Sentence:  By the 14th century, however, <WSD>fief</WSD> holding was in decline, as salaries and retainer fees, rather than <WSD>fiefs</WSD>, became standard for aristocrats in binding their knights to them, and as kings increasingly exercised royal power directly or through judges and bureaucrats, not through dukes and counts. <WSD>Fief</WSD> holding, which is what "feudalism" must be considered to mean if the term has any precise meaning at all—and what the term meant when it was coined in the 17th century—had become an insignificant part of social and governmental relations by the end of the Middle Ages. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  An estate held by a person on condition of providing military service to a superior.