Feudalism
Etymology
From Medieval Latin feudum, “fief” — a grant of land held in return for service. Notably, the word “feudalism” was coined much later, mainly by seventeenth- and eighteenth-century jurists and historians looking back, not by people living under it. Because scholars later stretched it to cover very different societies, some historians now use it cautiously or question its precision.
noun · /FYOO-duh-liz-um/
A medieval social order in which land was held in exchange for service and loyalty, binding lords, vassals, and peasants in a hierarchy of obligation.
What it names
A shorthand for any system where power and security flow through personal bonds of loyalty and protection rather than impersonal law or markets.
Example
He compared the startup’s web of personal loyalties to a kind of corporate feudalism, where who you served mattered more than your title.
Related idea
Manorialism names the narrower economic arrangement of the self-contained estate; feudalism describes the wider web of lord-and-vassal obligation.