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Feudalism and Manorialism in Europe and Japan
Europe and Japan together with other parts of the world experienced a period when politics was decentralized. During this period, loyalty was owed to a lord and combat was part of everyday life. Some of the trends that characterized this period include feudalism and manorialism, which manifested differently despite extending across regions. Feudalism and manorialism were two frameworks in which the Japanese and European medieval culture was developed. While feudalism was an economic structure that influenced how land was managed, feudalism was a social structure that was embedded in an exchange of pieces of land for military service. This paper examines how Europe and Japan dealt differently with feudalism and manorialism. The evaluation is conducted on the premise that while trends may extend across geographical regions, they manifest differently as shown in World History. The Basis for European and Japanese Feudalism As previously indicated, feudalism was a social structure embedded on exchange of pieces of land for military service. Europe and Japan had a feudal system that was commonly known as manor, which influenced the emergence of feudalism. Consequently, the basis for European feudalism and Japanese feudalism was the manor...
The definitive feature of this feudal system that contributed to the rise of European feudalism and Japanese feudalism was land ownership (Stearns et al., p.456). Japanese and European medieval society was characterized with the existence of land owning castes who determined how nobles or the inferior obtained pieces of land.
Despite the existence of manor feudal system in Europe and Japan, the basis for feudalism in these regions differed significantly. Feudalism in Europe emerged from the remnants of the Western Roman Empire. Following the breakdown of the Roman Empire around 500 CE, Europe was left without a strong centralized government (Stearns et al., p.459). The collapse of the Roman Empire implied that there was no central authority to prevent the emergence of local powers. This contributed to the rise in decentralized organization in Europe, which was the basis for European feudalism. On the contrary, the basis for Japanese feudalism is the dyarchy governance system that characterized medieval Japan. This was a two headed political system in which the emperor acted as the spiritual leader of the society while real power was exercised by feudal leaders i.e. daimyo. Role of Religion and Life of Peasants in Both Regions Religion played a critical…
While they were free to marry, they could not marry anyone that lived outside their manor without their lord's permission. This type of landed estate began to cause problems of loyalty just before feudalism began to crumble under the popularity of capitalism. Some vassals were multiplied in the sense that they would attempt to acquire as much land as possible. This caused a conflict in loyalties, as one vassal
Alike Medieval Europe and Japan There is an old saying that familiarity breeds contempt. But does unfamiliarity breed similarity? In the Middle Ages, two civilizations at opposite ends of the globe evolved in a strangely similar manner. Western Europe had its feudal age. Japan had its feudal age. The Roman Catholic Church exerted a powerful influence from Sweden to Italy, Buddhist temples and monasteries from Hokkaido to Kyushu. In the West,
Living standards were poor in the overcrowded cities and "the emergence of political parties caused disputes with the emperor and his ministers, leading to frequent elections and political assassinations. Many intellectuals worried about the loss of identity in a changing world; others were concerned at lack of economic opportunities for the enlarged educated class" (Chapter 33, Pearson, 2009). The Chinese government, however, had a much larger territory to govern, and
(Wallerstein 2002, p. 51). Russia suffered many of the problems that were prevalent in other cultures where capitalism could have beenimagined to develop. Like Japan, Russia had a centralized government that controlled society and eliminated any chance of private enterprise and limited the ownership of land. It was not until the Revolution of 1905 that the serfs attained true freedom. (Figes 2002, p. 331). Afterwards, the nation was dominated by
The powers of the lords reduced a central government, but the overall loyalty to the Shogunates did protect the realm for 150 years, as well as act as an organizational tool for later Japanese governmental philosophy (Duus). During the Kamikura period, there was also heavy influence from China in the exporting of Zen Buddhism. This view was popular, particularly among the samurai, which were now one of the leading social
Silence, Endo uses the background of persecution to contemplate these knotty questions. ("Silence") Endo seeks to show within Silence, then, how the missionaries themselves misunderstood which aspects of Christianity to emphasize to Japanese would-be converts, just as he himself had misunderstood the universal appeal that Christianity could potentially have in areas outside the western world, including Japan, until he had visited Palestine. As a missionary religion, as Endo also implies, Christianity