"resources":{"spec":"/models/things/publications/thing-q37739/spec.json"},"provenance":{"origin":"thing registry research (pass 2)","builtFrom":["models/things/publications/thing-q37739/spec.json"],"providers":["Codex"],"researchStatus":"unreviewed","generatedAt":"2026-09-06T21:58:40Z","builder":"tools/build_cards.py@1.0.0"},"completeness":{"sections":{"classifiers":"filled","whatItIs":"filled","purpose":"filled","distinguishingFeatures":"filled","structure":"filled","agentConduct":"filled","ethics":"filled","owners":"filled","relations":"filled","interaction.identity":"filled","interaction.properties":"filled","interaction.recognition":"not-applicable","interaction.capabilities":"filled","interaction.hazards":"filled","interaction.interfaces":"not-applicable","interaction.context":"filled","sources":"filled"},"notes":{"_gate":"Published through the thing publication gate 1.0 on 2026-10-07T10:10:30+00:00: completeness 1.00; sense: Wikidata description; 2 live sources; review by codex: pass","interaction.interfaces":"No single standard or legal code governs feudalism as a retrospective historical category.","interaction.recognition":"Feudalism is an institutional and interpretive concept that cannot be identified from physical appearance alone."},"score":1.0}}