How did the Feudal Economy Work? the Economic Logic of Medieval Societies

Abstract

This article aims to create a model for the underlying economic logic of the feudal economy, which can then be contrasted with the much better-known models for the capitalist economy. It does so by developing a discussion of a very frequent pattern in pre-industrial, feudal, societies: active local economies with highly developed exchange, which never, even remotely, developed in the direction of capitalism. It is argued here that this is because they obeyed a different economic logic, rather than just a simpler version of the logic of the capitalist world, which was somehow ‘blocked’ from developing any further. The article then sets out the basic elements of what that logic could be.