Feudalism

Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, is a combination of the legal, economic, military, and cultural customs, which in today’s day and age is realistically, for the peasantry, semi-feudal at best, and ceremonial at most. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships that are derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labor, or even a simple tax.
A feodum (“fief”) is a grant that transfers imperial fiscal rights to an individual or institution. These rights are most commonly taxes or incomes from cultivated lands, but they could also be other income streams such as water and fishing rights, customs collection, etc. and the various rights to a specific piece of geography could be granted to separate individuals. The nobility from the Dark Ages often have much more theoretical rights then that. Grants are for a set period, usually lifetime, and revokable at will by the Emperor. When institutions, usually monasteries, received grants they are effectively in perpetuity since the institutions are ongoing. While heredity of possessionis not mandatory, it is respected by the Emperor, who has ownership, unless in extreme circumstances.
== Noble-Peasant relationship ==
When a colonus is granted the title deed to a lot, he has to agree to accept a variety of annual charges and restrictions. Rent is the most important of these and may be set in money, produce or labour. Once this rent is set, it may not be altered, neither due to inflation nor time. A colonus is essentially free to develop his land as he wished, or to simply make his domicile and work in the cities as he wishes, with only a few obligations to his nobilis. Likewise, a nobilis does not have many responsibilities towards his coloni. The nobilis is still obligated to build a gristmill for his tenants, and they in turn are required to grind their grain there and provide the nobilis with one sack of flour out of every 14 years—but no where is it written that they must grind their own. The nobilis also have the right to a specific number of days of forced labour by the coloni and may claim rights over fishing, timber and common pastures—which in reality are considered public parks. coloni were free individuals; nobiles simply owned a "bundle of specific and limited rights over productive activity within that territory". The nobilis–colonus relationship was one where both parties were owners of the land, who split the attributes of ownership between them.