Feudalism, contractual system of political and military relationships existing among members of the nobility in Western Europe during the High Middle Ages.
Feudalism was characterized by the granting of fiefs, chiefly in the form of land and labour, in return for political and military services-a contract sealed by oaths of homage and fealty (fidelity). But lord and vassal were both free men and social peers, and feudalism must not be confused with seignorialism, the system of relations between the lords and their peasants in the same period.